Prescribed Courses or Elective Studies?
Intimately connected with the subject of the last chapter is a question
now much discussed in pedagogical circles, namely, whether the
“old-fashioned” prescribed courses are the best way of attaining the
object of education, the training of the mind, or whether the elective
system should claim the monopoly in the education of our nation.
Not many years ago the secondary school programmes offered a single
course of study, or at most two courses which were to be pursued
in order to obtain the diploma of the school. The principal course
consisted of Latin, Greek, history and mathematics. At present we
find in most secondary schools a number of parallel courses, and the
disposition is growing to regard the different courses as of equal
value and dignity. It has been said by advocates of the new system
that “the old narrow course, with its formal contents and mechanical
routine, is doomed; and a richer course of study, with a broader
and more inspiring conception of the elementary school-teacher’s
responsibilities and opportunities, is taking its place.”[557]
Whence these changes? Not from the conviction of teachers that the
old system was bad and inefficient; but, as Professor Hanus says,
these changes are chiefly the result of external demands of parents
and sons and daughters. They have not been stimulated by the marked
encouragement of the colleges; for, at the present day, several
important colleges still decline to regard any pre-collegiate course of
study as comparable in value to the traditional classical course.[558]
Would it not have been the duty of the “leading” schools of the country
to lead public opinion, and not allow themselves to be guided by it?
When some large and influential schools adopted many parallel courses,
the majority of the smaller and less important schools imitated the
larger ones, or were practically forced to do so. After these schools
had yielded to external demands, it was but natural that there “has
also come a desire on the part of all to justify such programmes by an
appeal to reason.”[559]
This appeal has been made most forcibly by President Eliot on various
occasions. We have heard that his most serious charge against Jesuit
colleges is their adherence to prescribed courses. To this indictment
the President added: “Nothing but an unhesitating belief in the Divine
wisdom of such prescriptions can justify them; for no human wisdom
is equal to contriving a prescribed course of study equally good for
even two children of the same family, between the ages of eight and
eighteen. Direct revelation from on high would be the only satisfactory
basis for a uniform prescribed school curriculum. The immense deepening
and expanding of human knowledge, in the nineteenth century, and the
increasing sense of the sanctity of the individual’s gifts and will
power, have made uniform prescriptions of study in secondary schools
impossible and absurd. We must absolutely give up the notion that any
set of human beings, however wise and learned, can ever again construct
and enforce on school children one uniform course of study. The class
system, that is, the process of instructing children in large groups,
is a quite sufficient school evil, without clinging to its twin evil,
an inflexible programme of studies. Individual instruction is the new
ideal.”[560]
If this new ideal of individual instruction should be carried out
consistently--and the patrons of this electivism certainly ought to
work at the realization of this ideal state--we might in the twentieth
century see the day, when for five thousand students at Harvard there
will be no less than five thousand instructors. No wonder that all
these pupils will turn out geniuses, such as the world has never
seen before. It seems certain that great results are anticipated by
President Eliot. For he concludes his paper with the words: “These
gains are noiseless but persuasive; they take effect on five hundred
thousand pupils every year. Have we not here some solid ground for
hopefulness about the Republic, both as a form of government and as a
state of society?”
Not less amusing is the absolute certainty with which President
Eliot affirms that electivism is the _only_ system which can claim a
right to exist. He says: “Direct revelation from on high would be the
only satisfactory basis for a uniform prescribed school curriculum,
and nothing but an unhesitating belief in the Divine wisdom of such
prescriptions can justify them.” Does not the President himself claim
almost a superhuman infallibility when he straightway asserts: “Uniform
prescriptions in secondary schools have been made _impossible_ and
_absurd_. We must _absolutely_ give up the notion that any set of human
beings, _however wise and learned_, can _ever_ again construct and
enforce on school children one uniform course of study.”[561] Could any
one, whether prophet or pope, speak with more certainty, than President
Eliot does in this passage? How can uniform prescriptions be styled
_impossible_ and _absurd_, when they are exacted in whole countries,
and not only among half-civilized Moslems, or “Decaying” Latin races,
but also in “Teutonic” States, for instance in Germany, a country
which leads in scholarship and of late years has so rapidly advanced
also in industrial and commercial enterprise, that it is considered
a formidable rival of American industry and commerce? The absolute
certainty with which President Eliot proclaims his views is all the
more unwarranted if we compare them with what other distinguished
scholars think on this subject.
