SELF -SURVEYS BY COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIE: WILLIAM H. ALLEN EDUCATIONAL SURVEY SERIE Class Book ^Ic GBmiitw. COPURIGHT DEPOSm M&<\ '#«%- m.'^ONAL HEADQUARTFm SELECT! VE SEE VIC:^ S Y': gj^S^ij^i®^iif«i*is<» i3Slfeliii*'i*'t^i»teisi'^ EDUCATIONAL SURVEY SERIES Self-Surveys by Colleges and Universities EDUCATIONAL STTRVEY SERIES Self-Surveys by Colleges and Universities By WILLIAM H^ ALLEN, Ph.D. DIRECTOR OF THB INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE, NEW YORK CITY With a Referendum to College and University Presidents YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK WORLD BOOK COMPANY 1917 WORLD BOOK COMPANY THE HOUSE OF APPLIED KNOWLEDGE Established, 1905, by Caspar W. Hodgson YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NeW YORK 2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago Publishers of the following professional works: School Efficiency Series, edited by Paul H. Hanus, complete in thirteen volumes; Educational Survey Series, three volumes already issued and others projected; School Efficiency Monographs, six numbers now ready, others in active preparation NOV -3 1917 ESS: ASSCU — I ^3. Oft Copyright, 1917, by World Book Company All rights reserved FOREWORD TO make it easier for American democracy to under- stand, and to shape for democracy's ends, the higher education upon which it spends a half -billion dollars yearly, is one purpose of this book. It consists of first-aid tests that will help a trustee, presi- dent, professor, parent, or student act as business doctor or efficiency engineer to his own college, — each with respect to his own responsibility. " Self -surveys " is used in the title to express the con- viction that the study of higher education which is most needed today is study by colleges themselves of themselves and by each college of itself. While addressed to those who are officially responsible for 600 colleges and universities attended by nearly 400,000 students, it also aims to illustrate the method that must be applied by students of education, government, and eco- nomics if they are to ask and answer dividend-paying ques- tions. Laymen are included in our audience because there is only a negligible fraction of our population with whom col- lege is not a vital influence. Either we have been to col- lege and are grateful or we have not been and are disap- pointed or we are thankful for having escaped. Where is the teacher who would not have liked a college course? Where is the tenement mother or farm father who doesn't have daydreams about sons and daughters going to college ? Colleges can helpfully and constructively study college problems only by applying to themselves the principles of scientific analysis and observation that higher education applies to the rest of the universe. General questions must be broken into their elements and each part answered specif- ically for each individual activity or person concerned. The experience of private business is repeating itself in the college world. Every college, and every department within a college, is coming to see that it must continuously and progressively study itself. vi Foreword No longer does it suffice to point to the college halo. Keener and keener is competition growing from other col- leges and other activities. Donors and taxpayers are ask- ing for concrete proof of the faith that is in our colleges. Students about to invest time, money, and opportunity are beginning to apply principles of scientific management in the selection of their colleges and their courses. The pay-as-it-goes cumulative and administrative self- survey is coming to be an everyday necessity of every college. Among subjects which it is hoped will help trustees and students answer questions that are being widely asked are these: education scapegoats; student cost of living; keep- ing in touch with alumni; citizenship courses; learning by doing; English as taught and practiced; analyzing student capacity; lecture and over-lecture; personality of instructor; observation of classroom instruction; method of selecting instructors ; more experienced teachers for less experienced students; segregation of sexes; national conventions for trustees; academic vacations; methods of appealing and publicity ; the teaching load ; effects of research upon teach- ing efficiency; use and non-use of college space; how presi- dent and faculty deal with one another; and the effect of foundations upon colleges and universities. One feature is new to bookmaking in the educational field; namely, questions are frequently followed by Y (Yes)... AT (No)... .^ (Uncertain, will investigate) .. . These blanks and occasional blank pages for memoranda are left in the hope that readers will be tempted to take out their pencils and mark facts and questions for their own colleges and classes. Schools of education will find labora- tory material here in methods of breaking general ques- tions into their elements and of disclosing the futility of averages. For asking so many questions rather than writing theories no apology is made. To raise questions is the pur- pose of this handbook. No one can know the answers until self -surveys are made. It is with studying education Foreword vii as with travel : one finds what one takes ; one sees only as one asks. Those who ask general questions about colleges will obtain general answers. Only by asking specific ques- tions can self -surveyors obtain answers that will help their college take Tomorrow's first steps. Little good can come from asking colleges to place their standards higher. What colleges need most is to fill up the gaps between what they have already undertaken and what they are getting done. The efficient college is not the institution described by the Association of American Colleges as having at least 500 students, 50 teachers, $167,000 a year to spend, a plant worth $925,000, an endowment of $2,250,000, and total assets of $3,200,000. On the contrary, the efficient college is a place that may or may not — yet — have an endow- ment and may or may not — yet — have 500 or 5000 stu- dents, but that does have — already — purpose, personnel, and procedure for discovering and developing student per- sonality and student capacity. There can be no efficient college where Tomorrow is like Today — where college managers fail to ask specific, meaningful questions about their reach and their grasp. Readers who dislike thinking for themselves may find this book uncomfortable. Those who enjoy analyzing their own observations and experiences will no doubt think of many incidents and questions that would have increased the book's value. Criticism and suggestion are invited, and when received will be circulated. In fiv^ ways college officers and faculties have helped make this handbook: (i) Many of the questions and suggestions were contributed as the result of a referendum of chapter headings to 200 college presidents and professors of education; (2) photographs, records, and concrete in- stances have been furnished partly for this book, partly for Public Service bulletins, and partly by 54 colleges toward Record Aids in College Management; (3) basic questions are drawn from collaboration with faculty officers when the survey of Wisconsin was made and from studies by viii Foreword the faculties of Oberlin and the University of Chicago; (4) piibHc statements by leading educators have been liber- ally used, including criticisms of colleges by college men in books and magazines since 19 10; (5) several criticisms have come from educators who generously read different chapters and permitted use of their suggestions. Special indebtedness is acknowledged to Presidents Frank L. McVey, University of North Dakota, Edward K. Gra- ham, University of North Carolina, Donald J. Cowling, Carleton College, Raymond M. Hughes, Miami University, Silas Evans, Ripon College ; Deans Elmer E. Jones, North- western University's College of Education, and James E. Hagerty, College of Commerce and Journalism, Ohio State University; Professors A. W. Rankin, University of Minnesota, R. B. Way, Beloit College, and A. Duncan Yocum, University of Pennsylvania. Russian universities furnished leaders for the Russian revolution and the first head of the Russian republic. America's pilot through the most troublesome waters that our ship of state has encountered is a former university professor and lifelong teacher. Revolution and war bring to the surface the patriotism of our college world. Equally important is the obligation of our colleges to teach and live the patriotism and procedure of peace. The great leaders for whom education is crying are those who will show how to democratize our doing as well as our wishing. The basis for cooperation is common knowledge. The starting point for common knowledge is common ques- tioning. William. Hi. Allen New York City June 15, 1917 CONTENTS PAGE Foreword v I. The Survey Movement in Higher Education 1. Every College to be Surveyed , . . . i 2. Higher Education Surveys under Way 2 3. Who Shall Make Surveys? 4 4. Every Official Report a Survey 8 5. Self-Surveys — Current and Special 10 6. Inside Reasons for Surveys by Insiders 12 7. Reasons for Surveys by Outsiders 14 8. What Should Special Surveys Report? 16 II. Procedure for a Cooperative College Survey 9. Twelve Steps for a Cooperative Survey 19 10. Securing Faculty Cooperation 28 11. Report "High Spots" and "Low Spots" Separately ... 32 12. The Limits of Comparative Studies 34 13. Survey Technique 2>J 14. Educational Scapegoats 40 III. Relation of Trustees to President and Faculty 15. Self-Survey by Trustees 42 16. National Conventions for Trustees 44 17. College Organization 46 18. Written Agreements with Faculty 47 19. By-laws and Laws 52 20. Investigations for Trustees 54 21. Visitation by Alumni and Other Visitors 57 22. Granting of Honorary Degrees 62 2Z. Tenure of Office ^T) 24. Provision for Pensioning Professors 66 25. Academic Vacations tej 26. Outside Audit of Operation Reports 70 27. Beauty Making and Building 72 28. Academic Freedom 73 29. Endowments, State Aids, and Salary Levels 75 IV. Executive and Business Efficiency 30. Efficiency of Administration 79 31. Efficiency of College Executives 81 ix X Contents PAGE 32. President's Working Year as President 87 S3. First Faculty Meeting Each Year 89 34. President's Report — Opportunity and Index 91 35. Method oi Appealing and Publicity 96 36. Analyzing College Constituency 100 37. Method of Meeting Criticism 102 38. Statistical Organization 103 39. Elimination of Students 104 40. The Business Manager 106 41. Division of Reference and Research . .111 42. The College Budget 118 43. Record Forms Are Educational Indexes 124 44. Character of Financial Reports 129 45. Bookkeeping Methods .132 46. Purchasing Methods 134 47. Unit Costs of Other than Instructional Service 135 48. Revolving Funds 136 49. Use and Non-Use of College Space 138 50. The Working Week 144 51. Teaching Load of Instructors 150 52. Distribution of Non-Teaching Load 153 53. Record of Classes i53 54. Small Classes i55 55. Control of Faculty Research 156 56. Cost of Faculty Research 158 V. Faculty Government 57. Commission Government for Faculties 162 58. How President and Faculty Deal with One Another . . . 163 59. Is Faculty Government Democratic? 166 6c. Faculty Meetings, Committee Assignments, Minutes . . . 167 61. Faculty Investigations and Reports 171 62. Faculty Salaries and Tenure 172 63. Faculty Supervision of Research and Graduate Work , . . 177 64. Departmental Meetings and Conferences 181 65. Interdepartmental Conferences 182 66. Educational Conventions 183 VI. EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES OF STUDENTS 67. Student Cost of Living, Room and Board 185 68. Cost of High Living 192 69. The Out-of-State Student 193 Contents xi PAGE 70. Student Assemblies 194 71. Student Self-Government 196 72. Group Relations of Students 197 23. Supervision of Student Activities 198 74. Health Protection and Hygiene Instruction 201 75. Vocational Guidance and Supervised Study 206 76. Employment Bureau 208 77. Keeping in Touch with Alumni 215 VII. Course of Study 78. The College Catalog 218 79. Courses of Study 222 80. Correlation of Subjects 224 81. Cooperative or In-and-Out Method 228 82. Citizenship Courses . 229 83. Cultural vs. Practical Courses 232 84. Fitting Courses to Local Needs 236 85. Holding Power of Subjects, Compulsory and Elective . . 237 86. Graduate Work Offered 240 87. Professional Courses . 241 88. The College Library 244 89. Testing Efficiency of Individual Courses 246 90. Admission Requirements 247 VIII. Instructional Efficiency 91. Method of Selecting Instructors 251 92. Observation of Classroom Instruction 253 93. Supervision of Instruction ,....' 262 94. Supervision of Classroom Instruction 264 95. The Student Adviser 266 96. How Classroom Instruction Was Photographed by the Uni- versity of Wisconsin Survey 270 97. Personality of Instructor 274 98. Personality Portraits 276 99. Desirable Personal Elements Found by Mr. David E. Berg when Observing 72 University Instructors 279 100. Undesirable Personal Elements Found by Mr. Berg . . . 279 loi. Use of Minimum Essentials 280 102. Analyzing Student Capacity and Need 283 103. Graduate Work 285 104. Learning via Doing 293 105. English as Taught and Practiced . 297 xii Contents PAGE io6. Status of Foreign Languages 301 107. Methods of Grading Students' Work 309 108. Students' Written Work 312 109. Lecture and Over-Lecture 316 no. Specialization and Over- Specialization 318 111. The Point System of Improving Scholarship ...... 318 112. Segregation of Sexes in Certain Courses 320 113. The Junior College . 321 114. Experienced Teachers for Less Experienced Students . . . 324 115. Effects of Research upon Teaching Efficiency 325 IX. Relation with College Communities 116. The Home Town 334 117. Accrediting Secondary Schools 340 118. Relations to Secondary Schools . 342 iig. Extension Work 345 120. Municipal Universities 348 121. Colleges and Central Boards of Education 352 122. The Effect of Foundations upon Colleges . 354 Appendix : Exhibit I. Constructive Program for Foundations . . . 360 Exhibit IL Faculty Questionnaire, University of Wisconsin Survey 362 Exhibit IIL Alumni Questionnaire, University of Wisconsin Survey 375 Exhibit IV, Fitting State University Service to State Needs — Illustrations from the University of Minnesota . . . 382 Index 385 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Colleges and teacher-training schools in the United States to be self-surveyed Frontispiece'^ OPPOSITE PAGK Self-surveys provide field training for students . . . 16"^ A municipal exhibit. Dayton Bureau of Research Teaching taxpayers to test results. Dayton Surveying would vitalize many subjects 32^ Field work in biology and physiography. University of North Dakota Shovi^ graphically whence students come 56^ University of Wisconsin Survey Report Vacation field work is vacation too 70*^ Learning to garden by gardening. University of California Learning to survey by surveying. California To compare college results will also train students . . 80' Two illustrations from a city exhibit at Jackson, Michigan Proof of vital work is the best publicity 96*^ Eight weeks in real library work. Wisconsin Library School Learning to serve by serving. Wisconsin Library School Short courses for farmers are good investments . . .116" Serving those who pay the bills. University of Minnesota Learning to test corn by testing corn. Minnesota In-and-out plan reduces capital costs 120 ^ Future engineers build bridges. University of Cincinnati Students of engineering help work on section gangs. Cincin- nati Photographs help inform and interest trustees . . . 124 Not yet used for instruction. Carleton College An important laboratory. Berea College Educational bookkeeping needs illustrations .... 134/ Reed College xiii / xiv List of Illustrations • ^ ^ OPPOSITE PAGE High cost of living means fewer students 182 ^ Self-support and instruction. Berea College Cooperation, economy, instruction. Berea Correlating work with good times 200^ Pageant of the seasons. Pennsylvania State College Folk dancing. Pennsylvania State Saturday excursion. Pennsylvania State Keeping in touch with alumni by helping alumni grow . 216'^ Practicing physicians, summer class in pediatrics at Greensboro. University of North Carolina What learning by doing does the catalog mention? . . 222^ Fitting studies to state needs. University of California Made and installed by students. California The " in-and-out " method is sadly needed in graduate work 228^^ Electrical test work and metallurgical laboratory work by en- gineering students. University of Cincinnati Truck repairing for city traction company. Cincinnati Field training for public service via preparing exhibits 236*^ Teaching taxpayers about city government's results by ocular demonstration. Dayton Bureau of Research Professional educators also learn best by doing . . . 284*^ Comparative tables for citizens. Dayton Bureau of Research Rivaling the disciplinary value of compulsory languages 304*^' Leadership qualities tested. Carleton College Learning via serving. Carleton Making hygiene attractive. Carleton Coeducation permits sex segregation too 320*-^ Poultry husbandry. University of California ^ Sex segregation via interest segregation. California Learning via serving college and town 336 "^ Which is better for higher education, road making or road using with roadsters? Berea College Student-built chapel. Berea List of Illustrations xv OPPOSITE PAOB Extension work may be made to vitalize both college and community 344^ Such audiences mean future support and students. Reed Col- lege Municipal university uses factories 352 v One way to find what Dean Schneider calls " the yellow streak " in future engineers. " Coop " students in real foundries and shops. University of Cincinnati Do alumni advise " practical " courses ? 378*^ Two classes of teachers at Pennsylvania State College, learning how to teach agriculture by doing agriculture SELF-SURVEYS BY COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES THE SURVEY MOVEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION I. Every College to he Surveyed WHEN the history of education in the twentieth century is written, the two ideas of self-examination and effi- ciency will receive respectful and continuous mention. Whatever may be found to be the determining factors in bringing about nation-wide surveys and self -surveys of edu- cation, three striking facts will stand out : early in the twen- tieth century contentment gave way to question; self-assur- ance gave way to self -analysis; and submission to the past gave way to concern for the future. Nor is this renaissance among educational executives con- fined to publicly supported schools. On the contrary, richly endowed universities and desperately needy private schools are vying with tax-supported state and city schools in ask- ing: "What are we doing? What are we failing to do? What are we failing to undertake that the twentieth cen- tury needs to have done ? " The faculty of Chicago Normal College is conducting a self-survey, as the eight normal schools of Wisconsin re- cently cooperated with the state survey director in studying every phase of normal-school work and as the presidents of tax-supported institutions in Ohio earlier cooperated in studying their efficiency. Ohio State University is by order of trustees self -surveying itself through deans and faculty. Columbia has a committee of trustees and faculty on " con- ditions of education and administration." From the Uni- versity of Illinois, Professor W. C. Bagley writes : 2 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities " The department of education is now cooperating with one of the colleges and with a large department in each of two other colleges in a thoroughgoing study of the problem of col- lege teaching. Classes are being visited and inspected, and re- ports are discussed with departmental groups. All of this ac- tivity originated with the departments and colleges themselves." The alumni of a distinguished secondary school are sur- veying its program, equipment, procedure, and results. Several endowed secondary schools are studying one an- other's methods of discovering and developing each pupil's personality and capacities. The president of an unendowed private school with elementary and professional courses pays for a special survey of personality, methods, and results of instructors, including his own method of supervising and de- veloping teachers. City superintendents of public-school systems in Houston, Texas; Montpelier, Vermont; Jamestown, New York; Co- lumbus, Ohio, and innumerable other places are conducting auto-surveys. State departments of education in Wis- consin, Connecticut, Alabama, Washington, and many other states are surveying county and city schools. Difficulties at several universities between faculties or indi- vidual instructors and trustees have led to surveys and re- ports of facts by the Association of American Professors. So rapidly has developed the demand for specific, helpful information regarding college needs and college opportu- nities that it is safe to prophesy that within ten years prac- tically every one of America's 600 colleges and universities will be surveyed. The question is no longer shall we or shall we not have our college surveyed, but how thoroughly, how helpfully, and how continuously shall our college be surveyed. 