ternal reorganization of the Arts faculties. One point in especial strikes me as most obvious and difficult. Granted that a student, equipped with the already considerable knowledge of Latin, say, that the preliminary examination demands, spends his first year in further advance in this subject, what kind of instruction is the university going to provide for him in his second year, when true intensive study becomes, not merely possible, but inevitable? He is no longer on the level of the ordinary, or pass, undergraduate of my time. Is he, then, up to the standard of the "honors" degree? If, as I judge, he is not, the implication is that a completely new range of courses will have to be provided. How this is practicable with the present staff and on the present income, I fail to see. I mention this just to show that the alteration is by no means so simple as might seem from the description I have just given. Personally, I believe it to be desirable in the highest measure; but it seems to me that, just as it raises the standard for the pass degree, it must elevate still further that for the "honors " degree, thus leaving an intermediate field to be overtaken. Nor is the practical difficulty lessened by the traces of the old protected" subjects that still remain. As we saw above, the subjects of study are grouped into four departments. Now, the candidate is required to elect his five subjects so that his choice embraces studies from at least three of these four departments. In other words, the teachers who have students pursuing their subjects on the "intensive" plan will be burdened, and inevitably, with many others, possibly a majority, who are taking the same subjects as supplementary to their Hauptfäche, and therefore on a lower level. It is of interest to note, as of possible bearing on our own conditions, that every student at the beginning of his first term must submit the subjects which he proposes for his curriculum, and at least a provisional order of study for the approval of the Official Advisers, who act under the control of the faculty. Any subsequent alteration of the curriculum must be submitted to the official advisers and the dean." I have refrained purposely from dealing with the course for an "honor" degree, because we have nothing like it. But it may be noted in passing that

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some of the "honor" regulations are eminently worth consideration on our elective system. For instance, candidates in classics must take at least one subject not in the humanistic group; candidates in science must take at least one subject not in the scientific group; candidates in English literature must elect British history; candidates in history must take philosophy or economics; candidates in economics must elect British history, and so on. While, for pass students, education follows psychology, Roman law follows Latin, geography follows geology, and the like. Those who are familiar with academic education in several countries, such as, say, England, Germany, and the United States, will infer forthwith that we have here a plan sui generis. It has developed under peculiar conditions, educational, social, financial, and governmental. As yet in the gristle, no one knows how it will eventuate finally. But, even so, it is not beside the mark to ask, What bearing, if any, has it upon our own arrangements?

Any system, educational or other, draws its life-blood, and its significance, from the people who created it for their service. You may import a foreign scheme ready made, but, even so, it can not remain unaffected by the new environment. At the outset, then, one may as well confess that the Scottish universities diverge widely from our own in several particulars.

(1) The youngest university has reached the respectable age of 326 years, the oldest will celebrate its 500th birthday in 1911. The institutions have enjoyed opportunities to root themselves profoundly in the past of their folk. Thus, for many a long year the Arts faculties have occupied a peculiar relation to society at large. Far more than ours, their degrees constitute outlets to a foothold on the first rung of the ladder of life, and have been favored by a consideration that we wot not of. Small wonder, then, that the pressure for an omnibus elective system exerted, to all appearances, by our fluctuating changes, has not been experienced keenly. So much so that, in 1891, one of the oldest and most learned professors of theology was able to affirm: "While there has been undoubtedly a general wish that the range of the degree should be extended to various branches of a good general education,' not

