Educational Reform Essays And Addresses

arts and sciences must give its students three things: I. Freedom in choice of studies. II. Opportunity to win academic distinction in single subjects or special lines of study. ILL A discipline which distinctly imposes on each individual the responsibility of forming his own habits and guiding his own conduct. These three subjects I shall take up in succession, the first of them taking the greater part of the time allotted me. I. Of freedom in choice of studies. Let me first present what I may call a mechanical argument on this subject. A college witJLJL prescnbedcurriculum must provide sayTsixteen hours a week of instruction for each class, or sixty- four hours a week in all for the four classes, without allowing for repetitions of lectures or lessons. Six or eight teachers can easily give all the instruction needed in such a college, if no repetitions are necessary. If the classes are so large that they need to be divided into two or more sections, more teachers must be employed. If a few extra or optional studies, outside of the curriculum, are provided, a further addition to the number of teachers must be made. Twenty teachers would, however, be a liberal allowance for any college of this type; and accordingly there are hundreds of American colleges at this moment with less than twenty teachers all told. Under the prescribed system it would be impossible for such a college to findwork for more teachers, if it had them. Now there are eighty t... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.