2. Higher Education Surveys under Way Not counting the routine or special studies that are being made by presidents, deans, and faculties, there was a notable number of college surveys under way in 19 16. By legisla- lative order universities and other higher institutions of College Surveys under Way 3 learning were being surveyed in Washington, Colorado, and Maryland. By special arrangement the University of Min- nesota, on its own initiative, had its business operations sur- veyed by the Minneapolis Committee of Municipal Research. Wisconsin's central board of education continued surveys of that state's university and nine normal schools. Indiana and Missouri normal schools were studied and compared by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which completed its nation-wide study of in- struction in engineering and in law. Miami University's president and faculty began a self- survey in 1916. The Ohio State University has been sur- veying itself by order of the trustees. For Dartmouth's president an extensive field-drawn comparison of Dart- mouth's practices with the practices of twenty-three other institutions was made by Professor H. E. Burton. Harvard's department of economics requested the depart- ment of education to investigate undergraduate instruction in economics with a view to its improvement. This request is cited by President Lowell in his annual report as addi- tional evidence "of the open mind, the desire to improve, the willingness to change its methods and to deal with its instruction as a systematic whole which has been conspicu- ous in the case of the department of economics." To the above add the special surveys completed and re- ported upon of state universities in Oregon, Iowa, and Wis- consin ; surveys completed but not yet reported upon for all higher institutions in North Dakota ; and the current surveys by central boards of education in Idaho, Kansas, and other states. Obviously a substantial beginning has been made in surveys of tax-supported colleges and universities. How generally private colleges have employed outside analysts or have begun auto-surveys has not been compiled. Annual reports and catalogs, however, show a nation-wide attempt to see whether existing progress and methods are fitting the needs of today and tomorrow. The chief coop^ erative effort of colleges is that of the Association of Amer- ican Colleges, which at its Chicago meeting in January, 4 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 191 6, received a preliminary report of the committee ap- pointed to formulate the minimum essentials of The Effi- cient College. A revised edition of this report (20 pages) appears in the Association's bulletin of February, 1917. Although The EMcient College propounds a minimum of students (500), of faculty (50), of administration ex- penses ($18,650), of instructional salaries ($99,000), of maintenance costs ($49,100), and of total expenses ($166,- 750), it holds up as another minimum essential of the effi- cient college — a continuous self-survey. 3. Who Shall Make Surveys f That the survey is here to stay is no longer the subject of disagreement in colleges and universities. There is, how- ever, still much disagreement as to whether surveys should be made exclusively by members of the college to be sur- veyed ; by local officers plus outside experts ; by widely ad- vertised educational officers of other institutions; by the United States Bureau of Education; by one of the great foundations ; by state departments or central boards of edu- cation ; by the alumni ; or by a combination of the foregoing possibles and desirables. So far as privately supported colleges are concerned, it is probable that initiative in most of the surveys will be taken by presidents. It will be natural for them when em- ploying outside agents to turn to " acknowledged educational experts " ; i.e., to widely advertised educational leaders or " successful college administrators." One important lesson will be learned for the college group only through experience; viz., that reputation for educa- tional leadership and for educational management is due to several other factors besides ability to analyze local situa- tions and local needs. Survey reports by distinguished leaders will turn out to be very much like addresses made at installations — general- ities about and apostrophes to the ideals of education. When asked how such surveys have helped them, many col- lege presidents will answer as a health officer once answered Possible Surveyors 5 when asked what his board had obtained from a $1200 health survey that was not in his annual report : *' Search me," Because it is true of surveys as it is of travel, that what one sees depends upon what one asks, the educational leader who comes to answer questions rather than to ask them will console more than he helps. The publicly supported college will incline to take the at- titude expressed in resolutions passed at two meetings of the National Education Association, that the logical surveyor of publicly supported higher education is the United States Bureau of Education. Unless survey reports and costs prove the contrary, it will be assumed that this national bu- reau will be impartial, sympathetic, and less expensive. Regarding the capabilities and probabilities of surveys by the United States Bureau of Education, several facts have been either forgotten or sidetracked. In the first place, as the bureau itself is trying to have educators see, it is not equipped to make college surveys. It has neither investi- gators nor analysts nor clerks nor classified information. Wherever it undertakes a survey it must do one of three things: (i) neglect other work which it has undertaken; (2) make a superficial survey, as in Oregon; or (3) enlist the services of persons not on its staff, as in Iowa, North Dakota, and Washington. So far as the United States Bu- reau of Education is invited to make surveys, the inviters owe it to themselves and to the rest of the country to help secure funds by which that bureau can adequately survey. Several other limitations of the United States bureau seem to have been forgotten. When employing distin- guished presidents and professors, it is by the very nature of this relation prevented from exacting the efBciency neces- sary for its own protection. For some time to come no commissioner of education will feel himself secure enough to ask a celebrated president or educational specialist to sub- mit in advance a detailed plan for study or to rewrite a report by substituting information for exhortation. Yet these are fundamental requirements in survey supervision. Again, not until long after the first crop of surveys has 6 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities been reaped will any commissioner of education feel that the United States Bureau of Education is strongly enough en- trenched in public approbation and confidence for him to point out serious derelictions and inadequacies of educa- tional management. Yet the constituency which demands and pays for the survey is entitled not only to that part of the truth which it is safe or tactful for the United States bureau to report but to every important truth about the field surveyed. There is another consideration which will undoubtedly cause the withdrawal of the United States bureau as a sur- veyor; viz., that any local or special service which reduces its ability to look objectively, impartially, and unselfishly at educational movements jeopardizes its power to serve the whole country. When a United States bureau signs a super- ficial survey report or a report containing educational fal- lacies, from that hour it has a protective investment in super- ficial and inadequate surveying. Obviously it cannot con- fidently and conscientiously comment upon educational in- vestigations and criticisms by others when conscious that it is living in a glass house. Having advised Iowa to average maximum and minimum occupancy, to average salaries within a department at $2000, to average student-clock-hours within a department at 300, our national bureau cannot graciously advise colleges to eschew averages. It is noticeable — in fact a trifle humorous — that the de- mand to be surveyed by the United States bureau because it is a public agency has not extended to a demand to be sur- veyed by state supervisory boards or commissioners of edu- cation. Yet, in how many states is the department of public instruction not better equipped with directors, investigators, clerical assistants, and comprehension of educational work than is — thus far — the United States Bureau of Edu- cation ? The great foundations are being thoroughly tested as sur- veyors. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has already reported upon the teaching of medi- cine and physics; is about to report upon the teaching of Foundations as Surveyors 7 law and engineering; has surveyed education in Vermont; and is now completing its survey of normal schools in Mis- souri and Indiana. The General Education Board has never published the results of its general surveys of colleges and normal schools ; it is now, however, making a survey of higher education in Maryland, the results of which are cer- tain to be published. The Russell Sage Foundation through its educational division has not thus far entered the higher education field; its Dr. Leonard P. Ayres, however, has helped establish methods of analysis that are certain to be carried into surveys of colleges. There are certain " psychological barriers " which will make it difficult for either the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching or the General Education Board to participate in surveys for concrete facts regarding the management of colleges and universities. For example, both boards have as trustees men who are also presidents of state-supported universities. A decent regard for the eti- quette of mankind will keep them out of a possible predica- ment where only a seriously or mildly unfavorable report will reflect the facts. Similarly a decent respect for the opinion of mankind will keep these foundations from the equally embarrassing position of throwing bouquets at one of their own number. In the long run the reason for a sur- vey is to secure impersonal, incontrovertible, unbiased, spe- cific, useful information. To give this kind of information to the public about institutions represented on their boards, institutions which are asking them for help, or other insti- tutions, will in the long run seem incompatible with the gen- eral purposes and organization of these two great founda- tions. Another reason why colleges will tend to look away from foundations for their surveys is that it will be found easier to make a straight business arrangement with surveyors who have not the multimillionaire outlook. It is not an easy thing for a college wishing a contribution from Mr. Rockefeller or Mr. Carnegie or from one of their founda- tions to ask foundation surveyors to make a report clearer ; 8 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities to cite specific instances in support of general criticism ; to correct their percentages and additions ; to have classes vis- ited a second time ; to abandon certain premises ; etc. Nor will it ever be easy for a president of a richly endowed uni- versity or a richly supported public college to deal as man to man or as employer to employee with heads of richly en- dowed national foundations that give or withhold money, favor, and recognition. Yet it is clear that many surveyors will be needed who will hold the same relation to employers as do other con- sulting experts. The demand may prove great enough to support professional groups of college analysts, surveyors, and reporters who will be subject to call on the same profes- sional basis as are accountants, engineers, architects, and other builders, even for reviewing tentative plans or manu- script reports of surveys by others. Many colleges have already benefited from surveys by alumni. For example, Harvard classes have been visited by alumni representatives, and at Texas complaints and con- troversial issues have been investigated. In Wisconsin the alumni are represented on the official board of visitors, who are supposed to make a continuous survey. Alumni surveys will increase in number and scope as other surveys produce facts and raise questions. One other group of surveyors remains, and it is the group which will do the greater part of future college surveying; viz., college officers and faculties. Some surveys or partial surveys will be made by college presidents or trustees ; others by business managers; others by the faculty unaided; and others by faculty working with other officers or faculty with the aid of experienced investigators from the outside fa- miliar with short cuts in seeking and compiling facts. 4. Every Official Report a Survey In a sense every official report is a survey report. The aim of the current and administrative survey is conserva- tion and remedy, — conservation and protection of forces and methods that are operating satisfactorily and remedial Questions or Notes 9 For Questions or Notes by the Reader lo Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities action where forces and methods are not yet acting satis- factorily enough. The permanent record of this type of survey is the annual, biennial, or other official report. In relatively few instances will administrators fail to include in their periodic reports any evidences of improvements effected or new truths gathered. It is for want of, and not from disregard of, spe- cific evidences of progress that so many college reporters use their space for generalizations and for statistics of little or no significance. Where this year's facts are almost iden- tical with last year's facts, there is obviously little reason for interpretation. A notable change has taken place in college reports. Ele- ments to be considered when reporting will be specified later as elements to be looked for in surveys. Suffice it to recall here that an official report reflects study or lack of study by the reporter during the period under review. It is a survey report. If there has been no survey, there can be no survey findings. So far as there has been current cumulative sur- vey, the official report is the natural and best agency for promptly imparting and permanently recording its results. The election of President M. L. Burton of Smith College to the presidency of the University of Minnesota was fur- thered by his reputation for self -surveying. 5. Self -Surveys — Current and Special The human factor in college administration is similar to the human factor everywhere else. It is by emphasizing its likenesses to business and government rather than its un- likenesses that higher education will best know itself. Just as the keenest inspector of a milk supply is the person who has milk for sale which he does not want thrown away by health officers because unclean, so the best possible sur- veyors of a college are those persons who are responsible for its success and standing. Not until the crusade for clean milk enlisted the milk producer and seller as inspectors did the crusade make substantial progress. Likewise only so far as the crusade for bigger and better results from Dean Hagerty on Self -Surveys 1 1 higher education enlists responsible insiders will it sub- stantially aid our colleges. For current survey by insiders the college management must be held responsible. It must ask questions ; secure an- swers; compile and classify summaries; interpret answers; submit information to faculty and constituency for inter- pretation and use. These steps constitute the continuous cumulative administrative survey. They are essentials of scientific management. The only part of a current survey for which the faculty is responsible is the record that each member must keep in order to answer questions which come to him from college officers. With respect to his own work and his own subject it is expected that each instructor will conduct a continuous survey. The more effective the current survey and the more in- formation it puts in circulation, the more numerous will be the special surveys by insiders, especially by faculty groups. Wherever special investigations are numerous, the term survey gives way to study, or examination, or analysis. Soon educational literature will drop the terms survey and self-survey. Faculties and officers will regularly search for facts with which to settle questions of policy. Surveys by outsiders will be followed by self -surveys by insiders to see how far conditions have changed. Requests for new build- ings will be preceded by special studies showing use, partial use, and non-use of existing buildings. Each semester's crop of facts from current administrative self -surveys will be winnowed and followed by special surveys through de- partmental or faculty committees and interested individuals. Of the need for self -surveys Dean James E. Hagerty, of Ohio State University's College of Commerce and Journal- ism, writes: " Many heads of educational institutions are ig- norant of some of the essential comparative facts which they should know in order to be efficient. In absence of this information it is difficult for them to work out 12 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities an even development of their institutions. ... A uni- versity is, as a rule, better prepared to obtain such facts than is a manufacturing concern, since it has trained men v^ho are in the habit of investigating. . . . You are right in saying that the administrative authorities of an educational institution should be making a con- tinual survey." 6. Inside Reasons for Surveys by Insiders During the year 191 6 widely published criticisms of col- lege management and purposes were made by college in- siders. A number of these criticisms are here repeated, first to indicate the unrest and self -analysis that are already current, and secondly, to suggest the need for cumulative indexes of criticisms that self-surveys must answer. After each item is printed F. . . . (Yes), iV.... (No), .^.... (Uncertain). It is suggested that each reader check (V) each item for his own college and try to answer where and how often each criticism applies, or make further study where question mark is checked. College government undemocratic. F . . . . AT ... . f.... Trustees usurp faculty functions. F . . . . AT ... . f.... Presidents dominate. F. . . . AT...., F.... Extravagance is fostered. F . . . . N. . . . F. . . . Administrative procedure is cumbersome. F . . . . N , , , ,, f Teachers underpaid one third. F.... N.... f.... Teachers overworked. F . . . . N . . , . ? . . . . Teachers limited to schedule. F . . . . N . . . . f... Teachers taskmasters instead of inspirers. F. . . . N Cooperation for democracy lacking. F. . . . N . . . . f Selection of a college not fittingly directed. F AT.... ?..,. Standards of admission too low. F. . . . N . . . . ? College Criticisms of Colleges 13 Entrance requirements no test of fitness. Y . . . . AT. . . . f Coordination between college and secondary schools neg- lected. Y iV.... r,... Snobbishness created by fraternities. Y AT... ? Examinations destroy real comprehension. Y . . . . N . f Piecemeal examinations not thorough. Y . . . . N , f Traditional subjects adhered to. Y,.., N.... f, New studies not recognized. F. . . . iV. . . . f . . . . Required subjects not all valuable. F . . . . N . , . . f. No cultural curriculum. F. . . . N. , . . Current history neglected. F . . . . A'^ . . Contemporary ignorance overlooked. f. . . . Courses too long by one third. F . . . . Foreign languages crowd out English. ? f . . . Y. '.'.',' ' N,.,. AT.... F.... f "College life" more important than studies. F. . . . N ^ Character development neglected. F A/".... ?,.,, College graduates lack perspective. F. . . . N , . . , f . . . . Human knowledge not required. F. . . . N . . . . f . . . . Contributions to public service small. F. . . . N. . . , f Facts taught without antecedents or consequents. F. . . , Matter not correlated. F N ? History not related to modern life. F.... AT.... f Student's psychology is not studied. F. . . . AT. . . . ? 14 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities Student's cooperation not obtained. Y,... iV. . .-. f Industrial and domestic intelligence undeveloped. Y. . . . Intellectual growth not sufficiently prompted. Y. . . , iV f Intellectual enthusiasm suppressed. F. . . . N . , , . f Talent and genius not developed. F. . . . AT. . . . ? , , , . Taste in music, literature, and art neglected. Y . . . . AT.... ?..,. 7. Reasons for Surveys by Outsiders The reasons for having special studies by outsiders are independent of college efficiency and have to do with per- sonal, local, or seasonal elements. In fact, it will undoubt- edly come to pass with colleges as it has with business cor- porations that outside analysts or " business doctors " will be called on more often by the consciously efficient than by the consciously inefficient or not-yet-consciously efficient. There was a time when doctors welcomed epidemics and opposed the dissemination of health facts. Today they know that people well informed in health matters support the medical profession better than those who are ignorant of health facts. Every advance in college management will increase the demand for outside photographers and archi- tects. As it becomes easier to prove efficiency, colleges against which unfounded criticisms are made will appeal to surveys as fact finders. Open criticism will be welcomed because it affords opportunities to supplant misinformation with information, and hostility or indifference with friend- ship. To make a survey desirable it is not necessary that any considerable fraction of one's constituency be dissatisfied or critical. A noisy, insistent, or influential minority, however small, may do more damage than an overwhelming majority which expresses dissatisfaction mildly or sporadically. Private colleges will resort to outside surveys because of Questions or Notes 15 For Questions or Notes by the Reader 1 6 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities such personal and local elements as these: desire to show need for additional endowment; factional controversy within the faculty or between faculty and trustees ; trustee dissatisfaction; alumni dissatisfaction; disparaging com- ment or action by state universities, larger colleges, entrance board, or great foundation. Publicly supported institutions of higher learning will, ir- respective of their actual efficiency and merit, resort to spe- cial surveys as the best means of settling personal and local difficulties due to the causes above mentioned and to the following : legislative criticism ; demand from taxpayers for retrenchment ; desire to prevent threatened reduction of ap- propriations ; desire to justify public requests for additional funds to be used in improving or extending service ; political differences involving university management ; other schools' jealousy of university domination and leadership ; desire to see whether state universities are receiving disproportionate shares of state money and are exerting disproportionate in- fluence upon lower schools; desire to have higher institu- tions included in the study of the state's whole program for education. 