Some institutions select students for introductory or advanced courses in a subject upon the basis of examination: Chemistry in Oklahoma; physics in Maine, New Jersey, and Oklahoma; mathematics in Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and New Jersey; and English in Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Two courses are sometimes given, one for those without and one for those with high-school work in the subject. Chemistry is a type example. Sixteen institutions provide two courses in chemistry to fit the needs of entering students. Physics is also offered in double courses in four institutions-Arkansas, Kentucky, Nevada, and Utah. Mathematics is given in two courses in Kentucky, Missouri, Nevada, and Utah, and English is likewise offered in two courses in Kansas, Kentucky, and Missouri. Some institutions state that high-school science is a prerequisite for freshmen who elect college science. The University of Minnesota has adopted a continuation principle for foreign languages. Cornell University gives qualified freshmen special problems in addition to regular work. The State College of Washington grants permission to take a second semester course with tentative enrollment. Except for these instances entering freshmen are at once registered for elementary freshmen courses without regard to duplication of highschool work. English, chemistry, mathematics, and modern languages should as far as possible be so arranged as to provide for high-school work from specific points of achievement. Chapter VI.—Curricular Prescription and Orientation Has the practical disappearance of the independent, unified college of arts and sciences in the land-grant institutions resulted in an educational loss that is not compensated for by the higher levels and greater degree of specialization in arts and science subjects that are found in the modern institutions? Is it possible or desirable to provide a substitute under modern conditions for the contacts with many fields of learning and for the understanding of the relationships of many areas of knowledge that the 4-year college of arts and sciences was supposed to afford? What are the attitudes of the land-grant institutions in regard to these questions and in what ways are these attitudes finding expression in definite action? These are questions concerning which it is difficult to obtain objective evidence that admits of definite interpretation. Possibly consideration of certain aspects of curricular prescription, the development of survey and orientation courses, and the inauguration of practices that are related to the junior college form of organization provide as good indication as any available in regard to the tendencies of thought upon these matters in the land-grant institutions. Anyone at all familiar with the relationship between practice and regulation must be convinced that the combinations and sequences of subjects that are actually taken by college students, and so constitute their curricula, rather infrequently coincide with the curricula that appear so logical and purposeful in catalogue descriptions. Considerable skepticism may also be excited by the systems of majors and minors that are sometimes supposed to constitute a device for insuring adherence to carefully prepared curricula; tradition and log rolling between departments and major divisions are in so many cases obviously apparent. Nevertheless, curricular prescriptions afford a basis for judging the status of thought in regard to what should enter into a student's undergraduate work and are also to a considerable degree a real indication of practice. Two points especially are deserving of discussion in this connection, first, the frequency with which an attempt is made to secure some type of distribution of effort which will insure a considerable breadth of studious contact, and, second, the degree to which requirements are set up that 111490°-30—VOL II- -3 29 make it impossible for the student to escape contact with areas of learning not immediately related to his field of specialization. Thirty-one of 38 institutions follow the plan of offering a series of elective majors and minors in the 4-year curricula. From 20 to 30 semester hour credits are the usual requirement in most institutions for the major. Many institutions require two majors or one major and two minors for graduation. The means used to obtain effective distribution and concentration of elective subjects are best presented by quoting the reports made by the land-grant institutions in the following States: Alabama.-Beginning 1928 system is being prepared. Arizona.—Majors and minors supplemented by group requirements. Arkansas.-Group system and two minors for distribution; 40 of the last 60 hours of junior and senior subjects for concentration. California.-All students must take a varied program including languages, science, social science, etc., in the first two years, and must complete a major in the third and fourth years. Colorado.-Largely consultation with head of department. Connecticut.-Required-21 credits in major, 14 in minor, and 12 unrelated. Delaware. By system of advisers working with the dean. Florida. The major requirement for concentration; the group requirements for distribution. Hawaii.-Approval of faculty adviser and of the dean of students. Iowa.-Conference of student with head of department and dean. Kansas. By definite required courses which may be supplemented by electives chosen by the student. At least eight semester hours are required in a field. The student's choice in his major fields may bring this to 20 to 30 hours. Kentucky.-Faculty advisers and in upper division major professors as ad visers. Maine.-Advice of major professors. Maryland.-Conferences with advisers. Massachusetts, Amherst.-Sophomores elect group of studies from groups of electives under an adviser. Juniors and seniors choose major group and specialize in that department. Minnesota.-Advising by major adviser. Mississippi.-Direction of dean, teachers, and advisers. Missouri.-Major and minor requirements; freshman and sophomore re quirements. Nevada.