•July 25, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



117 



by the use of checks ( Z ) , these checks to 

 be supplemented by one or two general 

 phrases under the caption "Remarks." 

 A very little study by the administrative 

 officer will detect plenty of ways by which 

 they can save for the teachers enough time 

 to offset the demand made by these cards. 



In order, at the same time, to facilitate 

 its own operations, the administrative office 

 will plan to prepare, at one writing, with 

 the help of a manifolding machine, the 

 blanks required by all the different teachers 

 during one year for each student, inserting 

 separately only the study-classification, 

 e. g., "Soe. 17." On receiving them back 

 from the teachers they can be assembled in 

 folders and their material collated upon 

 sheets — prepared also at one writing — for 

 the use of the departmental dean, the dis- 

 ciplinary dean and the other advisory offi- 

 cers. On this sheet there should also be 

 room for indicating the reports of the vari- 

 ous entrance tests, in addition to the grades 

 reported by the registrar or the secretary, 

 and in addition, further, to the student's 

 record in various student activities as re- 

 ported by the officer charged with that re- 

 sponsibility. Every dean and advisory 

 officer of any kind would, accordingly, have 

 in his possession a complete showing of the 

 student's whole life in college as well as the 

 rating of a more general sort given him by 

 his secondary teacher and his home friends, 

 together with the more scientific rating re- 

 sulting from the test on entrance. As his 

 course advanced, more and more of this 

 material should be shown on the upper 

 parts of the blanks submitted to the teacher. 



The advice and the whole range of atten- 

 tion given the student, therefore, at any 

 time would be based upon this survey of 

 his whole personality. Undoubtedly the 

 attention given him by the various ad- 

 visory officers would be immensely more 

 valuable than is conceivable under the re- 



cent and present method of parcelling out 

 a limited number of students to a number 

 of teachers in the vain hope that an occa- 

 sional quarter-hour or half-hour of con- 

 versation will serve to put the teacher in 

 the position of an expert for the direction 

 of the student's present activities and fu- 

 ture career. 



Is it going too far to take seriously Presi- 

 dent Harper's belief that "such a diag- 

 nosis would serve as a basis for the selec- 

 tion of studies"? Is it not conceivable 

 that, at least to some extent, in the recom- 

 mendation of studies, the advisers could 

 have in mind the correction of the defects 

 shown on the collated report? If, for in- 

 stance, all reports indicate that a certain 

 student possesses an able mind but refuses 

 to use it carefully, is what might be called 

 a disorderly thinker simply from pure 

 mental laziness, could the adviser not 

 wisely emphasize the value of mathematics 

 or certain other of the exact sciences? 

 Similarly, for the student who is a plodder, 

 taking each step conscientiously at a time, 

 but lacking the imagination with which to 

 take a half or a whole flight of mental 

 stairs at a leap, could not a good teacher 

 of history, economics or other study calling 

 for broad grasp and ability to generalize 

 be recommended very strongly, if not with 

 compelling power? 



In that event each teacher could legiti- 

 mately be expected to have in mind these 

 uses of his teaching of a subject in addition 

 to its usual informational or disciplinary 

 values. Or, if that seem unfeasible, the 

 teacher might be asked to bear in mind in 

 connection with each member of his classes 

 the particular mental aspect shown by the 

 cards received from the administration 

 office to be of greatest interest or of great- 

 est need on the part of that student. 



Whether such a use in the selection of 

 studies is possible or not, there can be no 



