in every boyhood; but to follow such superficial moods would mean dissolution of all organized life, and education would be an empty word. Election which is more than a chance grasping presupposes first of all acquaintance with the object of our choice. Even in the college two thirds of the elections are haphazard, controlled by accidental motives; election of courses demands a wide view and broad knowledge of the whole field. The lower the level on which the choice is made, the more external and misleading are the motives which direct it. A helter-skelter chase of the unknown is no election. If a man who does not know French goes into a restaurant where the bill of fare is given in the French language, and points to one and to another line, not knowing whether his order is fish, or roast, or pudding, the waiter will bring him a meal, but he cannot say that he has 'elected his course.' From whatever standpoint I view it, the tendency to base the school on elective studies seems to me a mistake, – a mistake for which, of course, not a special school, but the social consciousness is to be blamed."[1]
- ↑ Atlantic Monthly, May 1900, pp. 665-666. – To judge from numberless comments in newspapers and magazines, Prof. Münsterberg's article seems to have caused a great stir, as coming from one of the most prominent Professors of Harvard, the centre of the movement towards electivism. The New York Nation, on May 17, page 379, said as follows: "If Professor Münsterberg's article on 'School Reform' in the Atlantic cannot be answered effectively, something is radically wrong with our scheme of education." Various attempts were made to answer the Professor's indictments of the elective system, v. g. in the Educational Review, June and September 1900. But the answers were anything but effective. The Nation had said, "what we are most curious
