288 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



another. These groups are ancient language, modern foreign language, 

 history or social science and science. The remaining five units may be 

 selected from any subjects offered by the high school for graduation, 

 but no student is to be admitted to the university on less than the 

 fifteen units required for entrance. 



Under the plan that has been outlined by the University of Chicago, 

 it is possible for the student to enter the university without mathe- 

 matics, or, if he takes another combination under the second provision 

 of the plan, to present his credits without languages, either ancient or 

 modern; or, he may enter with modern languages, mathematics or his- 

 tory, and without ancient languages or science. This statement of the 

 plan, however, does not complete it by any means, since the university 

 adds two additional features, one relating to the observation and con- 

 trol of students, and the other to the continuance of certain lines of 

 work. There has been established a grading system, which automat- 

 ically eliminates the student who falls below grade, while the university 

 maintains a statistical comparison of school and college records, so as to 

 follow up the work of the high-school student, not only after he has 

 entered college, but to bring the comparison with his record as a high- 

 school student. To this a third feature is added, namely, a conference 

 of high-school men. Having entered college, the student must pursue 

 one of the subjects followed in the high school, and by the end of the 

 second year must have completed two years in history and economics, 

 two years of mathematics and science, and be able to read a foreign 

 language; and if he comes up for a degree he must have spent three 

 years of work in one department and two in another. You have under 

 this plan a systematic attempt to coordinate the work of the high school 

 and the college through the entire course of both. 



An examination of the table of admission units required in the lib- 

 eral arts colleges of state universities, shown below, indicates a stricter 

 adherence to type and quite a marked tendency toward a hardening of 

 lines in the establishment of certain prescribed studies for entrance to 

 the colleges of state universities. Under ordinary circumstances one 

 would expect a closer coordination between the state universities and 

 the secondary schools than in the instance of the privately endowed 

 schools and the high school. The explanation for the advanced stand 

 of the University of Chicago is to be found partially in the fact that her 

 officers have studied the school situation more carefully perhaps than 

 have those of other institutions, and partially in the fact of her location 

 in a city well endowed with high schools. In most of the states the 

 universities are compelled to hold to the general conditions existing in 

 those states, rather than follow the lines of development in the older 

 and better established communities. Consequently, while the state uni- 

 versities attempt certain vocational subjects, the practise in this direc- 



