the place of the visitation of the inspector, the expert of the secondary-school system, the trained friend, adviser, and helper, and visible connecting link with the university. An advantage of the accrediting system is the increased proportion of high-school students who go to college. It is suggestive that in the graduating class of the public high schools in the North Atlantic states, the part of our country little given to the accrediting plan, 26 per cent. were for the year 1901 in the college-preparatory course. In the same class in the North Central states, where accrediting prevails, the percentage was 34. The accrediting system gives the college students with a better average preparation. The University of Pennsylvania receives about an equal number each year upon each of the two plans—individual examination and certificate. In the fall of 1901, 112 entered by the first method, and 101 by the second. At the end of the semester 49 per cent. of those entering by examination were conditioned, as against only 29 per cent. of the certificated students. A suggestive, but not a conclusive, comparison is of the percentage of failures in first-year subjects in one of the Atlantic coast universities, admitting only by examination, and those of five of the larger Middle West state universities, where 80 per cent. enter without examination. East: failed in algebra, 26 per cent.; in trigonometry, 34 per cent. West: failed in algebra, 15 per cent.; in trigonometry, 11 per cent.

Principal Ramsay, of Fall River, some years ago, in a study to determine the relative merits of the two methods of college entrance, received answers from college officers in favor of certificated students: in mental ability, five to one; in the general performance of college duties, three to one.

Professor Whitney, of Michigan, investigating the freshman grades of more than 1,000 students, about equally divided between those entering upon credit and those taking entrance examination, found that the average standing of the former was more than 1 per cent. higher than for the latter.

Impartial testimony might be gleaned from European educators. Professor T. Gregory Foster, in the report of the last Alfred Mosely Commission,' rejoices that it is a fundamental principle in American universities that the man who is fit to teach is also to be trusted to examine his own students. remarks:

He

As long as examinations control the teaching, whether in universities or schools, in this country [Great Britain], so long will the teaching continue to be academic in the worst sense of the word, cribbed, cabined, and confined.

He notes the degree to which examinations by external bodies or examiners is regarded as baneful in the United States, both to the pupil and for the educational organization, and commends the attempt of the College Entrance Examination Board to guard against some of the evils by having secondary-school men on the board. But to professor Foster the accrediting system of the Middle West is "a more significant plan," and one rapidly spreading into the East. He says: In the states where it has been adopted the whole educational system has been unified and strengthened. The barriers between various grades of teachers are being removed. The teaching of all classes of teachers is thereby made more direct, more stimulating and attractive to students. The accrediting system as versus the older leaves the teacher and the taught free, and thereby stimulates to better training. • National Conference of Secondary Education, Northwestern University (October 1903), p. 94. • Pp. 115-18.

Professor Foster quotes President Harper as opposed to the accrediting system when he left Yale, but now as a firm believer in it as a result of his experience. The professor concludes: "It is perhaps one of the most noteworthy contributions of America to educational progress."

Mr. M. E. Sadler, director of special inquiries and reports, Educational Department of England and Wales, speaks1 decisively as to certain principles applicable to our discussion:

State certificates bestowed as results of written examinations at a prescribed moment at the close of their school life are injurious in their influence as well on the work of the schools as on the physical, mental, and ethical development of the pupils, and also on the national ideals of education, and on the parents' conception of what education can do and ought to do. The more valuable influences of a secondary school lie in its tone, its 0os, in its tradition, in the outlook which it encourages its pupils to take on life and duty, in the relation between teachers and scholars, in the relation among the scholars themselves. None of these things can be tested by written examinations, conducted by examiners, however able or impartial, who have never seen the school. It is judged on paper. It is possible for a school to simulate great intellectual efficiency by reason of an intensive progress of "cram," which reflects immense credit on the skill and industry of the teachers, but guarantees little of permanent educational value to the pupils prepared. Yet a system of merely written examinations conducted by examiners at a distance fails, and must necessarily fail, to discriminate between two effects superficially and temporarily similar, but really and permanently different.

He adds: "the natural antithesis to written examinations is a system of inspection." He weighs the difficulties of inspection in a national provision for secondary education, and would find a formula for some form of consultative committee with the state-"neither to have too much state nor too little state." "Laissez-faire is impossible in this period of rapid transition."

This last is true in America. What we do we must do quickly. A national system-meaning thereby governmental co-ordination and possible inspection in harmony with the voluntary co-operation of private institutions, like the accrediting systems now prevailing in many western states, concatenating secondary schools, colleges, and universities-will give modern inter-state educational privileges, long needed to keep up with inter-state commerce and life, and heightening national ideals and power.

