ASSEMBLY OF THE COLLEGE OF LITERATURE AND ARTS, THE SCHOOL OF MUSIC AND THE SCHOOL

OF LIBRARY SCIENCE.

THE CHAPEL, 11:00 A.M.

SOME RESULTS OF THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM

A. LAWRENCE LOWELL, A.B., LL.B.

Professor in Harvard University

Speaking of democracy, Edmond Scherer remarks that after all it is only a stage in an inevitable march towards an unknown goal, and merits neither the praise it calls forth, nor the dread it inspires. This is no doubt in some measure true of every movement. It neither plunges man into chaos nor leads him to paradise. It does not essentially change his moral nature and fortunately it does not lessen the need of moral effort. Improvements in agriculture may increase the crops, but they do not render plowing, sowing and reaping unnecessary.

Twenty years ago the college curriculum was earnestly discussed. In the larger colleges the old fixed courses of studies required alike for everyone was visibly breaking down; giving way not so much. before the criticism of those who had lost faith in its usefulness, as before the assaults of newer subjects of learning which were, so to speak, clamoring for recognition in a program that could not make room for them. The time had come when no man could possibly learn all the things that educated men like to know. As Professor William James has observed, the aggregate ignorance even of the members of a faculty is encyclopedic. In fact, the defence of a fixed curriculum. on the ground that it furnished a complete education had become an anachronism.

Some variation of studies is now permitted in almost all our larger colleges, and yet after a generation of experiments we have not reached a common opinion about the best form of curriculum. At first sight the policies of different institutions seem to be based upon radically divergent principles, and certainly their catalogues present almost every conceivable variety of system. Now such a condition after long experience might indicate that we were all on the wrong track, for error is more multifarious than truth. This supposition, however, need not be discussed. On the other hand, the condition may indicate that our paths are not so far apart as they appear: and this is, I believe, very largely the case. In the first place it seems to be universally conceded that so far as variations in the choice of studies are allowed at all, the choice between possible alternatives shall be made by the student himself. Then the chief differences between the

systems in use are rather in degree than in kind. They turn upon the question what subjects shall still be required, for something is still required almost everywhere: and they turn also upon the question how far the student shall be restricted in his choice. In all colleges he is restricted to some extent. Nowhere is he allowed to make a new choice every month; his selection in the freshman year is usually limited to a small number of courses; and he is constantly under the necessity of taking some elective that he may not care for, if he wants to take another elective of a more advanced character in the same field. At the present moment, for example, a student at Harvard must, as a rule, take a preliminary course in mediæval history, or in modern government, before he can elect American constitutional history. Restrictions of this kind arise from the nature of things. Those of a more general character deliberately imposed by college regulations are usually intended to secure, on the one hand, a certain concentration of work, and to prevent, on the other, excessive specializing. Such regulations differ a good deal in the amount of restriction. imposed. In this University, for example, where the latitude allowed is rather large, a candidate for the degree of bachelor of arts must take for his principal subject electives in some one department amounting to not less than three, nor more than five-sixteenths of his total work; and he must take one-sixteenth of his work in each of five groups of studies. These groups are (1) English, (2) ancient and modern. languages, (3) history, economics, and political science, (4) philosophy and mathematics, and (5) natural science. I was interested to see what proportion of the students under the elective system of Harvard actually comply with these conditions. Taking for the purpose the class that graduated this year, and discarding those men who had entered with such advanced standing as to relieve them of a year's work, there remained three hundred and sixty-one who had taken thirteen of the seventeen courses required for the degree of A. B. First as regards the scattering of electives among the five groups of subjects already mentioned: An amount of work equal to that which must be taken here is substantially required in two of them-English and modern languages: and for the other three groups all but thirteen of the three hundred and sixty-one men had taken some elective in history or political science, all but fifty-five had taken one in the group of philosophy and mathematics, and all but forty-one in natural science. In the great majority of cases, though not always, the proportion of time devoted to the subject was as large as that which must be done here. So that in this respect by far the greater part of the students fulfill the requirements made in the University of Illinois. As regards concentration of work the comparison is less exact, for the fields covered by separate departments vary much in different universities. In fact I made no statistics by departments, but by

eight groups of closely related departments. These cover on the average considerably more ground than the fifteen departments here, and hence the proportion of work in each of them would naturally be greater. Now I found that every one of the three hundred and sixtyone Harvard graduates had taken at least three courses in one of these groups of related departments. All but seven had taken four courses, and all but twenty-four, five courses. A large number of men had taken in one group more than the maximum amount permitted in a single department by the regulations of this University. But few of them took more than they might under the rules have taken here in a similar group of departments. In short the greater part of the class of 1905 at Harvard would have had to make no changes whatever in their choice of electives to comply with the regulations in force here, and for most of the rest the changes would probably have been slight.

Moreover, no regulations can in terms provide an absolute security against ignorance even of most elementary facts. It is theoretically possible, although in practice inconceivable, that a man might graduate either here or at Harvard, without having heard the name of Charlemagne, without knowing whether the Book of Job was written by Isaiah or by Aristotle, and without the faintest idea of the difference between a planet and a fixed star.

The time seems to have come when it ought to be possible to measure the ultimate results actually achieved by our various systems, and to substitute much more fully than heretofore experience for foresight. This is what I propose to do here in a tentative way for the only system of which I have had personal experience or the means of obtaining accurate information-that is the system of nearly free election. In doing so I have no intention of contrasting that system with others that I have not myself observed. An attempt to compare something of which one has had actual experience, with something else that one knows only by imagination, is more apt to show the prepossessions of the speaker than the relative merits of the things compared.