8. What Should Special Surveys Report? A surprisingly large amount of money has already been spent on reporting to communities their educational history ; how many buildings they own; how much money they spend ; how many students they have ; how their university or public schools are organized; how the work is divided; how beautifully the campus is set between hills ; or how the institution started. An astonishingly large amount of money, too, has been spent in solemnly telling those who pay for surveys the very same facts which earlier had been told to the surveyors as reasons for the survey. Finally, an amazingly large proportion of survey findings have been re- iterations of educational truths as widely accepted as are the Ten Commandments, the law of gravitation, or the meaning of the Fourth of July. , Wherever the purpose of a survey is to find out something A municipal exhibit Dayton Bureau of Research Teaching taxpayers to test results Self-surveys provide field training for students Dayton What Special Surveys Should Report 17 that is not already known, the obvious purpose of a survey report is to tell whether this sought-for information has been obtained and what the answer is. On the other hand, wherever the purpose of a survey is to secure the opinion of a surveyor without respect to the facts upon which that opinion is based, the report has obviously fulfilled its pur- pose if it conveys that opinion. During my first interview with the president of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin, he expressed the hope that the state board of public affairs would have the survey made by recognized leaders in the educational field. When asked, however, who the leaders were whose opinion he would ac- cept apart from the facts given in support of their opinions, he frankly stated that after all a survey report would have weight because of its facts rather than because of its opinions. Once given agreed-upon facts about any college, the thinking of the local faculty and officers will almost inevit- ably lead to an opinion or suggestion which is sound for that ^ particular college. If with facts before them the local re- J sponsible officers will not do the thinking necessary to reach the most serviceable and best-fitting conclusion, there is lit- tle prospect that they will make helpful use of obiter dicta, ex cathedra utterances, and unsupported opinions of survey- ors, however noted or notorious. That the surveyor is under obligations not to intrude his own personality into his findings of fact is universally con- ceded. Is it not just as clear that he is under obligation to eliminate other personalities when deciding what and how far to study and what to report ? As a matter of fact there is far more danger that reports will be shaped to exclude references to or evidences about individuals on the teaching or administrative staff of the college surveyed than that the surveyor will inject his personal prejudices and desires into survey reports. After a few more survey reports are available for study by those contemplating surveys, certain specifications will be made as to final reports. An ounce of specification will 1 8 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities be considered worth more than a ton of generality. Twice- told tales will be excluded. General philosophy and local history will not be paid for, or at least will be thrown into an appendix or a special pamphlet where they cannot be con- fused with survey findings. Matters which belong in ad- ministrative reports will be relegated to those reports, and the survey will declare that such reports either contain neces- sary points or have heretofore lacked them. Succinctly, clearly, and specifically the survey report will state fact after fact. Earmarks of progress and efficiency will be listed to show the direction in which college service has striven. Conditions and methods needing correction or other administrative attention will be listed as opportunities for increasing efficiency. For Questions or Notes by the Reader II PROCEDURE FOR A COOPERATIVE COLLEGE SURVEY 9. Twelve Steps for a Cooperative Survey NOT all college surveys can be cooperative. Occasion- ally questions will arise where time limits, or perhaps personality limits, will make it inadvisable for the surveyor to ask further help from persons concerned than the accu- rate answering of questions. Now and then will be a survey by outsiders or by official insiders without knowledge on the part of those surveyed that a special study is under way. In the greater number of college surveys, however, whether current or special, by insiders or outsiders, the following twelve steps will be found helpful: 1. A written agreement will be reached in ad- vance as to ground to be covered, methods to be used, and money and men available. Many difficulties of previous surveys have arisen from un- certainty, indefiniteness, or disagreement among those who initiated them. There are difficulties enough inherent in trying to secure and interpret facts without running pre- ventable risks. " You cannot put out a conflagration with an atomizer." Nor can you do a $50,000 job for $5000, nor easily avoid misunderstandings where many partners are trying to work without a written agreement. 2. Confidential information will be welcomed; used when confirmed; and informants pro- tected. There is a strong prejudice against using confidential information. I once heard a survey director reply to per- sons who were giving him information which was invalu- able if correct, that he would not accept the information even as a hint unless they would sign their names to it. 19 20 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities The surveyors of Wisconsin's university and normal schools promised to regard as confidential any communication so marked. It seemed unfair alike to taxpayers who wanted the truth and to persons who had the truth for the surveyors not to exhaust all sources of information. It would have been extremely unfair to use unconfirmed assertions. Whether rightly or wrongly, there are in every large or- ganization several persons who believe they possess im- portant truths as to conditions needing correction, who at the same time sincerely believe that they will suffer reprisal if their colleagues or superiors know that they have ex- pressed such belief to surveyors. This condition will con- front self -surveyors and faculty committees just as it con- fronts the outside surveyor. It is extravagant to shut the doors on such information. In many cases the surveyor has opportunity to dislodge untruths and fear by following up tip or fact from confidential sources. This position is taken by colleges which maintain question and complaint boxes as an aid to current administrative surveys. Confi- dential treatment was pledged by the Iowa commission of 1916. 3. Faculty and officers will cooperate in outlin- ing questions to be answered and in making criticisms and constructive suggestions. The valuable Oberlin survey questions were compiled from faculty criticisms and suggestions. Those who know a working organism most intimately also know best where it is not working smoothly or expansively. Numerous im- portant facts and suggestions were obtained by asking the University of Wisconsin's faculty and officers to list facts to be confirmed; subjects to be studied; and questions to be asked. The Iowa commission likewise prepared a letter of inquiry concerning the educational needs of the state which, through the cooperation of the state board of educa- tion, was sent to presidents of chambers of commerce, heads of granges, newspaper editors, superintendents of schools, and certain other citizens of distinction. While this letter 12 Steps for a Cooperative Survey 21 asked for opinions as to the efficiency of organization and management of state institutions and the wisdom of their educational poHcies, it also asked correspondents to suggest possible avenues of waste through unnecessary duplication and the most profitable lines for future development. For instance, Question 5 read, " Would you suggest any new activities directly or indirectly for the benefit of the people of the state which any one of the institutions should take up?" 4. Those whose work is to be surveyed will par- ticipate in collecting and analyzing infor- mation. For the Ohio school survey the presidents and deans of the state-supported normal schools accompanied the survey director, Dr. H. L. Brittain, in classroom observations. For the University of Wisconsin survey four different members of the department of education joined in visiting classes for the training of teachers. Three of them also helped work out examination questions for testing the extent to which students digested theoretical courses. In every step of Mi- ami's survey faculty and deans are working together. Wherever possible, colleges should protect surveyors and benefit themselves by having representatives present as classes are visited; as reports are read; as replies are di- gested; and information analyzed. ^, Before publication, and even before use for criticism or suggestion, all statements of fact will be submitted to college officers affected for confirmation or modification. This step should be taken in the interest of both surveyor and surveyed. No one wants to report what is incorrect or incomplete. No one wants his work incorrectly or in- completely described. With few exceptions those surveyed will prefer frank acknowledgment of unpleasant facts to either untenable denials or evasions or filibustering. 22 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 6. To insure a build-as-it-goes survey, the find- ings will be reviewed with college officers as work progresses. So far as this is done the final survey report becomes a record of conditions changed, where otherwise it must be a list of conditions needing to be changed. It is not always possible to have corrective steps taken immediately upon the heels of interim reports. It is feas- ible, however, to start whatever remedial action is involved the minute that responsible officers concede the facts which show need for action. For example, Edward Mandel, prin- cipal of a large Manhattan school, carefully watched the compilation of facts reported by those who surveyed his school. Frequently he did not wait longer than to see the headings of tabulation sheets before hurrying to his school and starting for succeeding weeks the collection of infor- mation which he considered significant. Long before our report was written, and while many tabulations were incom- plete, he had instituted changes in procedure, self-surveys of pupil ages and progress, etc. One morning at about ten o'clock we telephoned to a University of Wisconsin regent that there were facts re- garding the student rooming directory which we thought officers of the university might wish to use immediately. He reviewed these facts at noon; by 2.30 had communi- cated by long-distance telephone with the executive com- mittee; for them had withdrawn the existing directory; and through the business manager, now president of Tufts College, had started the self -survey necessary for an ade- quate directory. Recently while a surveyor was reporting to Alexander Fi chandler on certain class work, the latter left the room. He returned soon and reported a corrective started ! If an opportunity to help an instructor — and his stu- dents — presents itself clearly at the first visit to his class, why wait two months or a year to use that information helpfully? 12 Steps for a Cooperative Survey 23 7. Pacts will be stated separately from criti- cisms and suggestions. At first college officers find themselves disliking the state- ment of fact about themselves apart from the interpreta- tion of it. Not infrequently surveyors find that before answering a question college officers want to know what the questioner has in mind by the question. If a college survey were a series of debates, a mere pitting of wit against wit, foil against foil, a separate statement of facts would never be possible or desirable. But a college survey is an entirely different kind of party. By definition its pur- pose is to secure helpful information and suggestion. If there is disagreement with respect to facts, there can be little hope of agreement with respect to criticisms and sug- gestions which in theory are based upon facts. The first step forward, therefore, is agreement as to facts. For example, a survey reports that such and such a profes- sor has five classes with one person in a class. Whatever this may mean, whether that the professor has an excep- tional opportunity, or exceptionally high standards, or an exceptionally low drawing power, or an exceptional sub- ject, is not the meaning something entirely distinct from the fact? Before trying to find out what it means, should not the surveyor be sure that he is talking about facts con- ceded? The willingness to accept conclusions while deny- ing the facts is a dangerous desire for immunity from crit- icism, which should be discouraged. Little good comes from reforms built upon assertions that reform is not needed. 8. Criticisms, listed separately, will be sup- ported by facts. Unless criticisms are listed separately, an error as to one fact associated with ten others may prevent a fair hearing for eleven facts. Experience shows that where facts are listed in short paragraphs, each by itself, each gets its own hearing. Moreover, a flaw in any one is easily corrected 24 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities without prejudice for or against the rest of the facts. An- other reason for listing criticisms separately is that while many persons are involved in all criticisms fewer or only one are involved in each criticism. The reason for sup- porting criticism with facts is obvious. Even if the sur- veyed are willing to accept without challenge the criticisms of surveyors, the important fact remains that the surveyed cannot understand the import of the criticism unless they see the facts upon which it is based. In other words, the fact-supported criticism is more easily usable. 9. Every effort will be employed to secure agreement with respect to facts before taking up criticisms and with respect to criticisms before taking up suggestions. Men who are agreed both as to facts and as to criti- cisms find little difficulty in considering constructively any suggestions which are aimed to recognize agreed-upon facts and to meet agreed-upon criticisms. For any condition needing correction, however, there may be five or ten or more different solutions. The surveyed may agree with surveyor as to the facts and as to criticisms and yet disagree radically as to the best remedial action. Surveyors under- value their opportunities when they feel that their sugges- tions are more important than the facts and the criticisms which result from those facts. If persons surveyed have a better remedy than the sur- veyor, — as quite frequently they really ought to have, — the surveyor should be grateful — and modest. Any survey whose findings of fact and whose criticisms are accepted will be productive of untold benefit, even if not one of its recommendations is literally adopted. 10. Constructive suggestions will be based on facts presented and criticisms agreed upon. This step many surveyors will not take unless required to do so by persons surveyed. So long as workers accept 12 Steps for a Cooperative Survey 25 unanalyzed, unsupported judgments upon their work from inside or outside surveyors, so long will the majority of surveyors pronounce judgment and make suggestions with- out anchoring themselves to facts or disclosing their fact base. If colleges are to be satisfied with unsupported recom- mendations, they might better save the money required to make surveys and spend an infinitesimal fraction of it on books, essays, and addresses by distinguished educators. Conceding for the sake of argument that there are edu- cators with such insight and hindsight and foresight that it is irreverent to ask them for the fact base of their judg- ment, must we not also concede that the minds of persons surveyed are such that they cannot fully understand or clearly see a recommendation apart from the local insti- tutional facts upon which it is presumably based? II. So far as there is disagreement with respect to fact, criticism, or suggestion, the exist- ence of this disagreement and the grounds of it will be stated. This is a sound principle for faculty committees and edu- cational minorities generally to adopt. Political bodies have adopted it so far as minorities want to have the fact and grounds of disagreement made known. The Wisconsin budget law requires that when the state efficiency commission submits its budget to the legislature it must show where there are increases and decreases; the reason for them ; and the reason why a minority of the com- mission or the incoming governor voted against the allow- ances recommended by the majority. Where in spite of conference there persists disagreement with respect to fact, both positions will be stated. Pref- erably time will be taken, no matter how long, to confront the disagreeing party with facts which will remove all pos- sibility of further disagreement. On a matter like the conduct of classes subsequent visits may not remove disagreement as to what was found on the 26 Self-Surveys by Colleges and Universities previous visit but will establish the necessary facts as to how the class is now being conducted. In most cases disagreement cannot survive cooperative effort to remove it. The time necessary for such cooperative effort should be guaranteed in advance. 12. Survey findings will be issued in small in- stallments. This policy was agreed upon in writing before the Uni- versity of Wisconsin survey started. Unfortunately the first installments were ready during the last weeks of a po- litical campaign. It was decided that it would be unwise to have the survey confused in the public mind with this campaign. Later the installment plan was largely aban- doned. The principle, however, was sound, as has been repeatedly shown. For example, the space given to each of twenty installments of New York City's survey, includ- ing many of a technical character, was almost as great as could have been given to the entire survey report if issued at one time. Even if newspapers could print all of an expensive re- port intended for the public, or even if a college faculty could take the time to review all of a report intended for them, it is an unescapable fact that public and faculty alike can no more easily digest at one reading a survey report about a whole college than they can assimilate a month's rations at one sitting. Because survey reports are useful only so far as they are interesting and related to local and important duties, they must go to responsible persons in doses small enough to be studied and digested without interfering with time mortgaged to routine duties. The reason against publishing survey results in small in- stallments is thus summarized by Dean Hagerty: " Issuing reports piecemeal provides a disorganizing publicity and irritation, and the educational world and Publishing Survey Findings 27 all concerned are left wholly at sea with respect to the exact content and real merits of the survey." That there is just as much sea around complete reports as around installments, experience has shown. If steps here suggested are followed, the possibility of successful controversy over agreed-upon facts will almost disappear. 13. Should Survey Findings Be Published? If any survey report is published, it certainly should tell the truth and all the significant truth in answer to the ques- tions which the client asks to have answered. Whether a particular survey report should be published depends upon the client's wishes. If a president asks for a survey of himself as administrator, it is not necessary to publish the findings to any one but himself. If trustees ask for a survey for their own guidance, the report need not be published to any one else but the trustees unless with- holding its findings from taxpayers, faculty, or alumni promises more harm than good. If a legislature asks for a survey, the client is the public and the report should be published. To this position Dean Hagerty demurs. So far as his demurrer accentuates the desirability of retaining outsiders as consultants to administrative officers rather than as re- porters, I still feel that it does not apply. It is accepted where the survey is initiated by forces other than the ad- ministrative officers. " I doubt if it is worth while to publish a survey report made by an outside independent institution. . . . The outside surveyor should assume the same attitude which an accounting firm assumes when it examines the books of a private business; i.e., it goes over the books, finds the facts, reports the true status, and recommends desirable changes. If the accountants should publish their findings in each case, over one half the businesses investigated would be demoralized and 28 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities driven into the bankruptcy courts. ... I believe the university survey of the future will obtain the facts, make recommendations to the administrative authori- ties, and let them determine v^^hat to publish." lo. Securing Faculty Cooperation Three different faculty groups have cooperated in work- ing out comprehensive questions for projected surveys of their institutions to answer. The Oberlin faculty made a substantial beginning in 1909. Later the University of Chicago faculty worked out a set of questions for alumni, seniors, and juniors, regarding preference for lectures, reci- tations, combination of recitation and discussion, etc. Un- fortunately both sets of questions are out of print and are only here and there available. Both lists, however, were drawn upon for the University of Wisconsin survey ques- tions which are here reproduced in Appendices I and II, because they represent an expenditure of time and money which few colleges can afford, but which can easily and quickly be utilized by any officer or group. No question is there by accident. With insignificant exceptions each ques- tion had passed the gantlet of instructors and officers of one or three of the above-mentioned faculties, — Oberlin, Chi- cago, and Wisconsin. In addition, the final Wisconsin list was " censored " by a number of outside educators in public-school and normal-school work. Numerous helpful suggestions were obtained for the Uni- versity of Wisconsin survey by sending out to the faculty, alumni, editors, etc., twelve general questions agreed upon as stating the general scope of the survey. By substituting " community " for " state " these questions fit the private college or university as well as state-supported institutions : 1. What, if anything, is the University of Wisconsin undertaking that the state as a whole does not wish it to do? 2. What, if anything, is the university failing to under- take which the state wishes it to do ? Securing Faculty Cooperation 29 3. Is the university doing well enough what it does ? 