General Examinations.

In the last annual report the adoption of general examinations in the Medical School, as a substitute for, or supplement to, the passing of a series of separate courses was described, and it was stated that the subject was under consideration in the Divinity School also. A general examination of this character has now been adopted for the degree of Bachelor of Divinity, and for that of Master of Divinity. The latter is a new degree conferred after a year of study, and designed to replace so far as possible the degree of Master of Arts hitherto conferred upon graduate students in the School by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The regulations for these general examinations in the Divinity School, and for the courses of study leading thereto, are printed in an appendix to this report.

The same principle has been discussed in Harvard College. After a year of careful study, the Division of History and Political Science,--comprising the Departments of History, Economics, and Government,--formulated a plan for a general examination before graduation of students concentrating in these subjects. The plan, which was brought before the Faculty this autumn, was adopted after debate in three meetings, and has since been approved by the governing boards. It lays down briefly the general principles, and, together with the outline of this plan prepared by the Division, will be found in a second appendix to this report.

In describing the general examinations for the Medical School something was said of the principle on which they are based; but the subject merits fuller treatment, because it involves a more radical change in American educational practice than anything the University has done for many years. It means a change not so much in machinery as in object; not of methods alone, but of the point of view. So far as I am aware, general examinations of some kind exist in all European universities, except for a degree with a mere pass in Scotland and the provincial universities of England. They have been used in the past in American colleges. In a very crude form they were at one time prescribed for graduation from Harvard; and in some other colleges they lasted until after the middle of the last century. Since the curriculum of those colleges comprised many subjects, the examination, which covered them all, was open to the criticism now heard of the general examination for graduation from the German Gymnasium. It was almost of necessity a review of unconnected studies; an effort of memory, preceded by a strenuous cram. But whether in such a test the disadvantages outweigh the benefits or not, it was quite inapplicable after the elective system had been adopted in a thorough-going form at Harvard and more or less completely by other colleges. The student being allowed to select as he pleased among all the courses of instruction offered by the Faculty, a general examination would have covered a different ground for each student; would have been merely a repetition of the examinations in separate courses which the student had already passed; and could not have required reading outside of the courses, or demanded a correlation of information obtained in courses in diverse fields. But now that every student is obliged to take six courses in some one field, the situation has changed, and the way is open for this valuable instrument of education in that field. To the courses distributed among other subjects it is still inapplicable; but in the field of the student's concentration his attention can be directed, as it should be, to the subject pursued, rather than to the particular courses taken, which then become not ends in themselves but only efficient means to an end. By examinations well devised for the purpose the student can be made to reflect upon the subject as a whole, correlating the several parts; and the interest of an intelligent man follows his efforts. Moreover, he can be induced to read books outside the strict limits of his courses in order to fill in the gaps; for the habit of independent reading has fallen sadly out of use among undergraduates at the present day.

Drawbacks of Plan.

A general examination has drawbacks as well as merits. If it tends to fix attention on a subject wider than any single course, it tends also to make the passing of that examination the goal, and to lessen interest in matters unlikely to appear there; and hence, unskillfully used, it may lead to the cramming of information by expert tutors without serious effort to master the subject. But if skillfully used, it may be made a powerful instrument for promoting co-ordination of knowledge, a broad comprehension of the subject, a grasp of underlying principles instead of memory of detached facts, and in some subjects may provide an incentive to intellectual effort such as no other type of examination can offer.

The benefits to be gained from a general examination are not needed equally in all fields of learning. In some subjects, like Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry, every advanced course must require familiarity with the principles taught in the more elementary ones, so that an examination in the higher branches measures fairly well the command of the whole subject. In other departments, notably History, there is little natural sequence, and a student may in his Senior year pass an excellent examination in a course on Europe in the nineteenth century although he has completely forgotten the American history he studied as a Sophomore,--and yet the events on the two sides of the Atlantic are intimately related parts of one movement in human progress. The general examination may well be applied, therefore, in one field while it is not in another; and the Faculty has been wise in allowing one division to adopt the plan without requiring uniformity in all.

If the general examination stood alone, the optimism of many undergraduates would lead them to postpone preparation until the time drew near, and then it would be too late. This could be justified only on the assumption that the function of the College was limited to providing earnest men with opportunities for education, probably with the result, witnessed in the German universities, that a large part of the students would make no attempt to obtain or earn a degree. No one would advocate such a plan for undergraduates here. American colleges must strive to form character, to induce habits of diligence; and they must do so all the more because, unlike the German universities, they are not groups of professional schools with the stimulus of direct preparation for one's career in life. It is not proposed, therefore, to abandon examinations in the several courses except so far as they occur at the same time as the general examination. Moreover, if the student is expected to study a subject, to regard his courses as means rather than ends, to do some outside reading, he must have special guidance beyond that which is provided in the courses he takes. There must be tutors, not unlike those at the English universities, who confer with the students frequently, not about their work in courses alone, but also about their outside reading and their preparation for the final test that lies before them. Tutors of this kind are an integral and necessary factor in the plan. To provide them will require money, part of which has been promised, while the rest must be sought from friends of the College; and the benefit to the students is well worth the expense involved. The great advantage for the average student of a general examination upon his principal field of study, lies in forcing him to correlate what he has studied, to keep it in mind as a body of connected learning, to fill in gaps by reading, to appreciate that all true education must be in great part self-education, a personal effort to advance on the difficult path of knowledge, not a half-reluctant transportation through college in perambulators pushed by instructors.

