admit that, as an incentive, it is both artificial and low. Mr.
Secor goes on to say, "the system" (that is, the "Credit-for-quality")
"puts a premium on thorough-going scholarship by enabling the student to
come up for graduation without being forced to study so many subjects
that he is not able to do any of them well." If our secondary school
courses are so arranged as to force the student "to study so many
subjects that he is not able to do any of them well," then something is
radically wrong with the courses of study. But no evil can be remedied
by introducing a greater. As a matter of fact, the application of the
system does not lead to "thorough-going scholarship," at least not in
the University of North Dakota where, for five years, an honest and
faithful effort has been made to secure that result. In all our
discussions I have never heard one of its friends make that claim for
it, altho the charge has been repeatedly made that it is destructive of
scholarship. The writer goes on to say, "he" (the student) "may
substitute depth for breadth, if he so desires, and is encouraged to do
so." Shall we, in the secondary schools, encourage depth? Yes, to be
sure, relative depth, but not too much of it, and not then at the
expense of breadth. For is not the high school student in that stage of
his development when he responds to the sense of breadth rather than
that of depth? We could not make of him a student of research if we
should try. Let us not try.
In the last paragraph of the article referred to we find a hint of a
lack of thoro conviction on the part of the writer himself. "It may not
even be a workable scheme when put to the test," he says. Let me say
that here, after five years' use, it is not proving to be satisfactorily
"workable" even with students of college grade, and by a recent faculty
action it has been entirely eliminated from our preparatory department.
This lack of conviction on the part of Mr. Secor calls to mind an
interesting bit of history connected with the movement. As said before,
it did not originate in the University of North Dakota. Dr. William
DeWitt Hyde, President of Bowdoin College, is responsible for the
suggestion. He sketched the plan in an _Outlook_ article of August 2nd,
1902, but evidently lacking the courage of his conviction did not
introduce it into his own institution, preferring, seemingly, that the
experiment be made elsewhere. This has been, from the start, very
suggesti
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