4. Is it doing inexpensively enough what it does ? 5. What parts of its work, if any, are inadequately sup- ported ? 6. What parts of its work are out of proportion — too large, too small — to its program as a whole ? 7. Is the state's support of the university proportionate or disproportionate to state support of other public educational activities ? 8. Is the university's business management — in policy, planning, purchasing, supervising, checking, and re- porting — adequate and efficient ? 9. Does the legislative policy in dealing with the uni- versity and other educational activities reflect adequate information and efficient use of information ? 10. What is the university's relation with, and influence upon, the rest of the state's system of public educa- tion? 1 1. What are the standards of living, social and economic, in the university? 12. What not-yet-met needs of the state which the uni- versity might meet and what opportunities for re- trenchment or increased efficiency should be reported to the next legislature? Ten Steps toward Securing Faculty Cooperation Of the ten first steps here suggested all may profitably be taken by the self -survey or, whether administrative officer or instructor or trustee : 1. Agree in writing upon a procedure that will include at least the twelve steps mentioned above on page 17. 2. Look over the Wisconsin survey questions and use those which will be helpful directly or by suggestion. 3. Let survey outliners submit their own first-draft ques- tions to faculty and officers, including alumni officers whose work is to be surveyed, with request for modifi- cations and additions. 30 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 4. While the preceding steps are being taken, secure all survey reports published to date and " high spot *' them for questions or tests that ought to be locally applied. The United States Bureau of Education will always be able to reply promptly with a complete list of college survey reports. 5. Ask central boards of education, notably in Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, and Wisconsin, for copies of their questionnaires and record forms for similar " high spotting," for use in formulating and applying ques- tions and tests. 6. Place the final composite of questions that seem de- sirable and necessary in the hands of all persons vi- tally concerned in the survey results. In Wisconsin these questions were sent to faculty members; non- instructional officers ; regents and former regents ; offi- cial board of visitors; alumni officers; county super- intendents of schools, and all normal-school presi- dents; and leading editors. A private college will seldom wish to include editors, except those whom it counts among its principal supporters but will, how- ever, wisely offer to send copies to principal donors. 7. Before it is too late to benefit from the experience of others, send questions to several presidents, deans, registrars, department heads or instructors in other colleges most likely to have similar problems and to be interested in making a success of the projected survey. A request for suggestions will bring, inter alia, several marked reports or addresses and helpful record forms. The Wisconsin survey did this and received many valuable suggestions and criticisms. Presidents of private colleges in Wisconsin undertook, too late unfortunately, to secure with respect to their own colleges information for later comparison with University of Wisconsin facts. For every unit of benefit obtainable from criticism by one's colleagues and competitors after a survey is over many units of benefit are obtainable by surveyor, surveyed, and col- Securing Faculty Cooperation 31 leagues of both by submission of the survey plan while it is yet tentative and improvable. 8. Ask officers and faculty to name persons who will represent them in collecting and considering informa- tion. Although all officers and faculty members are interested, it is impossible for all to participate equally. Many questions arise which call for prompt action that it is better to take after consulting with authorized representatives. Usually, too, adequate work on a co- operative survey calls for slight or considerable read- justment of teaching and other college loads. Fin- ally, what's everybody's business is nobody's business. Only through designated representatives may a col- lege make sure that the generous interest, occasional suggestion and criticism will be reservoired for sur- vey uses. Q. Use survey questions, compilations, and summaries as laboratory material for training students. Maga- zines, books, official college reports and catalogs foundation reports, survey reports for colleges and secondary schools, discussions from allied fields such as state budget making, etc., contain vast quantities of material, — too helpful to be neglected and too vast for analysis by official surveyors. Every year there is a new crop of criticisms of colleges by colleges in light of which it is desirable that every college review its own practices and products. No better training can be given students of English, journalism, political science, statistics, teaching, school management, etc., than to require them to participate in gleaning from this wealth of material concrete definite helps for a projected survey. 10. So far as possible have administrative officers, division heads, faculty members, and students cooperate not only in analyzing and classifying information descrip- tive of field observations but also in making observa- tions and tests. To a g^reater extent than has yet been tried this will be found a good investment. Every 32 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities field should be surveyed by those particular persons responsible for using the results of the survey. It is the man who first discovers a need who is apt to re- member it longer in more relations and to see it most clearly. It is vastly better for a department head to see at first hand that an instructor needs help or a course needs reorganization than to be convinced of these needs by a report from some one else. The use of students on surveys is considered questionable by many college officers. If, however, it is effective train- ing for students under direction to study public departments, factory management, social conditions, why is it not equally good training for students under direction to study college management, social conditions at college, use of college space per student hour, college costs, college accounting, college purchasing methods, and college budget making? Dean E. E. Jones of the College of Education at North- western University is employing students to analyze student mortality; student failures; student examination papers. Bryn Mawr, Yale, and Smith have employed students to study costs of living at college. Numerous colleges and universities for economic reasons employ scholarship stu- dents for all manner of useful service, from waiting on table or carrying mail to examining papers and teaching classes. What is workable for economic reasons is equally workable for educational reasons, especially when student help in self -surveying would reduce survey costs. II. Report "High Spots'' and "Low Spots" Separately Among America's great men identified with higher educa- tion is one who is rioted for cheating himself at golf. For his psychology most of us can from our own desires and prejudices furnish at least one counterpart. There is many a mother who wants her children to learn to swim without going near the water, or whose one reason for not taking her child to a doctor is fear that the doctor will find ade- noids requiring an operation. If college officers confess to m ifr^ . ^^^"' 4i' '^-iMJ^*^ ^rjf S^Ej^M^'i^lP H a^^- ^m 3dH... These two views of field work in biology and physiography by students of the University of North Dakota suggest universally accepted methods of illuminating natural science instruction. For vitalizing the social sciences and literature, logic, etc., doing what needs to be done and what will be used is still too little employed Surveying would vitalize many subjects Separate High Spots from Low Spots 33 natural feelings, they will prefer to have any deficiencies come to them, not isolated, but imbedded among excel- lences. Once concede this point, once agree that no " low spot " shall be mentioned except in connection with '* high spots," which also means no " high spots " separately from " low spots," and college officers have made it extremely difficult, when not impossible, for themselves to be helped by survey findings. With attempts to segregate " low spots " from " high spots " I have had several experiences. Once where only " high spots " were listed, surveyors were met with this question by an influential magazine : " Will this make the public less discontented with its present schools? If so, we are against it." In another case, where excellences were printed first and conditions needing correction printed later, we were severely and editorially criticized. Our list of " high spots " was called " whitewash," even " hog wash," and was declared to present insuperable obstacles to profit from the survey. On the other hand, the list of conditions needing correction was declared to be unbalanced, unfair, im- properly motivated, because the excellences were not with them. Whether the materials which a survey studies and de- scribes are to be segregated in a way which is called sci- entific when ore is being assayed, sputum being analyzed for bacteria, or food and water for chemical impurities, is a question that must be answered for surveyors and self -sur- veyors before they begin their studies. Repeated refer- ences will be made to this in later sections under survey questions and technique. Two illustrations will here de- velop the issue. Professor A is brilliant, banal, brutal, well informed; sometimes he is definite and concise; at other times he is verbose, indefinite, and bombastic. Shall a survey attempt to say brilliant and bombastic, definite and indefinite, so as to "strike an average"? Shall it report that while he is at times indefinite nevertheless at other times he is definite ? 34 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities Or shall it report facts which prove that Professor A needs the help of his colleagues and supervisors to correct to the point of elimination a tendency to be banal, brutal, indefi- nite, verbose, bombastic? On the business side, there are two dormitories: one earns $2000 a year profit; one loses $2000 a year. Shall the survey report the two dormitories as self-sustaining or shall it report that dormitory B loses $2000 a year in face of the fact that dormitory A is so managed as to gain $2000 a year? When the business world has a survey by insiders or out- siders, it carefully segregates excellences from deficiencies. On the excellences it spends no time except to learn whether conditions are favorable to their protection and extension. It is out of the deficiencies, separately listed, that it reaps its profit from a survey. So will colleges come to demand the segregation of " high spots " and " low spots.'* 12. The Limits of Comparative Studies Before the University of Wisconsin survey began, the president expressed the hope that we would make widely comparative studies; i.e., comparisons between Wisconsin and other leading universities. When asked if he was will- ing to concede the results of comparisons between the Uni- versity of Wisconsin and the University of Minnesota, he began at once to cite differences that must be taken into account. These allowances and cautions soon showed that no comparative statement based upon anything short of the minutest possible field study of each institution would be accepted by Wisconsin as valid. It was admitted that it would be more helpful to Wisconsin to have what Wis- consin was accomplishing compared with what Wisconsin was undertaking and with what Wisconsin needed. Only where the purpose of a survey is to rank colleges is comparison between colleges indispensable. In other cases comparison may establish a presumption; may raise ques- tions; may give encouragement; may gratify or pique local pride ; but not until it is shown that the other colleges with Questions or Notes 35 For Questions or Notes by the Reader 36 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities which the surveyed college is compared are satisfactorily fitting the needs and capacities of their own students and localities does comparison help answer the most vital ques- tion of every survey; viz., how our college is doing what it might and should do. Obviously a college may lead all other colleges and still fall far short of its own possibilities and obligations. Take, for example, the chart on page 141 showing non- use of a classroom at Vassar. A comparative study would disclose that in many colleges many rooms are used fewer hours a week than this room; viz., 18 hours, or 50% of the scheduled possible hours at Vassar. Such comparative information will be interesting and relevant so far as the survey had no utilitarian reason for asking its question about use, partial use, and non-use of that room, but with few exceptions the reason for asking this question is: need for additional space. That another college gets less use out of equivalent space does not help our college decide whether it can get more use out of this space. The comparative study most needed by colleges is study of each college against a background of its own students, conditions, difficulties, and opportunities. Another reason why as yet comparative studies are hardly worth the space required to print them in survey reports is that the printed reports from which they are taken do not use a common language. In other words, most comparative studies must for some time to come be secondary comparisons of unlike and therefore incomparable original facts. For not even the number of students or the per capita cost of college instruction can trustworthy com- parisons be made in 191 6 between even the leading uni- versities of the country or of New York City. By the time administrative surveys and scientific man- agement have overcome this serious deficiency, most colleges will have become so engrossed in self-study that they will worry infinitely less about their ranking away from home than about the adequateness of their service at home. Making Cooperation Easy . 37 13. Survey Technique In Self -Surveys by Teacher-Training Schools several chapters were given to the technique of making a survey. The detailed steps are not repeated here. The topics cov- ered include these : Starting a survey. Dispelling controversies with facts. Securing cooperation. Deciding upon scope. Deciding what particular questions to ask. Having those who sponsor the survey also sponsor the particular questions asked by the survey. Fitting questions to different audiences. Guaranteeing the anonymity of answers. Guarding confidential statements. Importance of field work. Checking written work. Making tabulation easy. Making the survey report. Monopoly of benefit from a survey is just as anti-social as monopoly of water power or of eggs. Wherever sur- veyors and and self-surveyors ask questions about a faculty without letting the faculty know in time so that it can ask the same questions about itself, the result will be as unsat- isfactory as results from any other monopoly. It is the asking and studying and not the reading about or listening to a survey report which will benefit a college. The minute it is decided to democratize the planning, questioning, and studying of a survey, it becomes neces- sary to adopt a procedure which several people can simul- taneously employ. It is extravagant to have unwritten ques- tions, unwritten answers, private conversations. Instead it becomes necessary to exclude from consideration facts which cannot be seen by both surveyor and surveyed. 38 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities Even if a man is surveying himself, it is more profitable to be concrete and consecutive in questioning and answering. If two or more persons or the same person on two or more occasions are to deal with survey findings, then the most efficient technique is needed of factoring questions, of recording things of a kind in a column or on a page, and of marking tabulation sheets to economize effort. These are treated in Self-Surveys by Teacher-Training Schools. Criticisms or modifications of technique there suggested will be welcomed by the authors. Ten of the cardinal elements of survey technique are listed, because college-survey questions and reports indicate that they need special emphasis : 1. Answering should be made as easy as possible; e.g., wherever a check (V) can be made to answer writing should never be required. In succeeding chapters fre- quently blanks will be found for checking by the reader. 2. Questions should be so worded as to " fetch " the answer sought; e.g., it helps little to ask. Are instruc- tors experienced ? It helps much to know where, how much, and what the experience of each instructor was. 3. So far as can be anticipated, alternative answers should be typed or printed with the questions, always with room for '' others." Where one answerer may thus be influenced to check an item of which he would not think independently, ten others will answer com- pletely, where otherwise they would answer incom- pletely. 4. Questions should be broken into their elements and a special answer required for each part of each ques- tion, and tabulation sheets marked for recording only one kind of fact about each activity in one column. 5. Later tabulation or summary uses of questions should be considered when the questions are being framed. 6. In tabulation, every part of every question should be accounted for in the report. STATED INSTRUCTION -GRADING, ETC.— Summary pp. 3-6, 29. 35 No. Col. Dept. Rank Sub. Course Resp. Hr«. per week No. Students who are No. Students in Class C P A B C D Grad. Sr3. in. Soph. 'resh. Sp'l Not »^~ Serving those who pay the bills University of Minnesota Learning to test corn by testing corn Minnesota Short courses for farmers are good investments High-Spotting Other Colleges 117 engineering and medical faculties; home management was tested in a 15-room house, college credit being given; established municipal reference bureau under auspices of State League of Municipalities; gives courses in sex hygiene for men; insists "that there can be no departmental or college proprietorship in the buildings, and that space anywhere that is not absolutely needed for college or departmental purposes shall be available for general university use '' ; the uni- versity declares that the high-school course " must be adapted to the needs of the great majority who cannot pursue higher education. College and university must therefore adapt themselves to the high school as a peo- ple's college." University of Nebraska has a central stenographic bureau as Ohio State University has central bureaus for each college and has effected considerable saving by center- ing all business offices; e.g., 6% on electric lamps. University of Michigan has courses for field training of men for public service, including cooperative arrange- ments with the Detroit Bureau of Governmental Re- search. University of Missouri has recently started a municipal reference bureau. Reed College is helping on examinations and with papers for the civil service department of Portland ; is giving courses at the City Hall for city employees on city time; has recently issued a report of five years' work on social hygiene in Oregon by eight faculty mem- bers with students; has extension courses organized by students at which, for example, President Foster is giving lectures at the college and about the city " on rural politics today," and business men give talks on commercial and industrial methods. North Carolina University reports the occupations and professions of students' parents; declares that $300 a year is ample for comfortable living; has introduced the plan of reading for honors by which students of ii8 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities unusual ability and intellectual curiosity are given wide and independent reading and stimulated in lines of independent investigation; requires one year of resi- dence before any student may represent the university in a major sport; proposes two summer sessions of six weeks each; has made 173 community studies and pub- lished 62 booklets on countryside studies; circulates weekly 9000 copies of its newsletter; has a special course for practicing pediatrists. Smith assigns four freshmen to a junior adviser and 30 to a faculty adviser ; publishes sizes of classes " to show scientifically where additions to the teaching force are needed." Tufts publishes a report of diagrams on right-hand page and short editorial summary on the left; in last five years increased students 47% but expenses only 15% ; shows by spot map the sources of students. 