The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1913-05-11

Referring to the high schools President
| Hadley, of Yale, said in 1901 "Our sys-
| tenn OF secondary education has reached
a point OF achievement where it can
| stand on it's merits. Those in charge of
| II recognize that they have outgrown the
stage where their best usefulness was
found in being merely preparatory
schools Let us emancipate ourselves
from set of ideas which are but the
remnant Of state Of things which We
have now outgrown.''
Definite recommendation of a change
. came from the West in 1872 The West
ern Association of Yale Clubs in their
meeting that year at st. Paul, passed
resolutions declaring that "the require
ments for admission to the university
should be brought more closely in touch
with the conditions existing in the West
ern high schools, and that the corpora
ton and faculty should give prompt con-
sheraton to this matter, to the end that
fales pre-eminence as a national uni
versity may be preserved"
Statistics of Yale show how great is
the need for some reform il it is to con-
t1nue to call itself a national university
The last available freshmen statistics
show that of the 329 freshmen who en-
tered Yale College in 1911 20 per cent
came from private or endowed schools,
practically all in New England. and "a
per cent from public schools largely in
New England. In the Sheffield Scienti-
fc School 66 per cent of the freshmen
came from public schools. again mostly
from the East and especially from New
England. Only five of the Shelf fresh
men came from west of the Mississippi.
and 246 Of the 379 Shelf freshmen from
New England
Yale graduates, especially those of the
West. look upon the new admission plan
as epochal. The Yale Alumni Weekly
says 1t marks this year as one of the
most notable in the history Of Yale.
For it marks,'' says the Weekly. '.the
final abandonment Of the university's old
relation to the great secondary school
system OF the United States, relation
that for years had been increasingly diff
hcult to maintain and which finally had
become untenable.
There is now no longer any reason
why the best public school BOYS in all
sections of the country should not be
able TO enter Yale On an educational
equality with boys from the special fit
ting schools of the East. as Yale has
finally made it possible for the Western
high school boy to enter Shelf" or the
college from his own school and with
much the same naturalness as his school
mates may go up to the great State
universities of his communities. Under
the new entrance plan Yale opens her
doors to the best of the country's youth,
whatever their educational opportunities
at home, providing the new regulations
are annually enforced in the spirit in
which reform has been decided
Harvard has congratulated Yale on her
new plan and a recent editorial in the
Harvard Alumni Bulletin comments:
The great advance of the high schools
has made it impossible for these coll
leses to insist on any detailed or pecu-
liar form of preparation; they had to ac-
cept the excellent preparation now pro-
vided by the public school systems and
md some way to satisfy themselves that
the individual boy who offered himself
for admission had made good use of these
opportunities. Thu, our new plan of ad-
mission has accomplished. and the speedy,
adoption Of its essential features by
Princeton and now probably by Yale
insures to the country that the strong
and ancient traditions of these three
colleges shall remain a part of the CD
portunities of boys from good schools all
over the country"