224 The Americfin Geologist. October, i.s9r> 
a strenuous opposition, until all or nearly all of our colleges 
and universities have employed it for their work in general 
or literarj"^ and scientific' education. 
In technical or engineering education the case has been 
different, since even those schools, like Harvard. Stanford, or 
the University of Michigan, which have a most liberal elective 
system for general education, have still only a partially mod- 
ified form of the rigid system in the engineering and tech- 
nical courses. The rigid system is disguised in most institu- 
tions in their technical work under the head of election 
between various fixed courses, which may or may not have a 
few options, or it masquerades under an elective di'ess, to 
which it has but little, if any, right. 
The elective system proper in any of the higher institutions 
giving general education has consisted of two features : 
first, the essential studies; second, the sequence of studies. 
The first is composed of those studies which are considered 
in each institution as necessary or essential to maintain the 
scholarship or traditions of the school in question, and in 
engineering schools, not even excepting that at Harvard, the 
required or essential studies to-day constitute the chief amount 
of the entire course in any of the engineering l)ranches. In 
the case of general or literary education, the number of studies 
that are considered essential usiuilly rapidly diminishes ac- 
cording to the experience and number of the faculty until only 
a few studies are required ; and in time this feature will be 
fully eliminated. 
Regarding the second, or '' the sequence of studies," but 
little public attention is called to it in any statements relating 
to electives in any institution, although it is the keynote of 
them all. No school can maintain any elective system or any 
work above a kindergarten or primarj'^ grade, without care- 
fully considering the question of the natural sequences. It is 
the unwritten law, that no student can take calculus who has 
not previously pi-epared himself in algebra, nor can he study 
petrography without any knowledge of mineralogy. 
All the catalogues of the advanced schools show that they 
tacitly recognize the law of sequence of studies with greater 
or less fullness, but I do not know of any which call attention 
to the fact, exce])t the recent prospectus of the Michigan Min- 
ing School. 
