Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/381

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Or, if the grades were standardized on the lines here proposed, the percentages would become:

It would also be possible to introduce the principle of giving extra credit for good work in a less radical manner, for example, by allowing a credit of three points to students who receive the highest grade in at least five courses. The application of the principle in any form would be an important educational advance, but a method such as this would not lie nearly so fair and accurate as the plan here recommended. It would affect only a few men and would be more dependent on chance. The amount of credit in the plan recommended can be so adjusted that a given percentage of students can receive any credit desired; those receiving the highest grade (the first ten per cent, in the long run) could be awarded, on the average, an extra credit of 2, 3, 5, 10 or 20 points, as may be decided, and all others would receive credits in proportion.

I see no serious objection to the plan. The aberrancy of grades in different subjects would be a drawback, but not so serious as the existence of 'snap courses' under the present system. The adoption of the plan would tend to the standardization of grades, and the apparent objection might prove to be a real advantage. If it is objected that it would lead students to work too much for grades, this would simply mean, if grades are properly assigned, that it would lead them to do better work. The present method, where the grade is simply a kind of prize or punishment putting one man before another, seems to have objections; I have some sympathy with the students who call 'C' the 'gentleman's grade.' But if grades had some real meaning, they would be no more invidious than the payment of a salary of $3,000 to one man and of $5,000 to another. If it is said that the method is unfair because grades can not be given in accordance with exact deserts, it may be replied that this is true of all salaries and the like. Although a single grade is subject to a considerable probable error, the error of the average of a number of grades decreases as the square root of the number. Thus, if the probable error of a single grade is one place (that is, if a man receives C, the chances are even that he deserves a higher or a lower grade), the average of 25 grades (about the number of college courses taken for the degree) would be subject to a probable error of only one fifth of a place. Lastly it may be