We quoted before the words of Professor Russell of Columbia, that the
experience of Germany can teach us much, especially that “a uniform
course of study for all schools of a particular grade, and a common
standard for promotion and graduation, can be made most serviceable in
a national scheme of education.”[562] Mr. Canfield, in his interesting
book _The College Student and his Problems_, cautions the student
in the following terms: “The more specialized your course, the more
certain ought you to be that the end is that which you desire. It is
quite necessary, therefore, that you know yourself and your purposes,
something quite definite of your capacity and powers, if you are to
make a wise selection of your work. In the inefficiency or inexactness
of such knowledge the college finds one weakness and one danger in
multiplying courses or in enlarging the number of electives within a
course. For very few young men know themselves at the age at which
they enter college, and I think that others know them less.... It is
because of this uncertainty of purpose and this ignorance of self that
the wisest educators and the most thoughtful students of mankind have
always given such loyal adherence to the general culture courses, and
especially to the classical courses. This adherence does not mean
that all culture power is denied to other courses. It is simply an
insistence upon that broad and humanizing work which has been and which
ever will be one of the best and surest foundations for large and
generous life.”[563] Nothing less is contained in these statements than
a condemnation of President Eliot’s electivism. For, if a choice of a
specialized course without perfect knowledge of self is a great danger
to the college student, how much more to the pupil in the high school?
Or, if very few know themselves when entering college, how many can
be expected to know themselves when entering the high school? Another
remark is most significant. President Eliot asserts that “Moslems
and Jesuits” uphold the old prescribed courses; the former President
of Ohio State University does not hesitate to say, that for the most
weighty reasons, “the wisest educators and the most thoughtful students
of mankind have always given loyal adherence to the general culture
courses, and especially to the classical courses,” that is practically,
to the old prescribed courses.
But to return to the Jesuit system. President Eliot is perfectly
correct in stating that it defends a prescribed curriculum. However,
it does not exclude, but in many places admits distinct _parallel
courses_; beside the classical course there may be offered an English
course, consisting chiefly in English, history, modern languages,
some of the natural sciences and mathematics; or a Scientific course
in which mathematics and natural sciences are the principal subjects
taught. But these courses have to be followed as laid down, at least
in the main subjects. Nor do the Jesuits exclude a certain amount of
election in _secondary_ branches. We say secondary, as there can be
no reasonable doubt that not all branches are of the same educational
value. For who would have the hardihood to say, that music and drawing,
or even botany and zoology, are as well fitted to develop the mental
faculties as the old-fashioned course of classics and mathematics?
The Society at least does not dare to affirm it, and in this she is
at one with the best educators of all ages, our own not excepted. Dr.
McCosh said years ago in the famous debate with President Eliot: “At
Harvard a young man has two hundred courses from which he may choose,
and many of these courses, I am compelled to call dilettante. I should
prefer a young man who has been trained in an old-fashioned college,
in rhetoric, philosophy, Latin, Greek, and mathematics, to one who
had frittered away four years in studying the French drama of the
eighteenth century, a little music and similar branches.”[564] Again
Dr. McCosh maintains “there should be required studies for all who
pursue a full course for a degree, and the required studies should be
disciplinary, affording true mental training. Such studies are English,
Greek, Latin, German, French, history, mathematics and physical
science.”[565]
The objections of the Jesuits to the extreme electivism are mainly two.