42. The College Budget Although the word " budget " is new in college manage- ment, the idea is old. Very few colleges ever undertake to finance the next year without having approximated costs and income. But approximating is not budgeting, and with few excep- tions colleges today want to put their business on a budget basis; i.e., on a plan carefully worked out at least a year in advance. In few instances will surveyors need to per- suade presidents and trustees that the budget method will help finance colleges. The few exceptions are colleges which thrive on unexpected deficits and hard-luck stories. Even in these cases there is more budgeting than is usually admitted and more system in the hard-luck story than is apparent. If colleges have budgets, surveyors will ask questions like these : I. When is the budget voted? How much time is given by trustees to considering it at board meetings ? Budgeting opportunities 119 How long in advance of dates for consideration is the budget in the hands of individual trustees ? How much time elapses between the call for budget esti- mates and the date for submitting them to the presi- dent and the date when the president submits them to trustees? 2. Does the budget initiate with the trustees . . . , with the president . . . , or with departments . . . ? 3. Is it possible for departmental estimates to be made without departmental conferences? F. . . N.., f. . . 4. Is the budget based upon work estimates for next year ... or upon this year's money facts . . . ? 5. In the case of publicly supported colleges, is the bud- get considered at meetings open to the public? Y N ^ 6. Is the tentative budget shown to departmental rep- resentatives before its submission to trustees? Y... N... f... 7. Does the tentative budget which goes to trustees show at a glance where it differs from the current year's budget Y . . , N . , ,, which salaries are in- creased F. . . N . , ., which activities extended y . . . N . , ., with and without budgetary authoriza- tion F. . . N . . ,, which positions discontinued F. . . iV..., and why? F. . . AT... f... 8. Are increases separately totalled so that they are not lost by inclusion with decreases in other items . . . , or are salary increases of $1000 passed over because a $1000 vacancy or reductions aggregating $1000 leave the total the same . . . ? 9. Is the budget adhered to during the year; i.e., are expenditures in excess of allowances prohibited? Y , N ^ 10. Is elasticity provided by permitting transfers from activities which do not need all the money voted to other activities which require more than was voted? F. . . iV... .^. . . Must request for such trans- 120 Self -Surveys by 'Colleges and Universities fers be made to trustees? F. . . iV. . . f . . . Are all such transfers summarized? Y.., N... f , . , Does the tentative budget show where trans- fers were made last year ? Y . . , N, . , f . . . 11. How many periods are compared in the estimates — two years ... three years . . . ? 12. How detailed are comparisons? 13. How definitely are all changes from this year's plans explained in writing; i.e., are general terms or spe- cific evidences given? Is anticipated registration justified by previous registration? Does an increase *' mainly for instructional force" include increases in salaries? 14. Are blanks furnished to all parties who take part in budget making, so as to make it easy to supply in- formation requested? y. . . iV. . . f... 15. Are new activities considered with a view to their final cost when developed ... or is only the cost of the entering wedge . . . presented ? In the case of state institutions further questions need to be asked separately with respect to the information pre- sented by trustees to the legislature: 1. Is the request printed ... or mimeographed . . . ? 2. Is it distributed to all legislators . . . and public . . . or only to legislative finance committees . . . ? 3. Are specific amounts above or below this year's ap- propriation unescapably presented? F. . . iV... f. . . 4. When stating this year's cost, are accruals — i.e., sums provided but not used — subtracted from the budget allowances ? F . . . N. , , f.,. Requested spending power should be compared with cost in- curred in budget allowances. On the other hand, where cost has exceeded the budget both facts should be stated, so that policy changes since last budget time will be questioned and explained. Budgeting without explaining will help colleges some- Students of engineering help build bridges University of Cincinnati Future engineers work on section gangs In-and-out plan reduces capital costs Cincinnati Budgets — Essential Steps 1 2 1 what, but only slightly. It will prevent accidental deficits, reduce hectic financing, and inure the whole college or- ganization to living within its income, trying to get the ut- most from its income, and looking before it leaps. Those colleges will benefit most from budgeting their resources and plans which use the budget-making period as a season for taking account of stock ; i.e., for challenging new proposals and existing practices. Budgets will not prevent deficits. Columbia voted for 1917 a deficit of $93,000; " this means that the normal income . . . falls far short of meeting the necessary cost of work now established and in progress.'* A possible deficit seen a year ahead is easier to remove than a surprise deficit already created. Few people like to " pay for dead horses." A prospective deficit is the only hard- luck story, i.e., alternative, a college is warranted in telling. To colleges which have not as yet adopted a budget the two best steps for surveyors to take are, first to cite some concrete instances of disadvantages suffered because a bud- get plan is not in use, — i.e., disagreement as to salary ; di- version of funds to meet unexpected deficits; harassing of administrative ofBcers. Secondly, presidents and faculties can be referred to colleges already benefiting from a budget system. Record Aids in College Management reproduced blanks employed by Smith College and Kansas, Idaho, and Minnesota universities. Minimum essential steps include these : 1. A fixed date for consideration of budget estimates by trustees and earlier fixed dates for submission to trustees by the president ; for submission to president or budget committee by departments ; for distributing estimate blanks to all parties whose forecast is needed. 2. Preparation of uniform blanks by a central office which will reduce to the minimum the clerical work required of departments and will contain a maxi- mum of suggestions to departments, — i.e., will fur- nish all the classifications ; will have separate columns 122 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities for separate periods ; will have a separate column for increases ; another for decreases ; another for reasons. For example, Smith College asks departments to re- port only departures from statu quo; the central of- fice has salaries and other facts for the existing or- ganization. Separate blanks are sent for staff changes, equipment changes, supplies, library, etc. 3. Request to all participants that estimates include what they think the college needs to have done or oppor- tunity makes it desirable to do next year, with rea- sons, leaving it to administrative of^cers to discover how much the college can do. Where dollars are es- timated, the numbers or extent of work to be done should be specified. 4. Departmental conferences for frank comparison of alternatives presented for each department. 5. Interdepartmental conferences; i.e., all departments of college or university for comparison of alterna- tives as they affect each group as a whole. 6. Compilation of estimates by clerks, on forms which show clearly changes, increases, or decreases, with reasons. 7. A similar procedure on separate blanks to secure es- timates of resources and income; i.e., probable amounts from tuition, fees, interest, gifts, mill tax. 8. Consideration by president or budget committee of total work program and money program expressed in composite budget estimates, and allotment of revenue among purposes according to necessity and desir- ability. 9. A permanent record of the deliberations of the budget committee and reasons for its allowances and disal- lowances. In few cases will it be impossible to have satisfactory minutes taken. In large institutions stenographic notes are desirable, especially where pub- lic funds are spent and where later stages of budget discussion are apt to involve controversies or special pleas for public support. Stenographic notes, except Budgets — Essential Steps 123 for obviously important matters, need not be tran- scribed; to have them available, however, may save a building or an appropriation. 10. Resubmission of tentative budget, with reasons, to faculty before final submission to trustees for action. This seemingly needless referendum can do no harm and will make for democracy, solidarity, and good spirit. In the few cases where hard feeling may re- sult, it will be no harder because interested parties receive information before rather than after it is too late to appeal and to present new evidence. 11. Submission of the estimate to the trustees, with rea- sons in writing why the president or budget com- mittee have recommended allowances or disallow- ances. Verbal explanations are not enough. Few minds can learn through the ear facts necessary to follow comprehendingly a rapid verbal exposition of a year's program. Trustees should be encouraged to read understandingly a college program before they sponsor it. Where a committee, finance or executive, of trustees has reviewed estimates, its recommenda- tions should come to the full board with unescapable comparisons and with unescapable explanations in writing — and long enough in advance so that rubber stamping its conclusions will not be easier than reading them. 12. The final consideration of the recommended budget by the full board should be made a matter of record. Where questions are asked answers should be taken from records, not hearsay. 13. The final budget as passed should be set up in com- parative form, showing increases and decreases, with reasons. 14. As part of every budget it should be provided that the budget be treated as a sailing order or working pro- gram ; that this program may not be changed without consent of the trustees or persons delegated by them, — i.e., that funds voted for extension should not 124 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities be used for increasing salaries ; that accounting head- ings should conform to budget headings; that unex- pended items should revert to the general fund under control of the trustees and not be disposed of by offi- cers without consulting trustees ; that entering wedges for new activities should not be driven without con- sulting trustees. 15. The budget as voted should be promulgated through- out the college for information, advice, and authoriza- tion to spending officers. Besides helping trustees decide how to spend assured in- come, the properly prepared budget estimate will help trus- tees raise money. Evidence of need is the best money getter. The most convincing evidence of need is the budget esti- mate, through which faculties make clear what they are not yet able to do, the least they should be able to do next year, and the maximum they should like to be authorized to do. One way to hasten proper budget making by colleges would be to require every college to teach the principles of public budget making. Instead of regretting the necessity for explaining to each legislature what higher education is trying to do, should not our state universities welcome the opportunity to make higher education part of the thinking of legislature and public ? 43. Record Forms Are Educational Indexes Few people are interested in blank forms yet. Most people still find them dead, unsuggestive, boring, necessary evils. That, however, is because most people do not yet understand forms. Many surveyors are bored at the thought of looking at forms. Many college administrators are unable to read with understanding the forms through which they themselves are giving account of their own stew- ardship. Yet surveyors cannot afford to overlook the record system. Among the most interesting facts about a college are blank forms ; they tell a great deal more about its man- agement and its men than does many a catalog or report. Not \-et used for instruction Carleton College An important laboratory Berea College Photographs help inform and interest trustees Surveying Record Forms 125 Because some people are so interested in questions about money and students that they forget actual students and real money is not a reflection upon the questions or the forms on which the questions are printed. Show any surveyor familiar with college management and with the ideals of higher education what forms are used by your college in describing where the money goes; who the students are; where they come from; where they go; and what is done for them while there, and he will tell you more about the human and inspirational side of your college than most of its trustees know. Show an accountant the forms used in recording expenditures, purchases, contracts, in- spections, etc., and he can tell you more about the business efficiency of your college than can an examination of months which fails to include business forms. Whatever else, therefore, is done in a survey or self- survey, a searching analysis should be made of record forms as indexes to purposes and achievements. A composite of helpful forms in use by colleges entitled Record Aids in College Management was issued in 1916 by the Institute for Public Service, 51 Chambers Street, New York City. Any college which is found not to possess any part of the information there listed as called for by one or more colleges can be immediately helped by the discovery. While it is possible for a business to have superior methods that are not reflected in its record forms, this hap- pens seldom. Surveyors will, with few exceptions, find that any questions not found on college record forms are not being asked for purposes of administration. It is equally true that record forms may contain questions which ad- ministrators never ask. Finding questions on forms is therefore but a first step and must be followed by a study of filled-out forms and of used information. One great advantage of having forms studied at the out- set of a survey is that without waiting for the survey re- ports the whole machinery of administration may be en- listed in laying the basis for future current self -surveys. It is better to spend time in getting current and future facts 126 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities properly recorded than in unearthing and reclassifying old facts. A greater readiness will be found to admit the inadequacy of record forms than to admit the inadequacy of the work these forms describe. When, therefore, information begins to come currently, it is more comfortable for officers to correct unfavorable conditions disclosed than to keep facing any unfavorable story that may be told by proper records. 1. What records "clear" through the central office? 2. What records are currently kept by university and college, college departments, instructors, and commit- tees that have not heretofore been sent to or inter- preted for the central office? 3. How easy is it for officers wishing forms to secure them ? 4. Are files and indexes provided? F. . . AT. . . 5. Is the college liberal ... or skimpy . . . with the cler- ical aid necessary to make record keeping easy? 6. Are forms themselves devised to minimize clerical work? F... AT... 7. Do those who fill out forms feel that the information recorded is helpfully used . . . ; is obstructively used . . . ; is neglected . . . ? It is not enough that financial reports comply with the technical requirements of the General Education Board, Car- negie Foundation, or stock-exchange practice. There are other friends to be made and informed besides great founda- tions. With few exceptions colleges will continue to de- pend for support and growth upon men and women not able to be interested or informed by a certified-public-account- ant type of financial statement. The idea underlying technical financial statements is par- tially to impart information and partially to prevent misrep- resentation. It is important that colleges shall not treat en- dowments as current contributions and that they shall not classify repairs as permanent improvements or bills owed as bills paid. But in preventing misrepresentation and im- Humanising Financial Reports 127 proper business procedure proper accounting has not in mind making it impossible to convey information to those who receive the report. If a financial statement is uninteresting, it fails to convey information. It has no reason for exist- ing except to transmit certain facts from the college to the minds of donors, possible donors, managers, interested and critical public. The kind of inform.ation which colleges want to transmit is information about college service and not merely about dollars spent. Any audience worth reaching with a financial statement is too important to be left uninterested in the human reasons for which money was received and spent. In answer to questions with regard to a financial report which one university president asked us to analyze, the pres- ident replied in part as follows : " I must say you have made some very valuable sug- gestions. I think with you that human interest facts would help among the people who have but a slight in- terest in financial reports." A few of the questions referred to may prove helpful to self -surveyors : 1. Is it not true that large possible donors, including the General Education Board, are susceptible to the hu- man appeal even if they do not prescribe it? Is it not desirable, therefore, in financial statements iso- lated from educational reports to indicate the number of students involved and to give other human interest facts ? 2. Is not your success in getting out a financial state- ment by June 5 an asset worth specially noting, per- haps in the auditing committee's report? 3. Is it not important also to have an audit of report of service rendered as to accuracy of service statement? Since the auditors are board members, would it not be worth while to indicate the amount of time which they give to this important service ? 128 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 4. While complying with financial requirements, is it not desirable also for a college which has a deficit and needs further endowment not to let even a page or two intervene between the first statement of a fact and the interpretation of it? In other words, after the accountant's statement, would it help get money if you printed explanatory phrases that would make informing and interesting reading to your constitu- ency? For example, may not the phrase " subject to life estates " be so defined as to encourage people to give you other similarly restricted estates ? Is it not true that the words " special endowment " will fail to make any personal appeal, whereas a descriptive phrase or two added might make several of your read- ers want to add to this fund ? 5. As you are one of the very few colleges in the coun- try which report unpaid bills and accounts receivable, would it not be worth while making a point of this in the auditing committee's report? 6. Can you not, with a few additional words after each item, make this a very human page and add chiefly to your appealing power ? For me to read of a Blank fund of $1000 stirs no impulse to give, whereas a Blank fund for helping a high-school girl to college, etc., etc., might make a thousand dollars seem small compared with what it could buy. 7. Is there not many a possible patron who will wonder why, if you get 5J4% or 6% in a dozen cases, you cannot do it in 30? Will an explanation help which would meet the foregoing question and at the same time answer some conservatives who may feel that a 6% loan must be unsafe? 8. Would not your people be interested in the number of pledges received and the number of persons? 9. May not the campaign-expense table do you harm if it is not made clear that the large sums expended brought in the campaign receipts mentioned earlier? Reading Is Not Always Understanding 129 44. Character of Financial Reports Minimum essentials of financial reporting have been set up by the Carnegie Foundation. Several colleges have gone beyond these minimum essentials. Any college which is able to report its financial transactions under the heads listed on page 131 may consider itself reasonably up to date. How much further subclassification should be carried depends upon the volume and variety of business. One fact about financial reporting is universally over- looked ; viz., that a small fraction of the persons who receive financial reports know how, or care to know how, to see the educational forces reflected by a technically correct finan- cial statement. Yet to have technically correct financial statements is becoming more and more essential. Upon them depends the ability bf colleges to serve students and patrons. Unless a way is found to combine flesh-and-blood background with financial statements, many of our colleges will discover that their earnest efforts to deserve support will cause them to lose support. Surveyors can help materially. They can show where financial statements because of length or technicalities chill the reader's interest in work for students. Secondly, they can suggest points at which the financial statement itself, in- cluding the most technical of its technicalities, can be inter- lined, interpolated, and explained so that every patron can understand. For Carleton College and for a special committee of the Association of American Colleges, President D. J. Cowling has been studying principles and practices of report making. For his own report for June 30, 191 6, he uses the general divisions given on page 131. The distinctions between four kinds of receipts — i.e., (a) current income, (b) income for additions to assets, (c) assets reduced, and (d) debt increased — are important to notice and follow. Similarly, on the expenditure side it is important to dis- tinguish between expenses for current purposes and what 130 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities President Cowling calls income for additions to assets. Be- cause many financial statements fail to make these distinc- tions, unnecessary and expensive confusion is caused in the minds of college supporters, especially when legislatures stand as representatives of supporters. One question of President Cowling's letter will interest college fiscal officers ; namely, should receipts from scholar- ship funds appear once to explain source of funds or shall it, in accordance with the practices of private business, appear four times? For example, in the report for Carle- ton College $1280 appears first as a receipt for scholarship purposes; on the expenditure side this same $1280 appears as a charge for scholarship aid ; thus the books balance. A third time, without being segregated, this $1280 appears as tuition received from students. Still a fourth time it ap- pears without segregation as part of salaries and wages or other current expenses. President Cowling asks if there is not unnecessary book- keeping plus an overstatement of operations involved in this method of showing the transactions arising out of interest from scholarship funds. Another practice which President Cowling questions is that of reporting on both sides of the financial statement the total receipts and total expenditures for what are here later called revolving funds. In his own report he pub- lishes the net receipts for the boarding department and the net deficits of two rooming houses. If lectures bring in more than they cost, the net profit only would be reported ; e.g., last year only the net deficit of $360 was reported. The General Education Board, 61 Broadway, New York City, will soon issue for circulation upon request a hand- book on college accounting, which has been two years in preparation and will be based upon visits to many colleges. (Application to the above address will bring you all publica- tions of this foundation.) A Helpful Outline 131 b4 S s a> tk> i V 0) •M ^ (d ?