No one in close touch with American education has failed to deplore the lack among the mass of undergraduates of keen interest in their studies, the small regard for scholarly attainment; and a general examination upon a field of concentration seems to offer the most promising means of improvement. It was the method adopted in England a hundred years ago. The class tests at Oxford based on general public examinations began in 1802, and five years later they were divided into the Honour Schools of Literae Humaniores and Mathematics and Physics. The Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge began in 1747, the Civil Law Classes in 1815, the Classical Tripos in 1824. The other triposes at Cambridge and Honour Schools at Oxford were established at various dates after the middle of the nineteenth century. The effect in stimulating interest in scholarship and respect for high rank was rapid, profound, and permanent. Success in the examinations has been universally accepted as a test of ability and a gateway to the careers entered by Oxford and Cambridge men. The failure of American undergraduates, and, following their lead, of the American public at large, to value excellence in college scholarship is due in part, as the students themselves declare, to the fact that rank in courses depends upon the varying standards maintained by different instructors. It is due also to a sincere doubt whether one who can accumulate the largest number of high marks in short stretches of work is really the ablest man. Much must be ascribed, moreover, to the absence of competition on a large scale. So long as college men are all trading separate paths, crossing at many points but never leading to a common goal there can be little of that conviction of superior qualities which attached to the man who succeeds in achieving what many others are striving for. A well-ordered general examination avoids all of these imperfections, for it provides a uniform standard, a competitive test and a run long enough to call out the whole power of the man. The stimulus is not only good for those who hope to win high distinction, but will tend also to leaven the whole mass.

Control of Athletics.

To turn from studies to athletics is to leave a region where competition has been neglected for one where it has been carried to an extreme by the students themselves. The prevailing interest in athletic sports has done much for so-briefly and cleanliness of life in college, but the vast scale of the public games has brought its problems. They have long ceased to be an undergraduate diversion, managed entirely by the students, and maintained by their subscriptions. They have become great spectacles supported by the sale of tickets to thousands of people; while experience has proved that skilful coaching will determine the victory between teams of approximately equal strength. The result has been an enormous growth in expenditure until the authorities have felt compelled to take part in supervising it. The experiment of control by an Athletic Committee composed of three members of the Faculty and three graduates appointed by the Governing Boards, and three undergraduates selected by the captains of the teams, has brought improvement. Extravagence has been curtailed; but, with a revenue of about two hundred thousand dollars a year, money comes easily and is easily spend under the spur of intense public interest in the result of the major contests, and a little laxity quickly leads to grave abuse. Extravagance still exists and vigilant supervision is required to reduce it. Graduates, who form public opinion on these matters, must realize that intercollegiate victories are not the most important objects of college education. Nor must they forget the need of physical training for the mass of students by neglecting to encourage the efforts recently made to cultivate healthful sports among men who have no prospect of playing on the college teams.

Freshman Dormitories.

The promotion of a better college life, physical, intellectual and moral, has received much attention of late among men engaged in education. At Harvard we believe that a vital matter is to launch the student aright on the new freedom of college life by means of Freshman dormitories; and it is a pleasure to state that enough money has been subscribed to build three out of the four buildings projected. These three will house over four hundred and fifty students, or by far the greater part of the present Freshman class that does not live at home. One of them will be paid for by the bequest of the late George Smith, left to the College many years ago to accumulate until it reached the sum required to build a group of three dormitories of the collective size of one of the quadrangles designed. Another has been generously given by Mrs. Russell Sage, and at her reqpest will be named Standish Hall. The third is provided by a large number of subscriptions from alumni and others. The project will not be complete until the fourth is given, but the erection of the first three will be begun early in the coming year, as soon as the working plans, now progressing rapidly, have been completed. One of the quadrangles will be on Boylston street, behind the Power House, while the others will be built farther to the east along the parkway as far as De Wolf street. Their buildings will stand on three sides of quadrangles, the fourth side facing the river being open to the south. The architect, Mr. Charles A. Coolidge, has adapted to the purpose with great skill the colonial style of the older buildings in the College Yard.

People not very familiar with the progress of the plan have expressed a fear that the Freshmen would be treated like boys at boarding school; but that would defeat the very object in view, of teaching them to use sensibly the large liberty of college life. Liberty is taught to young men not by regulations, but by its exercise in a proper environment. The vital matter is the atmosphere and the traditions in which the youth is placed on entering college. At present he is too much enchained in a narrow set of friends who copy one another, not always wisely, and come too little into contact with the broadening influences of the college community as a whole. Hence he fails to see how much he can get out of college life, or finds it out too late to reap the full benefit thereof. The Seniors show their appreciation of all this by rooming together in the Yard, but they end where they should have begun.

Graduate School of Applied Science.