The first is that they apprehend serious dangers for the intellectual
training from this new system. As was said in the preceding chapter,
the _intellectual_ scope of the Jesuit system is a thorough general
training of the mind. There are the gravest reasons to fear that this
training can scarcely be expected from the elective system as practised
in many schools. The second objection arises from the conviction that
the _moral_ training of the students will be injured if the choice
of studies is to any great extent left to them, especially if they
are allowed to change the branches which they find difficult and
disagreeable. For, greatly as the Jesuits value the intellectual
training of their pupils, they attach far greater importance to the
moral training, to the training of the will and the development of
character.
President Eliot implicitly asserts that the Jesuits, as upholders
of prescribed courses, violate the sanctity of the individual’s
will-power. This is a serious charge. In answer to it we may first
quote the words of a prominent educator who in the strongest terms
makes the same charge against systems like that of President Eliot.
Professor Weissenfels of Berlin wrote in 1901: “In our times the moment
comes relatively early when the special gifts and abilities of the
individual try to assert themselves. But let it not be forgotten that
there are brilliant abnormities. The talent for a special science,
particularly mathematics, or for a special art, particularly music,
even in childhood, gets a tyrannical ascendancy over everything else.
Shall we give free play to it and foster it? Or shall we at first
endeavor to counteract it, or at least keep from it all that could
stimulate still more the inclination which is in itself too strong?
Among the tolerably intelligent there is but one opinion: they distrust
precociousness.... It is justly considered want of common sense,
nay more, a sin against the child’s soul, to make advances to the
impatience with which the special aptitude is trying to assert itself,
and thus to add fuel to the fire.”[566] The author further calls this
system a criminal mutilation of the soul, and maintains that the
special talent, if unduly and prematurely fostered will be like a rank
weed that stifles every other inclination and thus destroys all harmony
of mind and character.
We hear now-a-days so much about the “sanctity of the individual’s
will” that one’s idea of human nature may easily get confused. True,
there is something sacred in human nature, because it is the image and
likeness of its Maker. Still, that sanctity of man is not pure and
unalloyed, that image is not altogether intact and spotless. Divine
revelation, the world’s history, daily experience and our innermost
conscience tell us that there are disorders and derangements, that
there are not only holy and divine, but also animal desires, not only
upward, but also downward tendencies in our nature. The great Apostle
testifies to this truth, when he exclaims: “For I know that there
dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good.
For to will is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good,
I find not. For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I
will not, that I do.”[567] Now this “law of sin which fights against
the spirit” manifests itself differently according to the different
dispositions and the age of the individual. In youth, it assumes
generally the shape of love of pleasure and enjoyment together with
a tendency to idleness, and “idleness is the fruitful mother of many
vices.” The old educational systems believed in Allopathy, and thought
that these moral diseases could be cured effectively only by means
which directly attack the root of the evil. So they tried seriously to
occupy a boy’s mind, to accustom him to hard, steady work, to fight
against his dislikes, to do his duty and to break his will. But, we are
told, that was all wrong, it was only the outcropping of the severe and
gloomy asceticism of former ages. Our modern pedagogues have discovered
that Homoeopathy alone will do in education. “The poor children are
overburdened, make it easy for them. Give full vent to the pupil’s
inclinations and do not force him to anything he dislikes. For this
would be interfering with the sanctity of the individual!”
