Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/183

 THE EDUCATIONAL PLAN 155 dent entered the University. President Judson wrote on this sub- ject in 1915: The third part of the organization which has remained is that of the dis- tinction between the Senior and Junior Colleges. The Junior Colleges cover work which could be done and should be done in the secondary schools. The original division has been retained at the end of the second year. Recent study makes it probably advisable that this division-point should fall earlier in the course, but the division remains, and the likelihood of being able to slough off this Junior College work, which was one of the original intentions of the University, seems stronger today than it ever has been since the University opened. From one of the most thoughtful replies received to the questions proposed to the professors the following is quoted: The division of the college work into the Junior and Senior Colleges has been an unqualified success, striking the natural line of division between prepar- atory work and professional work. The trend of events indicates that in time this line of division will become an actual line of cleavage in the best universities of the country, the senior college combining with the graduate and professional schools to form the real university, the Junior Colleges being absorbed by the secondary schools. For some of the most important uni- versity work, for instance the medical, this cleavage, made possible by the original division, is already practically a matter of fact, and the University's lead in this direction has been followed by the majority of good medical schools in the country. One of the most striking features of the educational plan was the division of the academic year into four quarters. It was so radical a departure from the plan of organization of other universities that it might well have been regarded as a doubtful experiment. It proved, however, a triumphant success. President Judson says: The most important feature which has proved entirely successful that is in force today, as it was at the outset, is the four-quarter system, whereby stu- dents may enter at the beginning of any one of the quarters and receive a degree at the close of any one of the quarters. Dean Angell says : The four-quarter system has been one of the most influential things which the University has ever undertaken. It has been widely copied in whole or in part, and it has, in my judgment, done more to capitalize at something like their full value the educational resources of the colleges and universities of the country than any other one thing that has occurred in this period.