Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/405

Rh ; the character of their work compels close contact with the world. Museums of applied chemistry, physics, biology and geology are notable features in all the larger universities and are not unknown in the smaller institutions. Social science and psychology no longer deal in merely à priori discussions; they deal with facts for which search is made everywhere.

But far more important is the change in the professor's relation to his work. And here reference may be made parenthetically to a matter of some importance. The college curriculum of forty years ago was, to say the least, elementary. A reasonably good graduate was fit to be tutor in any branch and a professional man, who had kept up his literary tastes was not thought to be presumptuous when he applied for any one of the chairs. The college president was usually professor of mental and moral science, because a clergyman of rather more than average ability was, of course, fitted for that chair. But in this day, special, prolonged preparation is required for any chair, be it philosophy, history or chemistry. The progress which this condition indicates has led to an unforeseen difficulty which is becoming a subject of anxiety. For a long period the college curriculum, framed on narrow lines, remained practically unchanged and the secondary schools, with small equipment, prepared pupils in a leisurely way. As a rule the preparation was good and the boys entered college practically on a level. Within twenty years our colleges have not only increased the entrance requirements for some parts of the old course, but they have introduced new courses, even new departments, each with special entrance requirements, often very high. In great part, the secondary schools, with their limited resources, have been unable to increase their staff so as to keep pace with increasing demands from the colleges, and the students from different schools, though nominally alike in sum of preparatory work, are no longer approximately on the same plane. The college instructor, who has to do with the earlier years, finds himself burdened not merely with the work legitimately belonging to him, but also with much of the preliminary training. This combination of preparatory drill and advanced work is perplexing.

It is very true that the burden of changed conditions in respect to college work is not felt equally in all departments. Professors in charge of some of the older chairs have an increased burden, in that the method of teaching differs, yet, taken as a whole, matters, in so far as undergraduate work is concerned, remain with them pretty much as they were thirty years ago. But the teaching of concrete subjects is so completely changed both in matter and manner that one must dwell somewhat in detail upon the conditions; the more so because they have come about so rapidly that even professors in other departments are unaware of their extent.