If the old view of life and youth and education savors of asceticism,
the new one is sheer materialism. But setting aside all supernatural
considerations, we must condemn the extreme electivism of the modern
system on merely natural grounds. Nor is this attitude peculiar to the
Society of Jesus; it is firmly maintained by educators who in their
religious tenets differ widely from ourselves. Professor Münsterberg
has well pointed out the damage which results from this system to the
_character_ of the child, to the “formal side of education,” as he
styles it. “A child who has himself the right of choice, or who sees
that parents and teachers select these courses according to his tastes
and inclinations, may learn a thousand pretty things, but never the one
which is the greatest of all: to do his duty. He who is allowed always
to follow the paths of least resistance never develops the power to
overcome resistance; he remains utterly unprepared for life. To do what
we like to do,--that needs no pedagogical encouragement: water always
runs down hill. Our whole public and social life shows the working of
this impulse, and our institutions outbid one another in catering to
the taste of the public. The school alone has the power to develop the
opposite tendency, to encourage and train the belief in duties and
obligations, to inspire devotion to better things than those to which
we are drawn by our lower instincts. Yes, water runs down hill all the
time; and yet all the earth were sterile and dead if water could not
ascend again to the clouds, and supply rain to the field which brings
us the harvest. We see only the streams going down to the ocean; we do
not see how the ocean sends up the waters to bless our fields. Just
so do we see in the streams of life the human emotions following the
impulses down to selfishness and pleasure and enjoyment, but we do
not see how the human emotions ascend again to the ideals,--ascend in
feelings of duty and enthusiasm; and yet without this upward movement
our fields were dry, our harvest lost. That invisible work is the
sacred mission of the school; it is the school that must raise man’s
mind from his likings to his belief in duties, from his instincts
to his ideals, that art and science, national honor and morality,
friendship and religion, may spring from the ground and blossom.”
According to Dean Briggs of Harvard,[568] no people lay themselves
more recklessly open to _reductio ad absurdum_ than advocates of the
elective system. They wish to put enjoyment into education, without
being sure that such education is robust enough. He quotes the example
of Dr. Martineau, who gave double time to the studies he disliked, in
order to correct the weak side of his nature rather than to develop its
strong side. Now it is not necessary to go to such length; studies need
not be imposed _because_ they are difficult and unpleasant, but if they
are of real educational value they should be imposed _although_ they
are hard and unpleasant. Still, no branch is of any educational value,
unless it presents difficulties; the mental powers are called into
action and are trained only if they have to overcome obstacles.
Some pedagogists sneer at the idea that resistance, the overcoming
of obstacles, plays an important part in education. Herein, however,
they manifest their shortsightedness. The old adage, “Fast gotten, fast
gone,” might be expressed in somewhat different form: “Easily gotten,
easily gone.” Dr. Stanley Hall, President of Clark University, whose
fame as an educator is widely acknowledged, has well said: “Only great,
concentrated and prolonged efforts in one direction really train the
mind, because they alone train the will beneath it.” President Jones of
Hobart College speaks to a like purpose: “The college must not always
follow the line of least resistance. The intellectual life has also its
athletic exercises, and mental slouchiness is no less to be regretted
than physical insufficiency. The youthful will needs cultivation no
less than the growing body.”[569]
On the same head Mr. Townsend Austen wrote most appositely in the
_North American Review_ (May 1898). He severely censures those systems
of education which attempt to remove as far as possible the obstacles
from the course of study. He rightly maintains that the finest nature
is the one out of which the dross has been squeezed by painful
pressure, and the precious metal has been hammered and beaten into
shape. The human being rarely works more than he has to. He appreciates
by instinct an easy thing--what college students call a ‘snap’. Some of
the strongest points of our nature are best called out by resistance.
This element in education should never be overlooked. To eliminate
the element of difficulty from a study is an act of dishonesty; it
deceives the student. The practice side of almost any study is not
interesting, but is often rather tedious and must be so: for instance,
to spell correctly, to write good English, to draw well, to reason
clearly.--This repugnance constitutes one of the numerous forms of
resistance offered to success in human endeavor; drudgery is the
bridge to success. The honors of this life must be won, as the Germans
say (and how well the progress of that nation illustrates it), “_mit
saurem Schweiss_,” and by the application of another German proverb:
“_Geduld bricht Eisen_” (patience breaks iron). In the development
of character in the youth the wise instructor finds the application
of this principle most useful and efficient. Will power is acquired.
