Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/199

 180 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS university president has seen so many of his graduates win fame in the work of the world. When, in 1909, he resigned the office which he had so long and creditably filled, not only his own university, but the daily press, the magazines, and the whole educational world united to do him honor. Almost all departments of Harvard experienced revolution- ary progress in Dr. Eliot's administration. Perhaps the greatest change which he personally introduced, and the change for which he is best known, was the introduction in the undergraduate department of the ** elective system. '* Forty years ago practically all college work was definitely pre- scribed. This work was nearly the same for all students. No matter what a boy's talents and tastes might be, no matter what career he planned to enter, he must be content with the same college course taken by everyone else. This course in- variably consisted almost entirely of Latin, Greek, mathemat- ics, logic, philosophy, theology, a little modem language, and natural and political science. Two comparatively recent de- velopments have for some time been making this prescribed course more and more inadequate. In the first place new fields of study have been opened, and new departments have been added to the college curriculum, such as sociology, peda- gogy, joumaUsm, business problems and organization, the domestic sciences, and agriculture. In the second place the student body, once a small group of men, most of whom en- tered college to prepare for the professions of the ministry, medicine, law, and teaching, have become larger and more representative, expecting, for the most part, to go into busi- ness and other than professional careers. President Eliot was the first to adjust the college course to meet these new conditions. By the establishment of the ** elective system" a large range of choice was offered to each student in the selection of his course. There wei^e, at first, some abuses in the choice of subjects. Some students determined their course by their personal likes and dislikes among the fac- ulty, others specialized too early, while still others sought always the easiest classes. These defects, however, have been largely corrected by grouping the various courses and limit- ^