-Majors and minors in junior and senior years give specialization and required subjects of freshman and sophomore years are supposed to give good general survey. New Hampshire.-Major group two or three related departments. Group requirements: I-Language, history, and mathematics; II-Natural sciences; III-Social sciences. New Jersey. We are discontinuing the general curriculum and adopting specialized curricula, e. g., prelegal, premedical, language and literature, economics, etc. New York.-Distribution: Minimum of six hours in each of seven groups, Concentration; Minimum of 20 hours in upper class group, 1 North Dakota.-Advice from dean in registering. Oklahoma.-Student consultation with adviser and dean. Oregon.-Handled in technical curricula. Limited options approved by institutional committee, supplemented by advice of deans and special registration committees in matters of free electives. Pennsylvania.-Advisory system. Rhode Island.-Nature of electives indicated in course of study; amount of electives limited. South Carolina.-Class advisers. South Dakota.-We are outlining suggestive schemes according to majors and minors. Texas.-Personal conferences between head of department or dean, and student. Utah.-Major professor approves. Washington.-Advice of enrolling officers. West Virginia.-Supervision of adviser. Wisconsin.-None; tests have shown a good distribution. It is perhaps significant that only 13 of the 35 institutions that report seem to place much reliance upon the distributions secured through prescriptions and through major and minor or similar forms of regulation. It is interesting to note the frequency with which the advice or judgment of deans, major professors, or other persons, who are in these institutions likely to be specialists, is depended upon to guide students to breadth of training. Further, examination of catalogues and institutional reports upon specific schools or divisions of specialization warrants the judgment that breadth of training that may be regarded as in some sense a substitute for the general training for which the unified college of arts and sciences stood is insured in few institutions by systems of majors and minors alone. Other devices that supplement the system of majors and minors, such as those that involve distinction between lower and upper division work and prescribe a considerable number of definite courses, especially during the first two years, may perhaps be regarded as more nearly providing breadth comparable to that of the college of arts and sciences. In order to discover the degree to which subjects not directly related to technical fields are definitely prescribed in the specialized curricula, the situations in engineering and agriculture were selected as typical in the land-grant institutions. For four major engineering curricula, data were secured in regard to distribution of time between various subject-matter fields. Thirtyeight institutions reported for the civil-engineering curriculum, 35 for mechanical, 36 for electrical, and 25 for chemical. These reports show that the curricula provide on the average for the whole group of institutions, that from 14 per cent to 17 per cent of the time shall be given to languages, social and economic sciences, history, psychology, and government; from 27 per cent to 40 per cent to sciences and mathematics; from 40 per cent to 53 per cent upon technology and the applications of science to technology. From the standpoint of these distributions as insuring breadth of education, it is interesting to note the relatively small percentage of the time given to the humanities as compared with that given to sciences and mathematics, which have a direct preparatory value in the technological specialization. It may be doubted whether the proportions that exist as between these two areas should be regarded as a desirable distribution for the purposes of general education for the man who is to follow a specialized vocation. Agriculture presents a somewhat different situation. To a much larger degree than in engineering, the arts and science subjects have been especially adapted to the purposes of the division of agriculture and given by that college. Thus while on the average only 40 per cent of the courses given in the 4-year agricultural curricula are in technology, a large proportion of the sciences that constitute a considerable part of the 60 per cent remaining are directly basic to agriculture. Further, in agriculture to a much greater extent than in engineering the specific science specializations are the direct, occupational objectives of agricultural students. These facts with reference to these two technical divisions confirm the impression that there are divergent tendencies that may be discovered in relation to the treatment of arts and science subjects in the land-grant institutions. The first, found quite generally in engineering, is that of dependence upon other divisions for service work in these fields. The second, more usually found in the agricultural divisions of the larger institutions where service divisions are less swayed by the agricultural influence than is the case in the smaller land-grant colleges, is the tendency to assimilate into the agriculture division itself as many of the arts and science subjects as possible in order to relate them directly to the interest of the agricultural student body. These two viewpoints are of significance in the attitudes that are taken toward the development of junior college work for the purpose of providing common general education preliminary to a variety of specializations. The movements that indicate the greatest tendency to development of demand in the land-grant institutions for some new form of organization that will serve to provide general basic and cultural training are the survey and orientation courses and the growth of organizations related to the junior college idea. These developments are merely two different attempts to solve the same problem. Arts and science subjects have become highly specialized both in the arts and science organizations and in their aspects that are immediately related to technical interests. It has already |