The acquisition of self-control, by which I mean not only the ability
to control the passions, but also to compel the action of the mental
powers upon a given subject, is aided. The German historian, von Ranke,
has stated as a principle in human development, that “all progress is
through conflict.” The results become of value, because they have a
value in work.[570]
Now this last principle was the favorite one of the founder of the
Society of Jesus, which he used to inculcate on every occasion, quoting
the words of Thomas a Kempis: _Tantum proficies, quantum tibi ipsi
vim intuleris_--“The greater violence thou offerest to thyself, the
greater progress thou wilt make.” But the “make-it-easy” method--and
such is the elective system as advocated by its foremost champions--is
pernicious to the formation of the character.
Not less serious is the harm done to _instruction_, as distinguished
from moral education. If the choice of subjects is left to the
personal likings of the pupils, in many, if not in most cases, such
branches will be chosen which seem to be the easiest, no matter what
their educational value is. No one who knows human nature will deny
this. But that the subjects left to the choice of the students are
not all equally capable of giving a thorough mental discipline, is
quite evident; and the easier the subject, the less is, as a rule, its
educational value.
There are several false assumptions in the contentions of the advocates
of electivism. They state without hesitation that the first and
foremost object of modern education is to develop the special aptitudes
of the pupils, and they apply this not only to college but also to high
school education. But this is a most serious mistake. The application
of the pupil’s talent to specialties belongs to the university and the
professional school; but in the secondary schools, and even in the
college, special aptitudes may and should be left to themselves. They
will assert themselves when the occasion offers, and the wise teacher
will be more solicitous to prevent them from warping the whole course
of education than to promote their abnormal development.[571] Special
aptitudes must be developed after the general education is completed.
The premature and excessive development of such special aptitudes will
invariably result in products which have been called “lop-sided”. It is
Powell who said: “I had rather the college turn out one of Aristotle’s
four-square men, capable of holding his own in whatever field he may
be cast, than a score of lop-sided ones developed abnormally in one
direction.” The outcome of such education, or rather instruction, is
a sort of mental deformity: one faculty is over-developed, while the
others are suffering from atrophy. If the “special aptitude” of the
student lies in the field of natural sciences or technics, he is liable
to neglect altogether literature, history and philosophy, branches
which are indispensable for the real culture of the mind. He becomes a
narrow specialist, he swells the host of those men who even now afflict
the community, men who are incapable of forming a sane opinion on any
question which cannot be decided by a laboratory experiment. Such men
have no perceptions of the relations and interrelations of the various
branches of knowledge; they lack all appreciation of what is noble and
sublime; above all they are most liable to ignore, or even to deny,
that beyond the narrow limits of natural science lie truths of the
utmost importance, unattainable by any process of synthetic reasoning.
It is such warped specialists that Goethe ridicules in the famous
passage in _Faust_ (part 2, act I):
“Herein you learned men I recognize:
What you touch not, miles distant from you lies;
What you grasp not, is naught in sooth to you;
What you count not, cannot you deem be true;
What you weigh not, that hath for you no weight;
What you coin not, you’re sure is counterfeit.”
There is always a danger that science leads to pride, particularly
to that kind of pride which the Germans call _Gelehrtenstolz_ and
_Professorendünkel_. This danger is especially great in the case of
specialists. Professor Paulsen quotes a passage from Kant, in which the
philosopher of Königsberg speaks of “Cyclopses of science,” who carry
an immense weight of learning, a “load of a hundred camels,” but who
have only one eye, namely that of their own specialty.[572] They lack
entirely the “philosophic eye,” with which they see the relations of
things to one another. Of such men Schopenhauer, in his wonted forcible
but not over-polite manner, has said: “The man who, disregarding
everything else, studies one branch, will in this branch be superior
to the rabble (_vulgus_), but in all the rest he will belong to it.
If to this specialization is added a thing which now-a-days becomes
more and more common, namely, the neglect of the ancient languages, in
consequence of which the general humanistic culture is dropped, then we
shall see scientists who, outside their special branch, are real oxen.”
