The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-06-26


 effect has been an indirect one, pro duced by roundabout ways.
 It will not do to assume, as some people do who look at the problem superfcially, that boy goes to the Academical department if he wants to study literature and to the Scientific department if he wants to study science. and that a preference for one line over the other is the thing which should determine his choice between the two places. The Scientific depart ment is not like most of our institutes of technology. It is not a place where science is pursued to the exclusion of literature. It Is not primarily a school for engineers or technologists, with certain collegiate features added. It is primarily college. A man has to lstudy as much literature to get into the Scientific school as he does to get into Harvard college-not the Law renee Scientific school, but Harvard college itself, After he is in the Scientific school he has to pursue more additional literary studies to get any kind of a degree--even 8 degree iii en- gineering-than he has to do to get the Harvard A. B. The names of Gill man and Whitney and Lounsbury leading members of the government board of the Scientific school and dominant advisers in it's policy repre- sent succession of literary influences which most colleges, even among those that are ostensibly devoted to the pur- Ie,,f+ of 1,a y,if -af fhor Of the sciences, would find 1t hard to match. I have tried very hard to find out how many students or parents were affected by the objection to Greek as an ancient language, as dis tinct from the somewhat larger group of students who objected to it because it Is difficult, or of parents who object ed to it because of the length of the college course which it renders neces- sary. I have not been able to arrive at very satisfactory answer to these questions, There are unquestionably some students to whom any language Is difficult, and to whom specially complex language like Greek is so diff lfcult as to make its study unproflta- ble And there are some others, larger number, who, feeling the neces- sity of learning French and German, begrudge. the time which is necessary, even in the longest course of school and college study, for an imperfect mastery of the Greek language in ad- dition to Latin, French, and German. But it seems pretty clear that it is only minority of parents that object to Greek, The majority object to the time which 1t takes. l doubt whether any equivalent for Greek which takes the same amount of time will ever satisfy this majority. They do not want to employ the time left vacant by the omission of Greek for the pur- suit of other studies that lead to gen. eral culture or mental discipline; they want to use it to begin at an earlier lperiod the course of studies elading to a profession.
 To those whoa are in sympathy with this widespread denAnd-who feel that to much time is spent on general cul- I ture-the Sheffield Scientific school of fers singularly attractive program. It is not in the position of having adopted three years course as new thing, with the inevitable dislocation of society systems and class numerals which is involved in the shifting from four years to three. It has had a three years course all the time and from the very first. If a man wishes to shorten his culture studies little 1t gives him three years of undergraduate life in select course, which has tried to do for the scientific student what the old cur riculum minus the Greek would have done for the academic student. If he wishes to shorten his period of culture study still further, it provides a vari- ety of courses in engineering and tech nology, where the culture studies are reduced to one year; where he can be- gin his professional studies at the end of freshman year, and is prepared to earn a living three years from the time he leaves the preparatory school. un- der such circumstances, the Sheffield Scientific school has and must have great financial advantages over the : academic department in the appeal for students; while it has at the same time certain educational difficulties or disadvantages from trying to combine side by side the work of a college with that of a technical school, and to &C., complish so much in so short time.
 The governing board of the Sheffield Scientific school is trying to meet these educational difficulties in most intelligent way. To begin with, 1t is making a clearer and clearer separa- ton between the engineering students . and the students in the other courses. Meantime, the theory on which the se- lect course was based has been sub stantially modified. Until compara- lively recent time an effort was made to give the students in this course a slight knowledge of every department of human learning except Creek Its course of study has been in principle : more nearly like the old college cur riculum than anything which exists anywhere else in New England. But it , has now been recognized by the gen. tlemen in charge of the course that this principle must be modified; that 1t , is desirable to have fewer studies, ar ranged in closer sequence and connec- 7 tion with one another. The course is 7 being made less eclectic, and the pos sibility is thereby obtained of making 1t much more thorough.
 , The probable solution for the dift1- } culties of the academic department is } mot quite clear. To shorten the course to three years seems undesirable. Such . 4 a of l.