THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING

The latest attack on current methods of education, and particularly on the existing system of College entrance examinations, comes from Dr. Little, foremost iconoclast of outworn tradition. The former president of Maine and Michigan Universities aims his shaft at an extremely vulnerable point when his discussion is confined primarily to the College Boards. A rising chorus of dissatisfaction is baying justly enough at the antiquated methods by which the secondary school graduate is forced to cut his way into college.

The basis for such protest, however, is found as much in the result as in the cause itself. The present system of entrance requirements has made of the preparatory school no more than a necessary link in a systematic, and oftentimes cruelly mechanical, chain. Under the dictates of the Old and the New Plans the secondary school of today is rapidly affiliating itself with the professional tutoring bureau which retains at least the saving grace of making no pretenses or excuses for its existence. A preparatory training should undoubtedly have more to offer than an intensive competition which is limited to the requirements of admission. If the curricula follow the present trend they will lack much that is to be desired.

But Dr. Little's speech is not the solution. His proposal to replace the present system with a series of psychological and intelligence quota tests is not plausible for two essential reasons. Not only does his plan verge on the hinterland of idealism and as such is too heavily embellished with the burden of impracticality, but it has the further disadvantage of serving as a tonic for a faltering system which needs a panacea. In scratching the surface, the College Boards, Dr. Little's "humanitarism" scrapes clean of the root of the whole trouble.