^ O bo .S o V) M c > c« >, 4> 1—1 (A CO a> CO 3 G i-i .s to O .2 (4 b0 .s o G lU -M G (U Vh l-i lU 3 •0 « O CO -M i| u O O G-i3 ~-M ^ 13 O (U C4 < Q •3 « 'd u 2 j2 u .'—- !:i CO ^c s a 2 G 4^ «3 »-l .4-1 ■*',"»H • « .i-i •— 'i__j CO ■4->i— ' *•> •— ■•^ CO <1^ j3 C C 2 ^ uww a a a o G w a us -o G V ti ti « . «j •<-< rt»G to CO U d o «-l I-I o bO .a G "^ a a . rt .tJ.t! w ■♦J i__ii i-jri CU CO CO 2* ,/ «J ■}:; ^ 9*42 O .&o "• «> O; O CO CO M-. 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CQ.^Xi y •gc-gccy^c^-ii^ij .s rt.s y* rt u o.5'''.2 w C t. rr !>, CO «•- "'2 *^ '"'^SySto^ te,«!2^Ccnto 5" O E rt w S'o'O y 5* ^5 C _, rt y fl 3.t; CO o >»" Cu.5 rt 3 y yrt^ -Mg^rt 6*^ Ji 3 &•+: K y S"^ ^ y O « ** « u Wi s a So 8 ^o y 4-> (3 .. CO Ih ^yjo y y y*" CO ^ g-^^y6 rt c'S'g ••S O . "O c bo. y £3 .Sf.2 4} y -S => C O o *• d Ph o ;sa -oiJ c o rt** o ? o c ** rt .^.^ •5 y < bo g I 3 rt o. 3 y Ih rt y2iJc x.rt« iic as ♦ j3 rt •^ O CO G s, 2 y bo i^ 5 *J s f>>o ♦'.a •2 y ** . JS ij "• y ra^a ^ y S ^cgfca <; rt CO +1 V ^ 1 —r 3 .2 •=! ** e ?, y .rs a a .^.2 ** o'iy.2 y i;^ !>» O. y ^111 232 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities circle, of the town, or the state ; i.e., what community chores do they help do ? 8. How much money is spent upon teaching citizenship? 9. What percentage is this of the total instructional bud- get? 10. If no money is spent directly, what amount of energy (outside of budget allowances) is given by the faculty to teaching citizenship ? 11. If incorporation of citizenship courses is not immedi- ately feasible, should greater use be made of the stu- dent debating and literary societies and self-govern- ment association, with or without special credit for such work ? 83. Cultural vs. Practical Courses The supposedly irreconcilable conflict between cultural and practical courses is being reconciled, thanks to the very simple and universal human objection to conceding either that the highest culture is not practical or that the really practical is not also cultural. It must be admitted that thus far the exponents of cultural subject instruction find it hard to grant that practical subjects are also cultural and that teachers of practical courses find it hard to admit that cul- tural subjects are practical. Neither set of exponents will admit for one minute that there is any lack of either cultural or practical in its own subjects. The Wisconsin survey tried to secure a line-up of each faculty member with respect to each of his courses. Almost unanimously instructors stated that cultural and practical were the same or were means and end. New life has been given to this controversy by three movements: (i) work- study-play plan and learning via doing propaganda, in ele- mentary and secondary education; (2) the rapid extension of professional and vocational two-year and four-year courses in colleges, including recognition by many high- grade medical and law schools of two years pre-medical and pre-law work in college; (3) the iconoclastic propaganda undertaken by the General Education Board under conditions "CuUurar' vs. ''Practical Courses 233 that insure unlimited newspaper space for protests against the so-called cultural or disserviceable, and extensive maga- zine discussions pro and con. By addressing the General Education Board, 61 Broadway, New York City, the reader may secure without cost Occasional Publications^ which de- cry the cultural and appeal for practical, related-to-life courses (together with numerous other educational docu- ments such as the Maryland School Survey, Gary School Survey, Annual Reports of the General Education Board, etc.). For condensed protest against the position taken by the General Education Board and others who decry the cul- tural courses the reader is referred to an article in the Atlantic Monthly, November, 1916, by Alfred E. Stearns of Phillips-Andover, which it is hoped the General Educa- tion Board will have reprinted with other answers to its position for equally wide distribution. What the controversy really shows is that the world in- side and outside of college wants works, not faith; wants results, not arguments, both from cultural and practical sub- jects. What President Butler says of Latin and Greek the world is beginning to say of every other subject, including social sciences and the most practical of practical subjects ; viz., that unless " they are to become museum pieces, those who teach them must catch and transmit more of the real spirit and meaning of the classics than they have been in the habit of doing." Experience is fast proving that no subject is less cultural than a cultural subject badly taught, and no subject is less practical than a practical subject badly taught ; that no sub- ject is more practical than a cultural subject well taught and properly mastered, and no subject more cultural than a prac- tical subject well taught and properly mastered. Individual colleges will do well to have each instructor of each department and central committees of departments go through the curriculum step by step and state in writing I. Why each course is there. 234 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 2. With respect to what relations during and after col- lege each course aims to be practical. 3. With respect to what relations during and after col- lege each course aims to be cultural. 4. The definiteness with which cultural and practical aims of each course are expressed in the syllabus and kept in mind by supervisors. [The thing without which all other conditions to efficiency are vain. A. D. Y.] 5. The extent to which the work of each student in each class shows that the cultural and practical aims are being realized. 6. The number of failures and of unsatisfactory grades in each subject, with evidence to show how far fail- ures were due to the cultural or practical aims and how far to method of instruction. 7. A comparison of survival, non-survival, high grades, low grades, and failures of cultural, non-utilitarian, not-related-to-life courses, with the same facts for practical, utilitarian, related-to-life courses. Each in- structor has a reason for helping this study. 8. A comparison of foregrounds and backgrounds of in- structors and a similar comparison of outside activi- ties of students in different groups, to see how far results are due to what the instructor is and has to give rather than to the paper aim, paper content, or paper method of courses. [Instructors must be convinced that other things than personality and knowledge of content are es- sential to efficiency and that many students require impressionistic instruction. A. D. Y.] 9. A similar comparison of college with college in re- spect to survival, scholarship, and failure. By defi- nition, medical, law, and agricultural colleges teach only practical subjects. Is their holding power supe- rior? Are results of their clinics, moot courts, and farm labor superior to their results from lecture and textbook courses? Concrete Tests of Cultural Courses 235 [This is admirable. It should perhaps bring out still more clearly the fact that different methods or forms of instruction are effective for different pur- poses; e.g., the laboratory work effective for ideals and habits and the demonstration work effective for a proper centering of information. A. D. Y.] 10. Grading must be analyzed to see whether mark dif- ferences mean different standards by instructors or different interest among students. 11. The college and after-college success according to ac- cepted standards of 100 freshmen of cultural or near- cultural courses may be compared with the results of 100 freshmen equally graded in practical or near- practical courses. Colleges will make contributions to education if wherever possible they make such com- parison, not merely of 100 freshmen but of all fresh- men during a period of, say, ten years. [These studies should be more scientific, through the elimination of all other varying factors than the one investigated. For example, to infer as Nearing does that the relatively high number of successful Harvard graduates may indicate the efficiency of a general culture is unsafe, because so large a propor- tion of Harvard men come from homes giving un- usual opportunity for success in after life, quite in- dependent of type of education. A social group should be compared with itself and Harvard with Harvard, with variation in only the courses taken. A. D. Y.] 12. Alumni testimony may be sought via classified ques- tions which will help successful alumni review their own experiences before, during, and after college, in efforts to discover in what ways the cultural and prac- tical emphasis of different courses contributed to their life work. [This sort of test I believe is unsafe. (See clos- ing paragraphs of my lecture on " Sanity and Defi- 236 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities niteness in Education.")] If unsafe for concluding this study would be safe as a cue and question fur- nisher. 84. Fitting Courses to Local Needs Why, pray, should a college course be fitted to the locality where it is given? Perhaps to the majority of college in- structors the suggestion seems absurd. How can a sane man fit the French Revolution, or calculus, or Cicero, or zoology to the local needs of a Southern state university or a New England private college? Nevertheless, self -surveyors will find this an extremely helpful question to ask, because to a degree not yet suspected college instructors are doing their utmost to fit their sub- ject matter and method of treatment to local needs and ca- pacities. Student understanding of sciences is tested by ask- ing students to analyze local foods, help build local roads and bridges, draw plans for local buildings, write for local newspapers, survey local swamps, vivisect local animals, an- alyze local flowers, give the historical background for local institutions. Every time a locality is used as a laboratory instruction is related and fitted to local needs. Using local schools for observation and practice work or directed teach- ing is fitting instruction to local needs. When law students are required to take six months in a law office, agricultural students to work six months on a farm, library students to work eight weeks in public libraries, medical students to help conduct clinics, instruction is being fitted to local needs. The digressions mentioned on page 225 are interpreted by students as efforts to fit chemistry to local needs. Wherever faculties attempt to tmderstand the localities which pay their salaries, furnish their students, and employ their graduates, and wherever college instructors attempt to understand the human minds they are trying to instruct, they will consciously and unconsciously employ illustrations and require applications which spring from and fit local needs. Whether the instructor tries to know his own locality or whether he fails to see any difference or be himself any dif- rltl^^^H 1 IgPO 3 1? K^' i 1 1^1 ^^H h9Hh ^^^^^1 ^^^■■ira mUIIm TP^Ilj i^^BI HnH HBB^I ' ■^gH ^HH "^iiw^H [Mj^fe P**"*"'"'""" "-''' "* WBH ami^fJBmm ■HH A-P--S HI^m M-^""^ .^ x_^ ^5 M m . .:^^^ 1. 1 ^ 1 I \ Dayton Bureau of Research Teaching taxpayers about city government's results by ocular demonstration Dayton Field training for public service via preparing exhibits Does Compulsion Sacrifice Attraction? 22^y ferent when before 30 students in North Carolina and when before 30 students in North Dakota, is a vital question for self -surveyors to answer. Universal principles lose no force from being applied and illustrated so as to fit local receptivity via local need. 85. Holding Power of Subjects, Compulsory and Elective What courses students register for when free to choose is an index to needs and inclinations of students, attractions and limitations of courses, and efficiency of instruction, which no college can afford to leave unsurveyed. For rea- sons similar to those which prompt health departments to keep pin maps of cases of transmissible diseases, it behooves colleges to keep pin maps of student preferences. For a given semester it is easy to put on a schedule dif- ferent-colored pins which will indicate 1. Those who have unqualifiedly elected a class. 2. Those who have elected that class from among several in a compulsory course. 3. Those compelled to take it because there is nothing else to choose; i.e., alternatives that are never given or are omitted this term. 4. Those who are compelled to take it because of future prescriptions; i.e., as a prerequisite for a course wanted later. Why the results of such a survey are what they are will call for many other questions. One complaint is almost universal; viz., that courses for- merly regarded as indispensable to training and culture are now avoided by students unless compulsory requirements prevent free choice. Somehow or other compulsion has failed to increase the drawing power or holding power of these subjects. This might not be serious if students meekly accepted regulations and took what was offered them. In- stead they are leaving colleges which prescribe certain courses and going to other colleges where prescriptions are fewer or nil, or at least where prescriptions themselves seem 238 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities to fit the program which the student has selected for him- self. Recent actions by two faculties accentuate the need for nation-wide surveys of compulsory courses. Wisconsin's faculty has adopted a course that does not require foreign languages. Columbia has done away with all degrees but the B.A. and has taken the position that whatever credits are offered by a student entitle him " fairly to the possession of that degree which has historically stood for a liberal train- ing "if they have been " serious, well-organized, coherent, and catholic." What Columbia is strong enough to volun- teer every college in this country will be compelled to debate and to consider on the basis of local fact rather than tra- dition. If the contentions which have heretofore bolstered certain subjects with compulsion are sound, there are countable, de- scribable, local evidences. If no local reasons exist, perhaps a survey will show that there are local reasons either for setting up an entirely new list of compulsory subjects or for abandoning all compulsions except one; viz., that every stu- dent shall select courses which fit one another and fit him. [As our study of education values becomes more determin- ing, it is only selected parts of subjects that will be " com- pulsory ": (i) Essential needs and methods both specific- ally and generally useful — often contributed with equal efficiency and economy by selected parts of otherwise widely different subjects. (2) Those parts that have unique value either in the sense of specific usefulness not realizable through other subjects or in their high relative efficiency or economy in the development of something that other sub- jects or parts of subjects cannot do so well. A. D. Y.] " Unless Greek and Latin are to become museum pieces, those who teach them must catch and transmit more of the real spirit and meaning of the classics than they have been in the habit of doing." These words are President Butler's. They suggest a number of questions for surveyors : I. Is the spirit put into work by instructors who have compulsory subjects noticeably different from that Competition Is the Life of Culture 239 shown by instructors who have only elective work? 2. Is there a noticeable difference in the spirit of the same instructors when teaching compulsory subjects and when teaching elective subjects? 3. How many students now registered were compelled to take each of the alternative compulsory courses ? 4. How many students have registered for advance elec- tives in subjects in which they earlier took compulsory courses ? 5. Do similar facts for courses entirely elective indicate any difference in the holding power of elective over complete or partial compulsion ? 6. Is the student's interest in the courses which he had in mind when he took the prerequisite elementary courses noticeably different from the interest he took in the prerequisite ? 7. Is German or French better taught than Greek or Latin ? 8. What subjects are students electing in largest num- bers? 9. What evidence is there that they are electing subjects rather than instructors ? 10. What evidence is there that changes in popularity of subjects are due to changes in social and industrial conditions or to changes in the number of trained teachers sent out to preparatory schools by colleges ? 11. What subjects are being taught for no other assigned reason except that they are part of traditional learn- ing? 12. How far is pressure to retain or to expand compulsory subjects due to faculty members now teaching these subjects? Another set of questions relates to what actually happens in courses compulsorily taken. The trend of opinion might have been different as to " taking " Latin or " being ex- posed " to German had men acquired facility to feel, think, speak, or write in those languages. If all students of com- pulsory subjects obtained A-plus by both class grading and 240 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities world grading, fewer questions would be raised. It is nat- ural that questions are raised as to the value of courses com- pulsorily taken from which students secure failure, D or C, with little or nothing in memory or power to compensate for time spent and other studies missed. Many friends of the classics, foreign languages, and other compulsory subjects, including English, mathematics, and Bible study, believe that these subjects would benefit from free competition; that they need no compulsion; and that more students will elect them and benefit from them if no students are required to take them, and if instructors are required to adapt them to present-day needs rather than to former practices. Specific testimony from a number of col- leges would help test this belief. Every subject will benefit from taking count of stock and testing its own holding power; i.e., by comparing the num- ber taking each course with the number whose preparation makes them eligible to elect it. 86. Graduate Work Offered Since academic preferment and the giving of graduate courses are more and more closely associated in the academic mind, it is not surprising that instructors want as quickly as possible to have their names opposite graduate courses. It helps to have one's name in the catalog as giving a grad- uate course. Who away from college or out of one's depart- ment will ask whether the course is given and how many take it, with what satisfaction? It is useless to advise that every college refuse to print offers of graduate work when it is either unable to give such work or is certain that no one will ask for it. An offer for which there is no taker may be just as sincere as the offer for which there are too many takers. Who knows but that next time one or several stu- dents will apply! Once having a demand, there is an ap- pealing power which will justify renewing the offer and will strengthen an appeal for funds to make it possible to give the work. x\fter feeling sympathy for offers of graduate work where Mis-advertising Graduate Work 241 the wish is father to the thought, it still remains advisable for self -surveyors to look for evidences that their college is doing itself and graduate students injury 1. By advertising courses when it knows that it cannot give them, that the advertised instructor will not be present, or is already overloaded. 2. By advertising initial courses which it can give with- out making it clear that it is unable to follow up those courses with other graduate courses. 3. By encouraging students to register for graduate work when they must fill out their time with undergraduate courses or by undesired graduate courses or by thresh- ing over old straw, either in courses repeated or in sub- stantial repetitions under different names. 4. By offering as graduate work courses which are not advance work but elementary work, and so recog- nized avowedly or tacitly by admitting elementary stu- dents to them. 5. By attempting to develop graduate work equally in all departments in the face of unequal ability to give the courses. 6. By failing in advertisement and practice to make it clear that graduate work is offered to each student conditionally; i.e., only in case that he proves ability to do work of graduate — i.e., advanced — grade. 