at present connoted by it, there has been no public demand for a revolution in its character. A few theorists, who are ready to construct the university system anew on ideal principles, as to the practical outcome of which hardly two of them are agreed, and who can find no other or better aim for the Scottish universities than that of imitating (under whatever diversity of circumstances and conditions) the arrangements of Oxford, Berlin, or Harvard, may have formulated schemes, and, after an academic discussion, have procured the assent to them of a fractional representation of the University Councils . . . but there has not been any desire exprest by the professions which are mainly interested, or by the public, for the introduction of subjects not usually conceived to be included under a good general education,' or for the subsumption of an endless variety of special attainments under the designation of M.A." In a word, the Scottish institutions are more stable, because the lines of social activity are less fluid, and the needs to be served by the universities are better defined. The situation reminds one of the sergeant in charge of the Highland squad drawn up for church parade at Edinburgh castle. His commands were snapped out thus: "Presbyterians, right face, quick march! Fancy releegions, bide whaur ye are!" (2) Professor Dickson's reference to the professions intimates a good deal. The Arts degree forms an indispensable preliminary to the degrees of the "superior faculties" of theology and law. Candidates for the B.D., and the LL.B., must be Masters of Arts; while, more recently, the M.A. has come to take its place as a prerequisite to appointment on the staffs of the secondary schools, whose system has extended greatly in the last twenty years. Hence a source of good, set ballast. Subjects must be included which, on the general consensus, furnish a safe, stable preliminary to subsequent professional study; and, by consequence, professional studies, in the technical sense, are excluded. That is to say, circumstances furnish, almost automatically, a standard of educational value whereby one group of studies is strest, while others are minimized, if not vetoed. For instance, alter your options as you please, it is little likely that the Church will liberate its

students from requirements in English, Latin, Greek, logic and metaphysics, and moral philosophy. If she did, Scotland would no longer supply the empire with its leading theologians. In the same way, the subjects for which the secondary schools call are limited in number, and form an obvious group. And, when you have withdrawn prospective preachers and teachers, you have already cut a large swath in the ranks of Arts students. So, too, the government services formulate certain demands and, like the legal profession, those in control know their own mind well enough to be quite definite. Briefly, the Scottish Arts degree forms a professional propedeutic far more than ours. As such, it enforces definite attainment along definite lines and, outwith them, the constitution of society being what it is, the number of possible candidates is far fewer than in the United States. It has not eventuated there that, to use the words of Professor Harry Thurston Peck, “the socalled 'liberal' policy in university government has not raised mediocrity to the plane of scholarship, but has degraded scholarship to the plane of mediocrity." The Arts degree is meant to qualify for a serious rôle; how serious the precedent entrance examination emphasizes emphatically.

1

(3) This forces upon our notice the fact that their students are not only prepared much more evenly, but much more thoroly. Every one familiar with British academic institutions is aware that the matriculation examination of the old London University was the most trying test for many years. In 1906 I happened to be in consultation with several educational experts at Westminster, when the question arose, Is the Scottish preliminary or the London matriculation the more exacting examination? A very prominent official replied immediately, "I can answer that question, I have just been examining in both." His answer was to the effect that the Scots examination was the more difficult and, in addition, that the northern candidates were better stuff alike in preparation and in natural ability. It has been said, with what authority I know not, that 70 per cent. of our A.B.'s could not meet this test; in any case, it was true a few years ago that 49 per cent.

'The personal equation, p. 349.

of the Scots examinees failed. This would seem to indicate two things. First, readiness for university work on the part of those who do succeed; second, a certain educational maturity which would argue well for wise choice among possible options. But, however this may be, a strenuous preparation is evidenced, issuing no doubt from the strongly competitive conditions of life, which do not as yet afflict-or discipline

-us.

The marked differences in environment, then, may be summed thus: On the one hand, the social situation guards the unity of the Arts course in a manner quite unfamiliar in our midst. On the other hand, the standards are more rigid, because the pressure of life is far severer. The plain effect of these contrasts upon an elective system requires neither comment nor elucidation.

On the contrary, certain general similarities between Scottish and American universities are very startling, so much so that the most evident runs to the length of paradox. Aberdeen and the rest outdo even our State universities in their democratic character. It is not merely that the universities of both lands stand forth as distinctively popular institutions. The Scottish academic atmosphere gives democratic quality freer play. In the United States, the social side of college life tends to loom up larger and larger. As a result, contrasts bred of accidental circumstances-money, for example-can not but affect the reckoning, this is inevitable. But, in Scotland, a man's standing depends almost exclusively upon his brains. Everything worth while goes by competition, a competition that knows no favor to the well-born, no fear of the lowly. Indeed, this characteristic rules so potently that at least one eminent teacher has protested against it. Professor Nichol thought that the constant stress rendered the Arts course too disturbing. Nevertheless, it proceeds from the genius of the Scots folk. Even more than among ourselves, the student attends the university bent upon making it a step to still larger things, and he endeavors, as a rule, to obtain all that he can. Besides, just as in our state universities, the cost is slight and, thanks to the Carnegie fee-fund, may be almost nil. The