The line of evolution is clear: the oral examination of the individual pupil by the separate college; the written examination in the same fashion; the combination of colleges for written examinations; the slight recognition of the preparatory teacher in the combination; the great recognition of the preparatory teacher, and his examinations by the certificate plan; and the highest point of evolution, the examination by the combined colleges of the secondary school as a whole, and the accrediting of it organically, trusting it all in all or not at all.

The disappointed hearer who looked for a formal disputation in this paper may be still demanding a categorical answer to the question of our topic, "Which is better," etc.? Let him draw his own conclusions from the • Educational Review, Vol. XXI (May, 1901), pp. 497-515; cf. pp. 507-12.

testimony marshaled from the best representatives of the different systems. As an evolutionist, I see every system has a part to perform, and perceive certain principles at work which promise us, not only a better system, but a national and best.

DISCUSSION

EDWARD J. GOODWIN, second assistant commissioner of education, Albany, N. Y.— The permanence of any method of admission to college must depend upon its ultimate educational value. If it can be shown that admission by certificate is more productive of good teaching in the preparatory school, and that students instructed under such conditions acquire superior scholarship and more effective training, it is easy to believe that the college-entrance certificate will ultimately displace the entrance examinations. It is by no means conclusive, however, to call attention to the fact that the certificate system pleases tender-hearted parents; that it relieves the strain upon students; that it finds favor with the teachers; that it gives a greater degree of freedom to the schools; that it is less expensive; that it possibly increases the number of students going to college; that it lessens the work and minimizes the responsibility of college faculties. Unless it can be demonstrated also that its net results are favorable to vigorous training, accurate scholarship, and mental and moral virility, its value as an educational agency may rightfully be questioned.

No experienced teacher can fail to recognize the common abuses and serious limitations of written examinations as tests of a student's knowledge or ability. And yet, if we may base an opinion of their value upon the use made of them in the colleges, technical schools, and professional schools, we must conclude that not even the teachers in the higher institutions have been able to devise a more effective method of testing the attainments of their students or their fitness for promotion and graduation. It is significant to note, in this connection, that the oldest and most influential universities of the eastern states have never yet seen their way clear to admit or to graduate students without written examinations. Whether this policy is based upon the belief that the written examination is the best available test, or upon the conviction that satisfactory standards of instruction and scholarship cannot be maintained in the preparatory schools, if the admission certificate is substituted for the entrance examination, is a question which only the universities can answer.

In either case it cannot be denied that colleges and universities are justly chargeable with a large share of responsibility for the success of secondary schools, and that this responsibility is evaded when methods of admission are established with a sole view to keep out the unworthy. Progress in education, like the rain and sunshine, comes from above. In recognition of this responsibility, Harvard College within a generation by its entrance examinations has radically transformed and materially improved the instruction given in the secondary schools of New England. The same work for the schools of the Middle States is being done today by the College Entrance Examination Board.

Under the certificate system, colleges can control courses of study, cause laboratories to be built, regulate the equipment of the school, and fix the number of teachers to be employed; but they cannot establish and enforce methods of training and standards of instruction.

Benjamin Kidd, in his School Evolution, says that, "left to himself, this high-born creature, man, whose progress we seem to take for granted, has not the slightest innate tendency to make any progress whatever." Colleges that register schools on the testimony of an inspector tacitly recognize the modicum of truth in this affirmation, and the advocates of examinations act on the belief that an entrance examination is a more

influential agent of the college than an inspector present in the school every day of the year.

Teachers whose pupils enter college on certificate do not face an immediate, direct, and personal responsibility. Many of the subjects taught in the school are not continued in the college, and the minds of students entering college are not disorganized, even tho their knowledge may be. A student's failure in college may not be chargeable to the school; it is quite as likely to be the natural sequence of his home training, or the lack of good teaching in the college, or the contagious influence of immoral associates from the evil effects of which the college gives him no protection.

