e.

The differences in aims set forth in this paragraph result in much of
the futile discussion in recent years regarding methods of teaching.
Enthusiastic innovators have debated at cross purposes about teaching
methods as if they were to be measured by some absolute standard of
pedagogic values, not recognizing that the chief differences of views
as to teaching methods were rooted in the differing aims. This truth
will reappear at many points in the following discussion. "What will
you have," quoth the Gods, "pay the price and take it."

=Place of economics in the college curriculum=

The place assigned to economics in the college curriculum in respect
to the year in which the student is admitted to its study is very
different in various colleges. In the last investigation of the
subject it appeared that the first economics course might be taken
first
in the freshman year in 14 per cent of cases,
in the sophomore year in 31 per cent of cases,
in the junior year in 42 per cent of cases,
in the senior year in 13 per cent of cases.[16]
Among those institutions giving an economic course in the freshman
year are some small and some large institutions (some of the latter
being Stanford, New York University, Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr, and the
state universities of California, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota,
Colorado, Utah). Frequently the elementary course given to freshmen is
in matter and method historical and descriptive, rather than
theoretical, and is planned to precede a more rigid course in the
principles.[17]

The plan of beginning economics in the sophomore year is the mode
among the state universities and larger colleges, including nearly all
of the larger institutions that do not begin the subject in the
freshman year. This group includes Yale, Hopkins, Chicago,
Northwestern, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Vassar, and (after 1919)
Princeton.

The group of institutions beginning economics in the junior year is
the largest, but consists mostly of small colleges having some
advanced economics courses, but no more than can be given in the
senior year. It contains, besides, a few colleges of arts which
maintain a more strictly prescribed curriculum for underclassmen
(freshmen and sophomores), such as Dartmouth, Columbia, Smith, and
Simmons. It should be observed also that in a great many institutions,
where economics may be taken by some students in the first two years,
it is in fact scheduled as late as junior