previous analysis. And we say no, for the simple reasons that not until the secondary period can the meaning of the various departments of knowledge be brought within the conscious understanding, not until then are the various powers developed to a considerable degree of conscious strength, not until then has the natural bent of the student been fairly tested. In this period one would hardly advocate the exclusive study, for instance, of history to the entire neglect of mathematics and physics; nor would he advocate the choice of mathematics to the entire neglect of history and literature.
The question of college electives is to an extent an open one. But it is clear that when general education ends, special education should begin, and that indiscriminate choice of studies without purpose is no substitute, either for a fixed curriculum or for group election in a special line. We may fully approve the freedom of modern university education, but not its license. Its freedom gives the opportunity to choose special and fitting lines of work for a definite purpose; its license leads to evasion and dilettanteism. We hear of a senior who took for his electives Spanish, French, and lectures in music and art, not because they were strong courses in the line of his tastes and tendencies, but because they were the lines of least resistance. There appears to be a reactionary tendency toward a more careful guarding of college electives, together with a shortening of the college course, in order that genuine university work may begin sooner. If this tendency prevails, it will become possible to build all professional and other university courses upon a substantial foundation, and we shall no longer see law and medical students
