course.

College education alone, under the plan of free election, is being allowed to wander aimlessly, as tho there were no general and necessary rational relations according to which college studies should be combined as they are in other fields of education. The student's preference, so often determined by inadequate knowledge or an easy-going following of the line of least resistance, is dignified by the name of "election," and the bewildering mass of elective studies offered him is seriously called a "system." "System" it may be to others, but not to him.

How can a definite argument for a discipline and culture of four years, rather than of three years, be erected on such a basis? We need not waste time in exploring the tangle of inner reasons which indicate that the indefiniteness and heterogeneity of a free elective course may be a proper, even an urgent reason for shortening it. The mere fact that the movement for a three-year course is strongest where elective freedom is least restricted is enough indication that a powerful cause operating inside the college course to shorten it is the inability of a purely elective scheme to fill out four years with profit to the mass of students.

If the proposal were made to change a four-year course in elective studies to a three-year course with a large basis of prescribed studies, I confess the three-year course would seem to me a marked improvement. And unless something is done to reduce the tangle to order, the threeyear course seems to be inevitable in some places. But if the proposal be to reduce the other type of four-year course to three years, then the loss is not only unnecessary, but is in every way undesirable, because it is the loss of the crowning year in a definitely rounded plan, the consummate college year of intellectual development, privilege, and satisfaction.

On the colleges, therefore, which believe in maintaining a large basis of prescribed studies as the one sure foundation for a rational plan of subsequent elective studies will rest the duty of maintaining a four-year course. They will need to make sure that they work out their program in true accordance with their academic confession of faith, and secure to their students at all hazards the few fundamental studies, well and amply taught. They will need to be resolute in teaching young men that there is no real education without well-directed effort; that it is not doing what a man likes or dislikes to do, but the constant exercise in doing what he ought to do in matters of intellect as well as of conduct, whether he happens to like it or not, that alone issues in lasting satisfaction, and that turns the frank, careless, immature, lovable schoolboy into the strong, well-trained man capable of directing wisely himself and others. If they fail to do this with measurable success, they fail to justify their contention. If they succeed, the American college course of traditional length and largely prescribed content may be trusted to justify itself triumphantly.

DISCUSSION

DANIEL W. HERING, dean of the graduate faculty, New York University, New York city. In discussing this topic confusion is inevitable, unless some distinction is made between a college course and a course in college. Obviously it is difficult to formulate a college course that would preserve such a distinction, but something might be offered that would receive common acceptance; and then it may be found that the college course will not admit of much alteration in amount, whether it be distributed over many years or few; and it may also be found that some institutions are continuing the college course beyond the undergraduate department, while in other cases secondary schools have included portions of it in their curricula. There never has been a time when it was not expected that the college was to provide something higher than the secondary schools give, or, if it treated the same subjects, to do it better, and it is now conceded that its work should be general rather than special, so that it has been said the college should teach something of everything, leaving it to the university with its professional schools to teach everything of something. The field has become much too broad to carry out the first part of this epigram, but the same end can still be attained and the same distinction can still be maintained by covering in college such ground as to lead to an equivalent intellectual development. It is not easy to see how the time needed for this can be materially altered.

Whatever the undergraduate college is in America, it is pretty generally understood that it is not a school or course of instruction by which a man is specifically fitted to enter upon a learned profession.

The upper limit of a college course is set for many at present by the prolonged work required by professional schools; and if there is a proper distinction between college and university work, the line apparently should be drawn where special work is undertaken with reference to specific results. A subject that is essentially a part of a profession, and that would not be given but for the part it plays, technically, in the practice of the profession, might be regarded as an intruder in the college course.

If a university should feel warranted in discontinuing college work at the end of two years for students going on in a professional school, on the ground that their subsequent work would better be done, or perhaps be done better, in the latter; and if its patrons then should conclude that the work of the first two years in college is useless, on the ground that it would better be done, or would be done better, in the preparatory or high school; that would leave no college work to be done by such students in that particular university, but it would not in the least shorten the college course.