This danger can be obviated only by a solid general training. But the
earlier the specialization begins, the greater shall be the temptation
to disregard all other branches, and to despise all those who know
little about this special subject, no matter how much they know in
other branches. This is intellectual pride, as contemptible as it is
ridiculous.
After having described some of the effects which must necessarily
result from electivism, as defended by some, we now turn to a plain
question, which has been well stated by Professor Münsterberg. “Are
elective studies really elected at all? I mean, do they really
represent the deeper desires and demands of the individual, or do they
not simply express the cumulation of a hundred chance influences? I
have intentionally lingered on the story of my shifting interests in
my boyhood; it is more or less the story of every half-way intelligent
boy or girl. A little bit of talent, a petty caprice favored by
accident, a contagious craze or fad, a chance demand for something
of which scarcely the outside is known,--all these whir and buzz
in every boyhood; but to follow such superficial moods would mean
dissolution of all organized life, and education would be an empty
word. Election which is more than a chance grasping presupposes first
of all acquaintance with the object of our choice. Even in the college
two thirds of the elections are haphazard, controlled by accidental
motives; election of courses demands a wide view and broad knowledge
of the whole field. The lower the level on which the choice is made,
the more external and misleading are the motives which direct it. A
helter-skelter chase of the unknown is no election. If a man who does
not know French goes into a restaurant where the bill of fare is given
in the French language, and points to one and to another line, not
knowing whether his order is fish, or roast, or pudding, the waiter
will bring him a meal, but he cannot say that he has ‘elected his
course.’ From whatever standpoint I view it, the tendency to base the
school on elective studies seems to me a mistake,--a mistake for which,
of course, not a special school, but the social consciousness is to be
blamed.”[573]
The same truth has been expressed in very plain language by other
American educators. We mention a few utterances of more recent date.
President Draper, of the University of Illinois, declared recently:
“Children are being told that they should elect their studies. They
cannot elect.”[574] Professor Peck of Columbia University, reviewing
Father Brosnahan’s answer to President Eliot’s charges, speaks of the
latter’s “theories which have made Harvard into a curious jumble of
college and university, and which President Eliot would like to see
carried down into the schools, in the apparent belief that babes and
sucklings have an intuitive and prophetic power of determining just
what is going to be best for them in all their after life.”[575] Mr.
Tetlow, of Boston, calls the elective system “elective chaos, and
philosophical anarchism,” and he lays down these propositions: the
students are not competent to direct their own studies; most of the
parents are utterly incompetent to make an intelligent choice, too many
will readily accept the choice made by the children; the principals
and teachers are in most cases incompetent to make a wise choice for
the pupils, as they are hardly ever sufficiently acquainted with
the individual scholars.[576] Indeed, to make such a choice for the
individual would require nothing less than “direct revelation from on
high,” as no man knows sufficiently the talent and possibilities that
may lie dormant in the mind of a young student. If this system is the
outcome of the much vaunted child study and pedagogical psychology,
we have little reason to boast of this modern science. And we think
those are amply justified who, against this “apotheosis of individual
caprice,” defend the old system which prescribes those branches that
give a solid general training and thereby prepare the mind for taking
up successfully any specialty in due time. The philosophical basis of
this system is undoubtedly sound, whereas the elective system fully
deserves the stigma of “philosophical anarchism”.
We have purposely dwelt longer on the question of “electives,” as
a serious charge has recently been raised against the educational
institutions of the Jesuits for not accepting the electivism of some
modern reformers. After having quoted the opinions of leading educators
on that subject, we may ask: Was that charge justified?--It is
superfluous to ask, whether the Society will ever adopt that excessive
electivism advocated by several educationists. The Society considers
this system as destructive of thorough education.
