a
half years, but one young lady's time was only slightly in excess of
that and the excess was fully overbalanced by the time she gave to
outside work--to library assistance for remuneration, and to
journalism. And that gait was being struck by others. It only remained
to be seen how long the wind would hold out. It was clearly possible.
But the faculty became alarmed. Clearly recognizing the above stated
possibility and being wholly unwilling thus to lower its high standard,
it passed a resolution that arbitrarily limits the number of credits a
student may receive in a given time to such an extent as to prevent
graduation in less than three years. But several have gained, and others
are gaining, sufficient surplus to enable them to complete their work in
three years. From fifteen to twenty per cent, it is estimated, are
enabled to shorten their course to that extent. Now some of these are
thoroly good students, and, assuming that the system is sound in
principle, well deserve to profit thereby. But others are just
ordinarily good students, scarcely above the rank and file. In addition
to those who complete their work in three years, some thirty or forty
per cent more shorten it by lesser amounts, ranging all the way down to
an inappreciable period.

But aside from the system's failure in reaching one of its ends and its
too great success in reaching the other, it has developed numerous and
unfortunate evils that many regard as exceedingly serious, and revealed
weaknesses that seem well nigh impossible to eliminate. Space allows
scarcely more than an enumeration of these, but a mere enumeration is
better than to deal wholly in general terms. (1) In the first place, I
should say that the "Credit-for-quality" system of marking as used by us
places before the students unworthy ideals. Students of university rank
can be led to seek knowledge for knowledge's sake, truth for truth's
sake. They can be taught to see farther ahead than the close of the
term, and something more precious than an extra three-tenths of a
credit. But this thought has already been sufficiently treated earlier
in the article. (2) It leads to faulty methods of study and
unsatisfactory final results. In the preparation of the lessons, a good
recitation, rather than thoro understanding of the subject matter, is
too apt to be the objective point. Many good students have told me that
they find it difficult to resist the tendency to subordinate
understandi