But has not the baccalaureate degree been unduly exalted? Has it not been made to mean too much? Is the purpose of the Harvard authorities to guard strenuously the present standard of the baccalaureate wholly meritorious? Compared with those of twenty years ago, entrance requirements in English are greatly extended; in many instances more advanced preparation in mathematics is required; three languages other than English are demanded, or, failing a third language, then a natural or physical science; with these advances now generally insisted upon, if from this vantage-ground the undergraduate cannot go as far in three years as students formerly went in their four-year it must be that he wastes his time, or he is less capable than former college students, or his instructors are not as competent as their predecessors. Probably none of these three things is true; more probably the genuine student is as proficient now at the end of the junior year as he was then at the end of the senior. Why should he be more so for graduation? The necessity is not obvious, and he is not obliged to cease studying at that point if he wishes to continue. If he can continue a fourth year after entering college, would he not better spend it as a graduate student, upon special study, elected with mature judgment? The undergraduate course is now as it has long been

course,

for general culture, and legitimately precedes a professional course in which the necessity for work that is higher and more extended than formerly is obvious. Both the elective system and the group system are recognitions of the fact that one's studies may be more varied than formerly and yet be not less effective in developing intellectual strength.

It seems to me that the principal desiderata, and the conditions upon which their attainment rests, may be summarized as follows: (1) Good, broad culture before entering upon the specialized work of a profession; for this, sufficient time and opportunity must be given in the college or high school. Two years in college is a short time in which to accomplish this. (2) The opportunity to begin a professional course early enough to complete it at an age not unreasonably advanced; for this, the requirements for entering upon it and for the baccalaureate degree must not be too high. Four years in college makes this almost impracticable. (3) The opportunity to acquit oneself creditably in both these courses of study; for this, the work of one should not be mixed with that of the other. Three years in college will meet all these conditions if the distinction called for in the last is observed, namely, if the course in college is devoted to a college

course.

These conclusions rest upon the present college-entrance requirements. There may be some who consider four years in college better than three, and for those I would make the course four years by beginning lower.

PRESIDENT G. STANLEY HALL of Clark University thought that three points should be made which had not been touched on in the papers: First, as civilization advances, time of apprenticeship necessarily increases. A man is not mature until the age of twentyfive or twenty-six; he believed, therefore, in a prolongation of "the time of exposure to higher education." Secondly, he did not believe that the best education is that which comes with effort from direct attention and application, but that there is an unconscious education which is much more important, and which is carried on in the penumbral regions of the mind. This "environmental education" needs more time. Thirdly, we do not need uniformity everywhere in higher education. We do need variety. Let different institutions, therefore, follow different models.

DEAN W. H. HADOW of Worcester College, Oxford, England, spoke in favor of the longer course, and protested against hurry and haste, and the disposition to look for immediate results. Such methods would bring the disastrous result "of everybody being able to do everything rather badly." Speaking from twenty-five years' experience at Oxford, he held that the fourth year is of more value in the training of the intellect and of character than the three preceding years put together. He emphasized the importance of the question, in view of the fact that the whole future of national character depended upon it.

REV. G. A. KRATZER, Fitchburg, Mass., argued in favor of studies having a practical value, maintaining that such studies had also a culture value; that culture studies, therefore, should be pursued only up to the age when the student is able to undertake studies of practical value. He favored, therefore, the student beginning his professional course after two years of college study, say at the age of nineteen, and the granting of both the culture and professional degrees at the end of a total period of university study of six years.

PRESIDENT JAMES H. BAKER of the University of Colorado said that, while he had not reached conclusions as to the remedy, he believed the period of general education was too long. In order to foster the higher spiritual elements of our civilization, we must preserve, however, our liberal education. He believed that there should be a national investigation into the time element in education, with reference especially to economy and to the value of culture elements to our civilization.

PRESIDENT ELIOT of Harvard University, being called on to present further the argument for the three-year course, said that the discussion of the morning showed that this is a case where doctors disagree, and that the only way to solve the problem is by experiment. It was a just diagnosis made by Professor West that there is a connection between the elective system and the shortening of the course to three years; and the reason was that under the elective system the student does much more work in a given time than under a prescribed course. Professor West's experiment would be a firm fouryear college course mainly of prescribed studies. It would be delightful to have that experiment tried under the most favorable circumstances say at Princeton. The fouryear course, so far as the large universities are concerned, is gone already. It seems comical to hear President Harper maintain the inevitable worth of a four-year curriculum, and then cite as an example the practice of the University of Chicago, where a man can secure a degree in any time that best suits his conveinence. He said he could not quite make out whether President Butler recommended a four-year course or not; he was delighted to hear Dr. Butler say that the bachelor's degree should be required for admission to university professional schools, in spite of the doubt whether it should be a two, three, or four-year degree. The four-year course being gone, there is to be liberty for experiment, and that is desirable. Harvard has chosen its way, Chicago has another; let Columbia and Princeton each pursue its own course. We must get forward in education as in politics by a perpetual contest and a series of compromises. Frank conflict is always welcome. Let us have the conflict of these four experiments, and the result will be the working out of a solution by compromises from year to year, or from decade to decade.

or not.