As early as 1832 the General of the Order, in an encyclical letter on
education addressed to his subjects, thus spoke of new inventions: “As
to the methods, ever easier and easier, which are being excogitated,
whatever convenience may be found in them, there is this grave
inconvenience: _first_, that what is acquired without labor adheres
but lightly to the mind, and what is summarily gathered is summarily
forgotten; _secondly_, and this, though not adverted to by many, is
a much more serious injury, almost the principal fruit of a boy’s
training is sacrificed, which is, accustoming himself from an early age
to serious application of mind, and to that deliberate exertion which
is required for hard work.”[577] A comparison with former quotations
shows an almost literal identity of these remarks with those of Prof.
Münsterberg and other American educators. This agreement, in our
humble opinion, is no discredit to either party. Before concluding
this chapter, we repeat once more that the Jesuits are not absolutely
opposed to the election of courses or branches. But they think with
many other educators that the elective system could work well only with
_many_ limitations and safeguards. Such limitations are nothing else
but prescriptions of certain branches.
FOOTNOTES:
[557] Hanus, _Educational Aims and Educational Values_ (1900), pp. 76,
78.
[558] _Ibid._, p. 78.--However, a writer in the _Electrical World_
(Oct. 25, 1902) maintains that “the present anomalous status of the
college is due perhaps more to its own laudable but ill-judged ambition
than to the pressure of the times.”
[559] _Ibid._, p. 26.
[560] _Atlantic Monthly_, Oct. 1899, p. 443.
[561] The Italics are ours.
[562] _German Higher Schools_, p. 409. See above p. 9.
[563] _The College Student and his Problems_, by J. H. Canfield,
formerly chancellor of the University of Nebraska and President of Ohio
State University. (New York, MacMillan, 1902) pp. 44-46.
[564] _Life of James McCosh_, p. 201.
[565] _Ibid._, p. 200.
[566] Weissenfels, _Die Bildungswirren der Gegenwart_, pp. 324-329.
[567] _Romans_ 7, 18.
[568] _Atlantic Monthly_, October 1900.
[569] _The Forum_, January 1901, p. 592.
[570] Peter Townsend Austen: “The Educational Value of Resistance,”
_North Am. Rev._, May 1898.
[571] See Francis J. Barnes, M. D., _Catholic Education_. A Lecture
delivered at Boston, April 28, 1901.
[572] _Die deutschen Universitäten_, Berlin 1902, p. 219.
[573] _Atlantic Monthly_, May 1900, pp. 665-666.--To judge from
numberless comments in newspapers and magazines, Prof. Münsterberg’s
article seems to have caused a great stir, as coming from one of the
most prominent Professors of Harvard, the centre of the movement
towards electivism. The New York _Nation_, on May 17, page 379, said
as follows: “If Professor Münsterberg’s article on ‘School Reform’ in
the _Atlantic_ cannot be answered effectively, something is radically
wrong with our scheme of education.” Various attempts were made to
answer the Professor’s indictments of the elective system, v. g. in
the _Educational Review_, June and September 1900. But the answers
were anything but effective. The _Nation_ had said, “what we are most
curious to know is what they think about it at Harvard.” A Graduate
Student wrote soon after from Harvard: “I wish to call attention to
a result of the elective system which he [Prof. Münsterberg] has not
mentioned, and which might even strengthen his argument--a result most
disgraceful, yet most common, and whose truth cannot be ignored. I
refer to the undisguised custom of electing ‘snap courses,’--courses in
which, for various reasons, good marks can be made without much work.
For the desire for honors, and the fear of being thought a ‘dig’, are
two very potent factors in determining a choice.” (_Nation_, May 24,
p. 396.) This statement is not at all surprising; it confirms what
intelligent men had expected from such a system.
[574] _Educational Review_, May 1902, p. 455.
[575] _Bookman_, April 1900.
[576] _Educational Review_, January 1901. We may be excused for quoting
the following lines from the same Review, May 1900, which not unaptly
travesty the elective system:
Most pupils, like good-natured cows,
Keeping browsing and forever browse;
If a fair flower come in their way,
They take it too, nor ask, “what, pray?”
Like other fodder it is food,
And for the stomach quite as good.
[577] Hughes, _Loyola_, p. 291.