Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/57

Rh different point of view and for the sake of developing more advanced work. But elementary college courses in which pupils who have already covered the same ground in high school are taught together with those who have had no previous training in the subject force the conclusion that the time spent in either the high school or the college is wasted.

If our colleges are to continue to offer in their various departments elementary work which may be as well done in the high school, economy of time might be secured by allowing high-grade students credit for a certain amount of this work, even though they had already been allowed admission credit for the same work. Given a certain minimum of required work involving continuity, say ten units in four subjects with not less than two in any one, the likelihood of success in college depends more upon a student's ability and habits of work than upon his presentation of any fixed number of additional units. A study of the records made in the Harvard Medical and Law Schools by graduates of Harvard College, published by President Lowell in the Educational Review (1912), showed that the quality of work in these professional schools corresponded very closely with the work done by the same student in college and was influenced very little by the type of courses pursued during his college course.

There is no doubt that a student entering college with thirteen units secured with a high grade is better fitted for a successful college course than one entering with fifteen units secured with a low grade. A very serious obstacle to efficiency in high-school work is found in the lack of incentive offered to able pupils to do their best. Most of the administrative machinery of our schools and much of the teaching energy are spent in an effort to lift the indifferent and incompetent over the barrier of a passing grade, while the able or exceptional pupil is allowed to acquire the habit of being satisfied with attainment far below his capacities. In most schools it is not regarded as good form to secure high grades. The "gentleman's grade" has come to be recognized as well below the median. Distinctions resulting from good scholastic records are usually petty and unsubstantial and make small appeal to students in general. The position of valedictorian is not held in sufficient esteem to induce many boys and girls to pay the price of four years of. hard study. A few schools have adopted the plan of giving extra credit for high grades. In the university high school we give 1.2 units for a year's work with a grade of A, 1.1 units for a grade of B, 1 unit for a grade of C, and.9 unit for a grade of D. A substantial reward is thus secured for excellent work and a corresponding loss for work of low grade. We have observed a steady improvement in the quality of our work since the adoption of this system of awarding credit. Several students will be graduated in June who would not otherwise be able to do so, exceptional students having secured in two years since