The subject naturally divides itself into material or external, and the moral effects of the system; and by the material or external I do not mean the financial,—although there can be no doubt that the free election system is highly expensive,-I mean the actual use made by the student of his freedom of choice.

In the discussions during the early days of the elective system grave fears were expressed that students would avoid the subjects requiring strenuous mental effort, and seek out those which were easy. It is no doubt true that mathematics is regarded as a severe training, and is not generally popular; but this is largely due to the immemorial tradition of boys' schools that mankind is divided into a small minority to whom mathematics presents no difficulty, and a

large majority who are by nature unfitted to learn it. The ordinary boy finding obstacles at the outset concludes that he belongs to the latter class, and had better leave the subject alone. There is also some tendency to avoid courses that are supposed to be peculiarly hard. On the other hand there seems to be no general purpose to select the easy, or as they are commonly called, soft courses. A student, especially if he is trying to carry more electives than he can attend to properly, will often take one or two that are reputed soft; and there will always be a small percentage of indolent men with whom the desire to shirk work is unusually strong. But both statistics and the opinion of those who are best qualified to judge, sustain the belief that any systematic attempt to base the choice of electives upon ease is rare,' and that is distinctly my own impression.

There are other reasons, also, why this should not prove a serious danger. Instructors do not like to have their courses thought soft, and it is only a man of strong individuality, of earnest faith in the real value of his work, who is indifferent to criticism of that kind. Nor is the existence of a very small number of such courses necessarily an evil. A couple of years ago I happened to see a collection of brief college reminiscences by all the members of a class that had graduated about ten years before. Among other things they spoke of their studies, and the course to which the largest number referred with grateful satisfaction was one that was notoriously easy. Without requiring much labor on their part a great teacher had opened their eyes to a new region of thought. Moreover, soft courses are not confined to an elective system. Of the few required courses in my own college days one or two were closely akin to a farce. I might, indeed, add that the minimum amount of work required for the degree of A. B. seems to me distinctly greater than it was in those days.

Another prevalent fear was that freedom of election would lead either to excessive specialization, or to such a scattering of choices over wide fields that the student would have a superficial acquaintance with many subjects, without a profound knowledge of any one of them. That each of the evils occurs in some cases cannot be gainsaid, but how often they occur may be illustrated from the choice of electives of the class of 1905. If we divide the subjects taught into eight groups, (1) ancient languages, (2) English, (3) other modern languages, (4) history and political science, (5) philosophy, (6) fine arts, (7) mathematics, and (8) natural sciences, we find that almost everyone took something in English, modern languages2, and history and political science. About two-thirds of the class took some philosophy, about one-half some fine arts, rather more than half some classics, and

1Cf. Report of President Eliot, 1884-85, pp. 39-45. Report of Dean Briggs, 1899-1900, pp. 116-17. "The Elective System at Harvard," Harv Grad. Mag., June, 1903, p. 532, and some results compiled from the answers of recent graduates in Harv. Grad. Mag., March, 1902, pp. 357-360. 2These two subjects are practically required.

rather less than half some mathematics. Except, therefore, for classics and mathematics, which almost all the members of the class had studied at school, and for fine arts, which is treated in many places as quite outside the ordinary curriculum, the great bulk of the men had obtained in college at least a slight acquaintance with all the principal fields of knowledge. There were, of course, exceptions, and very bad ones. Three men, for example, devoted their time almost exclusively to natural science, or engineering, taking a little mathematics, just enough modern languages to read scientific books in a foreign tongue, and nothing else. These men failed to appreciate the object of a college education. But perhaps their error can hardly be ascribed to the elective system, for had they not been free to consecrate their time to science they would probably not have gone to college, but to a scientific school. Except for a few such cases of erratic over-specialization, the result cannot be said to justify the fear that under a system of free election students will concentrate their attention on one narrow field to the exclusion of other subjects with which all educated men ought to have some familiarity. In regard to the opposite peril, that of a general smattering of many things with a real command of none, the figures are interesting. Over ninety-four per cent. of the class took five or more of the seventeen courses required for a degree in some one of the eight groups already described; eighty per cent. took six or more courses in one of them; fifty-six per cent. took eight (that is about one-half) or more in one group; thirteen and one-half per cent. took eleven (that is about two-thirds) or more in one group, and, in fact, the tendency to concentrate a large part of one's choices in a single field seems on the whole to be growing.1 With such an array of figures there might seem to be no danger of a lack of that concentration which insures a thorough knowledge of one subject. But this is not always true. Suppose, for example, a student were to choose the introductory courses in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian, he would have taken five electives in modern languages, and would not have more than a rudimentary idea of any foreign tongue. A choice like that would be absurdly improbable; and yet the only criticism of the elective system commonly heard among the instructors at Harvard is that too many men fail to take enough advanced work to acquire a mastery of one subject. One of the chief advantages, indeed, of the system is that it affords a chance to go far, even to the point of taking courses intended primarily for graduates; that it enables the student to make an offing on the sea of knowledge, and learn to sail in deep water. I do not say that this cannot be done under other systems, but I suspect that it cannot be done so well. The men who do it with a part of their electives, while scattering the rest broadly, get the best kind of training; but there are a considerable

Report of Pres. Eliot, 1884-85, pp. 21-24.