PRESIDENT HYDE of Bowdoin said that a college course aims to do two things: first, to make man master of the tools of knowledge; secondly, to make some great department of knowledge master of the mind of the individual student. With these two things accomplished, we shall have the liberally educated man. How long it will take to do this will depend on whether the first aim is accomplished in the secondary school If the Harvard entrance requirements can be maintained, it will be so accomplished, and three years in the college will probably be sufficient to do the second thing. He did not believe, however, that it is desirable for most of the colleges to maintain so high a standard of entrance requirements. He thought that just now is a poor time to cut down the length of the course when we are entering on the second stage of the elective system, and are insisting that the student's choice shall be intelligent, and the course of study cumulative.

PRESIDENT FAUNCE of Brown University spoke of how President Wayland, of Providence, had outlined many of the things advocated here today, and said that we might see in his career how much it avails a man to see clearly and speak boldly, for even if he is not able to carry out his plans himself, they will be carried out by others. He believed that it was impossible to lay down an absolute time limit for the baccalaureate degree. For the great majority of students, for some time in the future, the time would be four years. For some, on account of ill-health and limited means, the time would be five years. For some, of physical strength and brilliant intellect, the time would be three years. They had made provision at Brown University for the degree to be taken in three years, but for same amount of work to be done as in the four-year course. He believed heartily in Dr. Eliot's suggestion that we enter upon experiments; but we should beware lest we try all the experiments in one institution.

SHALL THE UNIVERSITY CONCERN ITSELF MORE DIRECTLY WITH THE MORALS AND MANNERS OF ITS STUDENTS? IF SO, BY WHAT METHODS AND DEVICES? SHOULD THERE BE IN EVERY COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY A MEDICAL VISITOR WHO SHALL ALSO BE AN ADVISER FOR STUDENTS ON ALL MATTERS RELATING TO HEALTH AND DISEASE?

I

GEORGE HARRIS, PRESIDENT OF AMHERST COLLEGE, AMHERST, MASS.

Taking the last question first, I dispose of it at once without discussion by answering it emphatically in the affirmative. There should be a physical examination of every student at entrance; there should be a college physician to visit students who are not well; there should be a college infirmary to which students who are ill should be sent for proper care and for seclusion in case of contagious disease; there should be authority to prevent students who are not in good physical condition from engaging in strenuous athletic contests. All this is as necessary to a college as a museum, a library, or professors of economics and philosophy. The relation of the last question to the first is obvious, since a high moral tone and agreeable manners are affected by bodily health.

The question as to morals and manners is stated comparatively: "Should the university concern itself more directly with morals and manners?" I cannot go thru the universities to ascertain the degree of supervision that is exercised in each institution, and so to determine the more or less of direction necessary, but must content myself with indicating the virtues peculiar to students and the mode of promoting those virtues, with incidental reference to manners.

The distinctive, one may almost say the supreme, virtue of the scholar is truthfulness. Knowledge is truth, and the pursuit of knowledge is love of the truth. The modern scientific method promotes intellectual conscientiousness. Facts do not bend to theories and doctrines, but reality is the basis of opinion. The spirit of truthfulness dominates. Love of truth for truth's sake is intellectual virtue. It promotes, it is the basis of, indeed it is, morality. This is the temper of students in all colleges. Some are lazy, taking the line of least resistance; some regard study as a hardship and go about it doggedly; but to a man our students are truthseekers, indignant toward falsehood and deceit.

A teacher who is ignorant is not respected. It is a fatal verdict: "He does not know his subject." A teacher who evades facts, who is not downright honest in his opinions, is despised.

I said that intellectual conscientiousness promotes morality. It certainly promotes truthfulness in all relations. College men, whatever their