87. Professional Courses Extensive studies have been made of four professional courses — medicine, engineering, law, and agriculture — by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and may be obtained upon application to 476 Fifth Avenue, New York City. These studies were partially cooperative ; i.e., questionnaires were sent to colleges with respect to equipment, requirements, organization, etc. For law and en- gineering, college committees assisted. Any self -survey of professional courses would well begin with a study of the questionnaire and the reports of these special studies. Prob- 242 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities ably in 19 17 the Carnegie Foundation will also report upon normal-school work in Missouri and Indiana, for which pro- fessional field the results of study of eight normal schools in Wisconsin together with suggestions for self -study have been summarized in Self-Surveys by Teacher-Training Schools (Allen and Pearse). The Carnegie Foundation studies thus far published have had to do with questions of policy, organization, and equip- ment rather than with the execution of a program and equip- ment which any college actually possesses. The medical study, for example, which was far reaching in its results was made without observing medical instruction, and in a large part without testing statements of colleges for accuracy, completeness, or over-completeness. Once having established a professional course, self-survey steps here suggested in detail for various phases of college management need to be taken. The principles of scientific analysis and description are just the same whether one is sur- veying a medical school or freshman work in cultural sub- jects. Special stress is needed upon the following points : 1. Adequate equipment and organization do not mean adequate instruction and training in professional courses any more than in undergraduate courses. Therefore any survey which stops with equipment and organization may easily reach unsound conclusions. 2. The fact that three great donors to professional train- ing — Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, General Education Board, and Rockefeller Foundation — have influence in proportion to the need and cupidity of professional schools makes it urgent that the country shall take double precautions before accepting without analysis the findings of fact and of recommendation which emanate from these hoped-for donors. 3. Opposition by donors to physical separation of so- called theoretical — i.e., classroom and laboratory — instruction from so-called clinical or field instruction in professional courses should be subordinated to the Professional Courses Need Surveys 243 needs and possibilities of each professional school, its students, and its supporting locality. 4. The cooperative plan of using the laboratories of in- dustry and schools (page 228) is not more needed but is more obviously needed in professional courses. Surprisingly little scientific study has been made by colleges of the few efforts thus far made to apply this cooperative principle. 5. Methods of ehmination need special study; elimina- tion from applicants of all w^ho do not present strong presumptive evidence of personality and capacities re- quired in the profession; elimination early in the freshman course; fair — i.e., ruthless — elimination in later years up to the day of graduation, even though such elimination carries with it an indictment of the school's failure to have discovered earlier a student's unfitness. [Elimination of students who fall below standard is essential in professional courses but unprofitable in general training which aims to promote democracy by raising the general intellectual level. A. D. Y.] 6. The nature and extent of efforts to analyze causes of failure and weaknesses of those eliminated and of those who remain needs the same jkind of study which is suggested for non-professional courses. 7. Whether minimum essentials and standard tests are currently applied to instructor, instruction, and in- structee should be shown. 8. How far slovenly professional ethics or practice is en- couraged by conduct of quizzes, by examination ques- tions, and by grading needs intensive surveying. An experience as proctor of several medical examinations made me shudder for years at the thought of accept- ing medical advice. I cannot now see a prescription without remembering a senior who graduated in spite of answers that included one of which he later ejaculated : " My God, I gave that baby enough to kill an elephant." There are certain minimum as- 244 Self Surveys by Colleges and Universities sentials of every profession with respect to which the passing mark is obviously lOO and not 70. 9. How professional schools keep in touch with their alumni and whether they study and emphasize unclas- sified averages, brilliant exceptions, or the specific facts as to each graduate's progress need study. 10. Continuation instruction including field examination, in absentia questions and advice will come to be min- imum essentials. Normal-school leaders, for ex- ample, are urging that in fairness to their product and to their client, the public, normal-school supervision should continue through six months or a year or per- haps longer of actual classroom teaching or school management. [You cannot emphasize too much the responsi- bility that any institution giving professional train- ing assumes for the continued efficiency of its gradu- ates. Should there not be a legal requirement for periodic renewals of certificates entitling graduates to practice which should not be given without the approval of the institution from which they graduate or one of equal rank? A. D. Y.] 11. How the rewards, requirements, and difficulties of each profession are described in announcements and catalogs and in courses is a subject for surveyors. 12. Whether professional training is regarded as part of universal training for citizenry and for service is of first importance. The world has made up its mind that it can do without professional ability, however eminent, which fails to consider the public as its prin- cipal client against whose interest it is never free to accept a retainer of money or preferment. (See ad- dress of President Elihu Root of the American Bar Association, annual meeting, 1916.) 88. The College Library In his report for 19 16 President Butler suggests that col- lege libraries exist not for themselves or for any direct rela- Library Efficiency Tests 245 tion to students but to facilitate the work of college depart- ments. He further suggests that students might profitably be given courses in the use of libraries, — as is done by many small colleges. These suggestions prompt questions for surveyors : 1. Who determines what books shall go into the college library and on what conditions books may go out; i.e., how far are these decisions matters of initiative by faculty, of conference between librarian and fac- ulty, or of decision by the librarian alone? 2. What determines the amount of money available to the library? Of the total how much goes for current journals? How much to new books? How much for postage in order to secure matter for free distri- bution? How much for research sources? Are li- brary appropriations budgeted? Are fines enforced? 3. What proportion of the total library expenditure is for instructional purposes and what proportion for faculty or graduate research ? 4. What steps does the library take to call attention of faculties to live matter and helpful suggestions which come in current journals or in library reviews? 5. Is it permitted to clip out of magazines for topical filing any matter considered helpful by instructors? [Owing to the necessity for permanent and un- mutilated files of periodicals, shouldn't your ques- tion take the following form: " Are extra copies of periodicals provided from which clippings may be made?" A. D. Y.] 6. What rules govern use of books and magazines by students ? Do they encourage library patronage ? Is service prompt? Is it agreeable? Is it competent? Is it happy? Is it interested? 7. Is it easy to have books come to places where students and faculty gather or must students and faculty go to a central place where books are stored? 8. In what ways is the librarian notified of respective demands for books by different courses ? 246 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 9. In what ways are librarian and staff enlisted in help- ing students learn how to study, how to use reference works, and how to digest materials ? 10. What complaints or suggestions have the faculty with respect to the central library and departmental li- braries? How complete is the file of official reports for the city and state where the college is located ; for colleges, particularly those of similar size and pro- gram; for learned societies, educational and profes- sional conventions ; for civic agencies ; for the United States Bureau of Education and other departments, etc. ; i.e., is it recognized that books are a decade or generation behind current reports? 11. Does the library equipment make efficiency easy? Are there enough bulletin boards? Are they con- veniently placed? Are they used? Is the lighting adequate? May students go to the shelves? Are documents most used that are nearest? 89. Testing Efficiency of Individual Courses Self -surveying of colleges and universities presumes self- surveying of instruction in each subject taught. Unless gen- eralizations and averages are to suffice, it is necessary to work out methods of testing the purpose, content, and in- structional method of each course. If a subject is taught only because it paves the way for a succeeding subject, that fact will appear. If a subject is expected to pay-as-it-goes, that fact will appear, with reasons. Ultimately college experience, conferences of instructors, results of self-surveys will make it possible to list for college subjects standard tests such as may now be listed for ele- . mentary arithmetic, writing, composition, etc. Such a list- ing would not be possible as a mere expression of some one educator's opinion and experience. It is suggested that col- lege faculties, departments, and individual instructors ask the following questions about each term course : I. What part of it is here because students need it ; what part because instructors wish to teach it ? Why New Courses Are Given 247 2. Is its length determined by its subject matter or by the length of term? 3. Who suggested that it be given ? 4. What college officers passed upon its plan before it was incorporated? [Does it announce and actually develop definite forms of general training and special social ends, — under such heads as ideals and incentives, vocabu- lary, associations essential to varied mental inter- connections, habits and systems of habits, and gen- eral application or transfer with the conditions favorable to it? The mere enumeration of such definite claims for a course would go far toward insuring them- A. D. Y.] 5. Have minimum essentials for it been listed? 6. In what ways is it specially fitted to its students ? 7. In what ways does it use students' experience ? 8. In what ways is it fitted to the locality's needs ? 90. Admission Requirements Standardization of admission requirements has made great headway, due largely to the requirements of the Carnegie Foundation. Few colleges now admit students to collegiate standing who do not present 14 to 15 *' standard units " of preparatory credits. The gap between nominal requirements and actual prac- tice will be found considerable in most colleges. Moreover, the minimum line, 14 to 15 " standard units," has been found an inadequate protection against unprepared students. Rec- ord Aids in College Management exhibits best practices. Exceptions to the rule can be easily listed at the beginning of a self -survey. For each person admitted with fewer than the advertised standard, the reasons for the exception should be stated, and the results of it; i.e., whether he or she was able to carry the work satisfactorily and whether his or her presence subtracted from the efficiency of other students and faculty. [In some cases, because " three hours a week for thirty weeks in a year" aren't tour hours for forty 248 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities weeks, they are given no credit whatever. Therefore the following : ** Is partial credit given for a three-hour and thirty-week course that ought to have been a four-hour and forty- week one? " A. D. Y.] Because possession of standard credits has not meant pos- session of health, character, ability, and desire to profit from collegiate work, colleges are making two significant depar- tures: they are requiring specific evidence of character, health, and ability to do college work ; they are accepting stu- dents who present evidence of ability to do work satisfac- torily even if they lack standard credits. In other words, colleges are swinging back to their original idea that person- ality preparation, not academic preparation, is the valid test. Blanket certificates in vague general terms are giving way to specifications of work done and of personality. It is not enough to know credits earned. Colleges want to know the amount of ground covered, the number of weeks studied, and the number of recitation periods a week. Where this degree of specification is not required, three hours a week, thirty weeks in a year are credited equally with five hours a week, forty wee'ks in a year. The ground covered serves as a check against crediting time spent irrespective of benefits received. Finally, the student's rating is found important as a leverage for a preparatory school and as a qualification for college, because many colleges are frankly stating that they do not wish to bother with students who were satisfied during preparatory days with mediocre, poor work. Every college will do well to compare at once the ques- tions it asks about students applying for admission with the questions asked by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Vassar, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Wellesley, all of which require three kinds of evidence : 1. A school report covering the entire record of subjects and grades for four years. 2. A specific character survey (detailed in Record Aids). 3. Four comprehensive written examinations. Columbia threatens to go further; other schools will dare Admission Requirements Improve 249 follow now that they are less dependent upon the Carnegie Foundation. The dean of its faculty of political science and pure science declares that limiting admissions to persons who seek degrees and who present evidence of having com- plied with the standard unit conventions cripples a university because it restricts the freedom of both student and teacher and holds it back from an opportunity ; i.e., " the great busi- ness of public instruction and of directly shaping public opinion.'' Dean Woodbridge recommends that admission be granted " on the most liberal conditions possible and in ac- cord with the public demand upon the university.'* When Columbia turns heretic, it is safe for smaller col- leges to abandon money-made or tradition-made standards for entrance requirements and to adopt vision-made stand- ards that will accept personality and alDility preparedness no matter what academic preparation may have been. Before changing their standards with or without precedent and moral support, colleges and institutions should " play safe " ; i.e., analyze their own local experience, and outline and en- force a higher specific standard of personality preparedness. President Burton's report for Smith College 1915-1916 contains (pages 25 to 39) an illuminating discussion of the new admission requirements agreed upon by Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith. The following nine reasons for adopting a new plan are elaborated : 1. To eliminate the evils of the certificate system — for the sake of the schools, the students, and the colleges. 2. To provide a method which would admit any student who was prepared to do college work and which would exclude the others. 3. To put emphasis where it belongs and to have entrance to college determined not by success in passing ex- aminations, not by skill in securing certificates, but by giving evidence of ability to do college work. 4. To affirm the belief that " conditions " for freshmen are an unmitigated evil. 5. To leave secondary schools entirely free to arrange 250 Self -Surveys hy Colleges and Universities their curricula and follow whatever sequence in stud- ies may seem to them wise. 6. To recognize the value and convenience both to schools and colleges of a uniform method of admission. 7. To learn what only the four comprehensive examina- tions can show; i.e., in English or history, in a for- eign language, in mathematics, chemistry, or physics, in groups selected by the applicant. 8. To take the next step in the solution of the far more difficult and perplexing question of the content of en- trance requirements. 9. To let the person who is most concerned, the person for whom schools and colleges actually exist, have a genuine opportunity to express herself at her best and to submit the evidence which she considers does her the fullest justice. For Notes or Questions by the Reader p VIII INSTRUCTIONAL EFFICIENCY 91. Method of Selecting Instructors RESENT instruction will not be materially benefited by asking how present instructors were selected. The quality of future instruction, however, may be appreciably raised by learning, analyzing, and reporting steps taken and standards used when selecting the most recent additions to the faculty. 1. What steps were taken to learn about a large number of persons specially fitted for each position? 2. How many colleagues in other institutions were noti- fied? How many public-school, private-school, or normal-school teachers, qualified as to scholarship and teaching efficiency, were notified? 3. How specifically were the duties and opportunities of the new position advertised ? 4. How specifically were the qualifications of person- ality, scholarship, and teaching defined and applied when considering candidates ? 5. How specifically was a premium placed upon research reputation or promise? Yale unblushingly reports that " nothing is considered more important than ef- fective and inspiring teaching." In too many instances mere propinquity determines the selection of college instructors — as of wives and husbands. Professor A has a liking for Mr. B^ who has tried hard in his courses, or gives promise of research ability. The po- sition opens ; Mr. B is there, he is likable. Without analyz- ing Mr. B's work and qualities with special reference to teaching requirements and without seeking five or twenty competitors with whom to measure him. Professor A pro- pinqs and Mr. B joins the faculty. Estimates of character are employed by Dean Elmer E. Jones of Northwestern University's School of Education. 251 252 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities The blank permits ten different shades or degrees, with remarks as to each of the following 24 character elements, originally listed by Dean F. P. Keppel of Columbia Uni- versity : Physical health Mental balance Intellect Emotions Will Quickness Intensity- Breadth Energy Judgment Originality Perseverance Reasonableness Clearness Independence Cooperativeness Unselfishness Kindliness Cheerfulness Refinement Integrity Courage Efficiency Leadership Record Aids in College Management shows that when recommending students as teachers for high schools or as employees elsewhere, several colleges take pains to specify personality elements which promise success. For example, Wellesley asks in reports about Quality of instruction Skill and management of pupils Social relation with pupils Attitude toward superior officers General attitude toward community Manners, dress, etc. The University of Wisconsin reports as to five degrees (very inferior, inferior, average, superior, very superior) of 18 different personality qualifications : I. Personal and phys- 7. Affability 14. Promptness ical fitness 8. Enthusiasm IS- Open-mindedness 2. Force of character 9. Conscientiousness 16. Judgment (com 3- Voice 10. Originality mon sense) 4. Sympathy II. Initiative 17. Use of English 5- Tact 12. Leadership 18. Interest in teach 6. Vivacity 13. Capacity for work ing Again, regarding high-school teachers who wish other posi- tions, questions are asked such as all colleges will undoubt- edly come to ask about candidates for teaching positions on college faculties; e.g., as to 1. Preparation of subject matter 2. Skill in presentation 3. Skill in questioning 4. Ability to hold attention 5. Quality of results secured 6. Skill in classroom management 7. 8. Skill in assignment Interest in the life of the com- 9. munity Interest in the life of the school 10. Moral influence specific QuaMcations for Teaching 253 Two other interesting precautions are taken; viz., refer- ences are asked to indicate whether the teacher is best fitted for a small high school or a large high school, normal school, or a college as supervisor or superintendent; finally, a con- fidential statement is requested to " cover any reservation which you desire to make." Faculties with " sot " habits will seldom welcome a per- sonality camera which will analyze their physical appearance, voice, manner, etc. Few faculties, however, will fail to agree that it is desirable when adding a new person to their number to put a premium on voice, physical appearance, and reputation which express vigor, health, poise, cooperative spirit, etc. The strongest candidates will not suffer from having their personality characteristics broken into elements and each element into degrees as per the card on page 257, A question which the Wisconsin Library School has asked of librarians who have supervised practice students, suggests this for colleges: Would you employ this candidate for work in your own college similar to that of our position here? Another helpful question is: How far do you ex- pect this candidate to rise in the profession of teaching if given opportunity? Every question listed on page 270 for testing efficiency of classroom instruction can without embarrassment be asked about the previous teaching of candidates, especially if the would-be employer goes whenever possible, as he should, to see the would-be instructor at work with students. The habit cannot long survive of college presidents going east or west to interview a candidate, not at work with students, but at a hotel or club! Among the earmarks of inefficient instruction which with- out embarrassment can be looked for when comparing can- didates not yet on a faculty, are those mentioned and sug- gested on page 258. 