Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/293

Rh is by no means so extended as it is in the case of the University of Chicago.

The average entrance requirements of the state universities are three units of English, one of science, one of history, and two and a half of mathematics. These correspond rather closely to the provisions set forth by the committee of the National Education Association, but that committee adds additional academic units in order to make a second major of three units. The vocational subjects permitted by the state universities amount on the average to two units, leaving the remaining units to be selected from foreign languages, mathematics, civics and history. The University of Minnesota has gone farther than any other state university in the larger freedom of election given in the prescribed English requirements. Two units of mathematics are demanded, and four units of English, while vocational subjects may make up the remaining number of units, if desired. Universities like Arizona, Kansas, California, Cornell, Georgia, Iowa and others do not accept vocational subjects for entrance requirements.

Most of the state universities have a system of courses based upon prescribed and free electives, prescribed limited electives and free electives, or upon the group system. The question of majors is left to take care of itself in most instances, the idea being that if the student is forced to take certain prescribed subjects, he will follow them up in his choice of electives. A study of the situation, however, shows that in the majority of instances where no majors are required the student scatters his free electives over a large number of subjects. Entrance to state universities is based upon the idea of the need of general knowledge and certain requirements for specific courses. That is, for the purpose of pursuing the social sciences, the student in the high school should have had elementary mathematics, foreign language and the beginnings of civics. This is merely an example of the point of view, and in support of this position it may be said that the student's preparation is materially limited from the college side if he enters upon his freshman year without some elementary training in science or mathematics. The movement to carry down into the high school the elementary work in these subjects is materially retarded, and the colleges are forced to establish courses of study in beginning languages and mathematics. Whether this is a calamity or not remains to be seen. The old Scotch university way of looking at it permitted any boy who thought he had in him the ability to carry on higher studies to go up to the university. No restriction was placed upon his entrance. The searching power of examinations was relied upon to determine his ability to maintain a standard sufficient for the granting of a degree. If, however, there can be aroused in the secondary period of the student's education a larger appreciation of his relation to society, some understanding of the forces