But when a teacher's work is to be tested by an entrance examination, he faces a direct, immediate, and personal responsibility. Then, if ever, he is under bonds to acquire an accurate and comprehensive knowledge of his subject; to lay out with deliberate forethought the work to be done by his class; to give systematic and precise instruction every time he meets his class; to concentrate his own efforts and the attention of his students upon the essentials of the subject taught; and to follow up his instruction with such frequent written exercises as shall give his pupils adequate training in written expression, and reveal to the teacher the defects of his instruction and to the student the imperfections of his knowledge. Compliance with these conditions brings to the teacher the highest degree of skill and success. To assume that the average teacher will lead this laborious and self-sacrificing life without the impelling power of necessity, is to disregard the well-known laws of human nature and the common knowledge of experienced schoolmen.

The final and decisive argument for entrance examinations is the effect of them upon the student's efforts, scholarship, and character. Boys, like men, work when they must, and rest or play when they can. Capable students expecting to enter college on certificate may easily reach the minimum standard required by the school for certification without doing the full measure of hard work that ought to be required from boys whose home life in the large towns and cities is more and more, as wealth increases, free from all work that carries serious thought and responsibility. My own observations unmistakably confirm the statement that the certificate privilege causes many well-endowed students to relax their efforts, and that an impending examination is a constant and muchneeded incentive to faithful study.

Furthermore, the knowledge of a student preparing for examinations must be carefully organized by systematic and frequent reviews. The drudgery of reviews, so essential for sound scholarship in the secondary school, is so irksome to the teacher that it is rarely done thoroly and systematically, if the teacher is not held to a more rigid accounting than is possible in a school whose standing is fixed by a single annual visit of a univesity inspector.

It is a fact well known to experienced teachers that students are likely to fail in written examinations unless they have had constant practice in written recitations. No one of the teacher's tasks is quite so costly or so exhausting as the reading and rating of these written exercises. No part of his work is more essential. It is an axiomatic truth that no training given by the school is more valuable than that which enables the student clearly and accurately to state in writing what he knows and thinks. True it is that this training may be given to classes of students under the certificate system; it is much more likely to receive adequate attention when students are preparing for written examinations. It is often said that an entrance examination is a cruel strain, an unnecessary hardship put upon immature and growing youths. The answer to this is that young men old enough for college are old enough to undertake serious tasks, to assume some responsibility. An examination for admission to college is something more than a test of a student's knowledge. It is a test of his self-control, his judgment, his power to meet a critical hour in his life with a steady nerve and a clear head. The training for such a crisis,

and the experience obtained in meeting the crisis, make for self-poise, for self-respect, and for virility.

Aside from its ostensible purpose, to ascertain the fitness of candidates to enter upon a course of higher training, the college-entrance examination has very great educational value to the school and college, and for this reason, if for no other, ought to be maintained.

SHOULD CHAIRS OF PEDAGOGY ATTACHED TO COLLEGE DEPARTMENTS OF UNIVERSITIES BE DEVELOPED INTO PROFESSIONAL COLLEGES FOR THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS, CO-ORDINATE WITH THOSE OF LAW, MEDICINE, AND ENGINEERING, OR SHOULD THEY BE

ABOLISHED?

ALBERT ROSS HILL, DEAN OF TEACHERS COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, COLUMBIA, MO.

That education, which is the highest concern of man, and which, in the language of Davidson, is "self-conscious evolution of the race," should be deemed worthy of human reflection, is, I believe, beyond dispute. Courses in the philosophy of education, the history of education, and in genetic and educational psychology, that set forth educational aims and values, give meaning to education, and give an account of the history of social progress, have the same right to a place in a scheme of liberal education that have general philosophy, ethics, sociology, and the like. Educational problems are among the most important of social problems, and demand the intelligent consideration of every citizen in a free state. Their study should be recognized, not only as a part but as an essential part, of a liberal education.

But probably the person who proposed this question had in mind by "pedagogy" the technical study of the methods and practices of teaching and of managing schools. Do courses in the theory and practice of teaching, in school management and the like, belong to a liberal education, and should they form part of a college course leading to the degree of bachelor of arts? Their aim is decidedly practical—to give skill in the instruction of children, and in the organization and management of schoolrooms and school systems. They would seem, then, to have no more claim to recognition as part of a liberal education than have technical courses in law, engineering, or medicine, which aim to give skill to the prospective lawyer, engineer, or medical practitioner. Their presence in college courses is probably to be explained, strange as it may appear, by the unwillingness of the universities to acknowledge that teaching is a profession for which an extensive special training is demanded. Forced by public opinion and the development of normal schools to offer some work designed to prepare the graduates of their college departments for teaching, they have grudgingly established chairs of pedagogy within their colleges, whose work, as we have noted, is partly liberal and partly