University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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with this object, English Literature, German, etc., have been pre- scribed to a certain degree, and in order to perform a sufficient amount of polytechnic work the courses have been crowded, at times twenty to twenty-five hours per week being necessary to graduate a candidate. It is proposed to eliminate these general culture studies and to devote the entire energies to the attainment of the primary object, professional skill. Changes have already been inaugurated in yet a third line. The standard of admission is being gradually raised, and it is hoped in time to raise the high schools to such a level that no work but that belonging to a University proper shall be necessary within the College. With this in view, Latin has been made a requisite for admis- sion to the Colleges of Letters, Social Science and Natural Science. In the course of a little time, moreover, a modern language will be added as an entrance requisite ; and those general culture subjects which have produced the crowding in the technical col- leges will be completed in the preparatory schools. The University has also been actively engaged in secur- ing the establishment of preparatory schools in new fields. The changes of the year are evidence of the ability of our Faculty to grasp the situation and act with timeliness. The National Teachers ' Convention at Saratoga for the purpose of con- sidering secondary education, which consisted of ten of the highest educational authorities and nine sub-committees, each of ten prominent educators, has recently made its report re- commending changes exactly coinciding with those in progress in our own University. The changes here were in- augurated before the work of the National Committee was ii

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two years he may begin to specialize. The first half of the course is academic work, while the latter half is university work proper. Exactly the same division is made in the University of Chicago, the Freshman and Sophomore years being academic, and the Junior and Senior years being devoted to university work in the higher sense. And it is well to notice that the movements in the University of Chicago and University of California arose entirely independently of each other. The divisions into groups during the university part of the course introduces the unlimited elective system, with this advan- tage : that groups give basis to the special work here pursued. Thus the prospective doctor of medicine might elect the biological sciences as his group. The free electives offer an opportunity to round off the man. While pursuing his special work he may pur- sue his free electives in any other lines. Or they may be in the studies cognate with his special groups, or even in the same sub- jects. So, in pursuing special group work in political science, the thirty hours of free electives may be in political science or in cog- nate subjects ; or may be in Latin or Greek or any subjects, which may tend to liberal culture. Thus the degree of specialization range from the highest where the full sixty hours is pursued in specialized work, to the lowest where only thirty hours of special work is pursued, for the group studies and always more or less specialized. The system is perhaps better than a purely free elec- tive system, in that a certain amount of studies of general value are required for everyone, and the subjects that are elected must have a certain grouping, must have a basis and unity. A second line of change is in progress, concerning the colleges of applied science. Heretofore they have attempted to do two things : to enable the student to attain professional excellence and at the same time to attain a degree of general culture. In accord 10

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completed. Other than this coincidence, proof of the advan- tages of our new system is not needed. Such a desire to meet the changing necessities of the times and such a spirit of progress has never before been exhibited in Berkeley. This last year may be recorded as one of the turning points in the history of the Uni- versity of California. 12