92. Observation of Classroom Instruction Against survey visiting of college classes it is urged that definite tests for instruction of college grades have not been 254 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities formulated; that if formulated they would result in la- mentably one-sided instruction ; that there would be a tend- ency to apply the same test to instructors in different de- partments; that if efficiency tests were applied to each instructor even in one department or subject the result would be monotony of influence upon students ; that any test which would be satisfactory would be so complex that it would require greater discretion in the persons who applied than colleges could insure ; that by other methods than class visit- ing instruction is already better tested; that visiting would check the spontaneity of instructors; that no man under surveillance could exert the right influence upon students be- cause he could not be himself ; that a visited teacher would be more pitiable than a public speaker who is constantly followed at every performance as to thought, delivery, and personal appeal to the audience ; that a person who knows he is being tested will lose the power that comes from absorp- tion in his task ; that what his students do when they go on to advanced courses shows the instructor's ability ; that class visitation means censorship of personality more disastrous, because more insidious, than any censorship of doctrine ; that only subservient instructors with theatrical ability would show what supervisors desire; that straightforward and in- dependent instructors would find supervision intolerable ; that men of strong personality would leave an institution where classroom visiting prevailed; that the tendency would be to apply to university teaching and college teaching the mechanical tests worked out for elementary and secondary teaching; that better teachers will develop even under administrative neglect than under administrative nag- ging. For classroom visiting there is equally emphatic demand. President Butler of Columbia says that poor teaching in universities is due in large part to the " bad tradition which so largely prevents the inspection and supervision of the work of young teachers by their elders." Professor Barrett Wendell declares that professional standards are higher in French universities than in America and that even rectors Need for Classroom Visiting 255 of French universities are *' objects of a supervision as close as that applied to their subordinates of whatever rank." This supervision, he says, is obtained '' by reports supple- mented by field visits and classroom observations." Many college departments, especially in science, have young in- structors visited while at work with students in laboratory, recitation, lecture, or quiz. Checking instruction by later progress of students in other studies outside college is check- ing too late at too long range. What the catalog, syllabus, instructor, or instructor's suc- cessor says about a course will obviously present fewer op- portunities to help the instructor than will what the instruc- tor and students do while the course is being given. With- out more knowledge about work done in classrooms than is frequently possessed by departments in colleges there is little encouragement to be a first-class teacher. Absence of knowledge about classroom ef^ciency means failure to dis- tinguish degrees of teaching ability, — great, medium, lit- tle. This means that superiority competes with mediocrity and inferiority in the dark, with the result that superiority is not encouraged. Any college which fails to discover in- efBciency will also fail to discover and reward ef^ciency. Incidentally any president or dean will be greatly helped in understanding his own problems and opportunities if he goes to classrooms for the good such visiting will do himself. If helpfulness rather than appraisal is the purpose of survey or self-survey, the reasons against classroom visiting lose force and the reasons for such visiting gain force. Whatever may be possible or expedient for an outside survey, it is clear that a self -survey will include observations of classroom instruction. Colleagues will visit one another. Subordinates will visit superiors for inspiration and for credit. Older men, out of friendship or when officially dele- gated, will visit younger men. Deans will visit to keep themselves in touch and to be sure that they are backing the right man or not acting from insufficient knowledge when proposing dismissal, promotion, or salary increase. Special committees will, under instruction from the faculty, visit 256 Self 'Surveys by Colleges and Universities classes as a means of answering questions which are agreed upon in advance as essential to discovering what and how instruction is given. Special inquiries will be made to settle controversies or to test proposals for changing educational methods. Alumni will, with consent of faculty or from out- side pressure, visit classes. For state-supported institutions the special survey will un- doubtedly find it necessary to answer questions about in- struction with facts gained by observing instruction. The presidents of three Ohio universities visited classes with Director H. L. Brittain of the Ohio survey and marked the facts observed on the survey card. Five instructors of the department of education began visiting with the University of Wisconsin survey. When classes are observed, shall surveyors report what they see or what they think about it? Experience in supervising everywhere else answers that only when supervisors state the fact base of their judgment is their judgment accepted. On the other hand, if surveyors state what they see in class it will usually not be necessary to say what they think about it. The type of fact to be noted uniformly when visiting classes can be worked out and agreed upon in advance by surveyor and surveyed. Averages and net balances will be avoided. The com- mendable will not be balanced against the uncommendable in an effort to see which appears oftenest. Averaging ex- cellent with deficient is worse than useless, because it mis- leads responsible officers and leads to inaction where facts standing out by themselves would lead to action. A char- acteristic or habit or defect that interferes with instruction needs attention, no matter how many other habits make for successful instruction. Every weak point will be separately listed for the opportunity it presents to be of help and to remove obstruction to efficiency. Every strong point will be listed as solid ground upon which to build. Whether excellences are of personality, subject matter, method of presentation, or method of conducting classes is an important question of fact, which will be lost sight of Personality Chart for College Teachers 257 •^ w *r^-4-* '4-* *^-4-t 4^ -4^ 4-1 i^^-* 4^ 4-1 -4^ 'rt rt rt "rt rt rt rt rt 'rs rt rt rt rt 2 1> >>4» ^ <; 03 — — •-I — ' - •Si r-iOOi— .0000.— .0000 •'-—■0»»«0 5aa£eeeE£ss0S425g42e g-^ TS qj'a O - « O w • • • Ph ubbb KH i; 4) i> H > > P» [^ w . . . . u 1-3 < u C/) U " w o w tj o Ijh>Kph52;, < ° S H t3 S 5 ^5 : o • *-l • y to £ H»> O b tn H o n M < ^ «OVO tsOO On O H P< to M- >flVO bsOO 0\ O HWWMMMMI1I-(I-.CJ 258 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities where questions regarding each of these elements of class- room instruction are not analyzed separately. If the person visited is shown the report of the visit, one of three things will result : ( i ) The instructor will admit that the description is accurate; (2) the reporter will accept slight modifications because of facts submitted by the in- structor; (3) a further visit will be shown necessary by the instructor's refusal to admit that the statement of facts is substantially correct. Self -surveyors will always have time to make a second or third or tenth visit. Whenever possible the surveyor should report to the sur- veyed, immediately after the visit, what is observed. Many successful supervisors make carbon copies of their notations and hand or send these to teachers whose classes they observe. Where facts clearly show that an instruc- tor needs help, the sooner that help is given the better. If an instructor agrees to the facts, he will ask questions and gladly receive suggestions, oftentimes before the surveyor leaves the room. The accompanying questions furnish a nucleus. Within each subject a separate list of questions is needed. Such lists of minimum essentials will be quickly worked out after col- leges generally recognize the helpfulness of classroom visi- tation, and college instructors will soon have " high spot " hand-books of best practices and earmarks of efficiency against which to check their own material and method. While waiting for surveys by others each instructor may profitably examine his own workmanship for earmarks sug- gested by the following questions : 1. Am I heard . . . and understood ... or do I mumble . . . , talk like a whirlwind ... or befog . . . ? 2. Do I speak and require correct English . . ., inde- pendent thinking . . . , and straight reasoning . . . ? 3. Are my lectures, illustrations, questions, and labora- tory demonstrations up-to-date, leavened with current events ... or " cold mutton gravy " . . . ? 4. Do I prepare myself adequately for meeting students? Y N ^5 Tests of Teaching 259 5. Is my plan well organized ... or do I *' ram-ble, ram- ble, ram-ble round the town " . . . ? 6. Do I make technical terms clear ... or revel in ob- scurity . . . ? 7. Do I make dogmatic statements ... or support as- sertions with facts . . . ? 8. Do I adapt subject matter to the purpose of my course ? Y , . . N . . . 9. Do I invite questions and discussion by students? F... AT... 10. Do I receive student responses sympathetically? F. . . N . . , What is my reputation as a teacher among students ? 1 1 . Do I address a question first to the whole class . . . or only to the particular student ... I want to an- swer it ? Do I habitually . . . and needlessly . . . repeat student answers ? 12. Does my questioning lead to adequate responses ... or to monosyllables . . . ? 13. Do I fail to make instruction concrete; i.e., do I apply and have applied . . ., or just talk about . . ., the Courtis tests? 14. Do I require preparation by students . . . ? Or am I their slavey preparing predigested food for them . . . ? Am I a high ... or low . . . marker ? Am I considered thorough and exacting? F. . . 15. Do I hold attention when talking and questioning F. . . iV. . . ? How many of each class go wool- gathering or give apparently forced attention ? 16. Do I use class time fully and profitably? F. . , 17. Do I teach foreign languages via use; i.e., via speak- ing them and requiring students to use them? F. . . 18. Do I quiz ... or lecture ... or just talk ... in quiz time? 19. Do I know my students by name? F. . . N . , . 26o Self 'Surveys by Colleges and Universities 20. Do I know enough about each student to tell whether he is benefiting from my course ? Y.., N..» 21. Is my specialization or research reflected in my in- struction? F. . . iV... 22. Do I subordinate the first personal pronoun ... or do I explain Browning in terms of my own writing . . . ? 23. Do I capitalize the student's experience; i.e., hitch or try to hitch my star to his wagon ? Y . . . N.,. 24. Do I exclude irrelevant material and subjects from my own or students' discussions . . . ? Or do I re- quire disserviceable and wasteful reading and note taking like the " busy work " given to elementary pupils . . . ? 25. What specific evidences are there that students are assimilating what I give, using independently what I do, growing as the result of my work with them, do- ing their own thinking? To the foregoing list every college faculty and every de- partment will want to add several other questions. Each instructor will find that each question asked about himself prompts several other questions. The present generation of college instructors need have no fear that self -analysis will breed morbid self -conscious- ness. If in a particular college public sentiment has not yet called for a survey of instruction, the faculty may at least welcome a list such as the above for self -survey in each instructor's sanctum sanctorum. Commenting upon the foregoing section. Dean E. E. Jones of Northwestern wrote the following: " Nothing would be more profitable to university instruction than a score card of instruction which would be at least as accu- rate as the score cards used by schools of agriculture for meas- uring steers or hogs." To illustrate the disadvantages of a score card which Helping, not Scoring 261 gives numerical values rather than degrees, we reproduced in Self 'Surveys by Teacher-Training Schools (pp. 84-86) the codification for teacher's efficiency formerly used by the Connecticut state board of education. Similar score cards have been tried elsewhere. Connecticut abandoned the nu- merical rating because Secretary Charles D. Hine found that supervisors and teachers alike were more concerned about: the final total than they were about the specific weaknesses disclosed by the scoring. Scoring products — steers and hogs or bread and pump- kins — is scientific because the motive is to decide which is superior from the standpoint of the dollar market. Scoring methods cannot be scientific wherever it forgets that the purpose of scoring is not to discover superiority or relative ranking of several teachers but to discover specifically where, if at all, each teacher can be helped by herself and by her supervisors to improve her product via improvement in her method. That is the reason why throughout this book effort has been made to warn administrators against numerical rating of processes and persons. In addition to the elements of instruction above specified, the self-surveyor will do well to note the following facts with respect to college instruction. The first day of the semester is included to bring out the manner of introduc- ing courses and instructors to students. 1. Class opened Dismissed teacher tardy — yes. .. .no. .. . 2. Were students in class who had not registered? Yes.. (How many....) No.... What notice was taken of unregistered stu- dents 3. Did the semester's work actually start — ■ yes no 4. Teacher's description of course — Whole course — yes.... no beginning yes no clear — yes. ...no. .. .inspirational — yes. .. .no. . . . 5. Time spent in opening instrc'ns Clear — yes. . .no. . .necess'y — yes. . . .no. . . . 6. Could opening instructions have been given more economically — yes. .. .no. .. .How 7. Time spent in repetition of previous instructions — none.... min- utes 8. Would absent student be handicapped next day — yes. . . .no, . . . 9. Assignment for next lesson — yes. . . .no. . . .definite. . . .indefinite too much reasonable too little 262 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 10. Personal relations with students: Did teacher offer to help — yes. . . .no. . . .How many students asked questions during class after class 11. Was yesterday's assignment followed up — yes no adequately partially 12. At what disadvantage were students who were not present yes- terday ? 13. Type of lesson — Written — none.... all part. .. .Lecture — none all part Topical — none all part Question none few many too many Per cent time used by teacher by students 14. Mood in which ^ students left class — interested careless happy worried 15. Did the class get enough to pay them for the time spent — yes. .. . no 16. Does the size of classroom fit the size of the class — yes. .. .no. .. . Vacant seats number standing or uncomfortably seated 93. Supervision of Instruction Apart from visiting instructors while they are at work with students, there are several other methods of helping them do what their college and department expect of them. The word *' supervision " has gained an unsavory repu- tation, not so much for anything that has happened in col- leges as for the conduct of certain supervisors in lower schools. On one of the visits which led to High Spots in New York Schools I was so impressed with some English work, oral and written, that I asked the principal if his dis- trict superintendent had seen it and had asked other teachers in the district to observe it. The principal took me aside so that the teacher would not hear and replied : " Now that you ask me I will tell you frankly what happened. The district superintendent saw practically what you have seen, and then lit into this teacher like a ton of brick because several of the pupils' papers had not in the upper right-hand corner, underscored, as per order, the writers' names." American colleges are afraid that supervision which goes beyond informal conferences and friendly talk will degen- erate into fault-finding, venting spite, and playing favorites. While in theory one's reputation with other instructors for whose work students are prepared constitutes a form of supervision, in fact few colleges have systematized this test. Kinds of Helpful Supervision 26^ Among the many ways of helping the young instructor while protecting the college against defective planning or execution the surveyor should look for those mentioned on pages 258 ff. Other methods of supervision include these : 1. The department head goes over first draft of courses planned, raises questions, makes suggestions, and re- views the final draft. 2. Where several instructors are giving the same course to different sections, they compare notes as to plans and as to current results as reflected in examinations, term papers, attendance, etc. 3. Under the departmental system one man is held re- sponsible for the course and for ascertaining through conferences, tests, examination papers, etc., how his co-instructors are carrying out the plan they helped him make or for which he is administratively re- sponsible. 4. Where a number of instructors are guiding the read- ing and conducting the quizzes for lectures given by another instructor, conferences are held and notes compared. In a laboratory course the conductor of the course will generally inspect laboratory work. 5. Departmental lunches are held for informal discus- sion or review of plans; for correlating different courses ; for promoting team work ; for encouraging younger men, enveloping them in the spirit of the de- partment and drawing them out as to difficulties which older men or other younger men have success- fully met. 6. Much is done personally by colleagues to make the new instructor feel at home and to take up delicately with experienced instructors any difficulties which come to the attention of colleagues. 7. Instructors from different departments having com- mon problems meet to discuss them. 8. Deans learn through advisers and through failures or 264 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities complaints of students of difficulties that need atten- tion. 9. General faculty meetings consider new methods em- ployed elsewhere, as the preceptorial system at Prince- ton and Bowdoin or the cooperative system at Cincin- nati. 10. Printed instructions and syllabuses help out-of-class supervision and contain points with which to check what happens in classes. Whether these steps are definite, specific, personal, con- tinuous, and cumulative is for surveyors to answer. It is not enough to record paper plans for supervision. It is supervision that gets to the individual instructor which counts, just as it is the instruction which gets to the in- dividual student which counts. 94. Supervision of Classroom Instruction An individual who sets out to survey the efficiency of col- lege instruction takes his life in his hands. Experience proves that it is just as unpleasant to have one's teaching investigated by an insider as by an outsider. Since, how- ever, colleges exist for instruction, college surveys can hardly ignore instruction. Shall they survey the things that have to do with instruction or shall they survey instruction itself? No objection will be urged to asking questions about in- struction like these : 1. What is the course of study? Does the catalog sat- isfactorily describe it? 2. What is the range of teachers' salaries? 3. What is the reputation of the college for instruction as shown by efforts of other colleges to secure in- structors and by within-college reputation of indi- vidual instructors? 4. How are instructors selected? 5. How do departments help younger men and supervise their planning and giving of courses? Questions or Notes 265 For Questions or Notes by the Reader 266 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 6. What is the reputation of the faculty for scholarship as shown by research and books and prestige in sci- entific societies? 7. What is the success in other colleges of our students who leave after or before graduation ? 8. Is the faculty overworked? F. . . iV. . . f . . . 9. Are classes too large ? Y.., AT... f . . . 10. Do requirements for admission and continuance guarantee students able to do the work ? Y, , . iV... 11. Are equipment F. . . iV..., facilities F... N,.,, and living conditions F . . . iV . . . , favorable to effi- cient instruction? Every one of these questions should be answered by special surveys and self -surveys, whether or not there is classroom observation. Affirmative answers, however, will not mean that instruction is efficient or even moderately satisfactory. All the surrounding elements may be conducive to the highest grade instruction and still students get little or nothing from a given course. Whether the thing which the students get is to be observed or taken for granted is one of the major questions now before American colleges. 95. The Student Adviser Temporarily colleges are conceding that the individual in- structor cannot reasonably be expected to know either what other work his students are taking or why they limp and halt in his work, therefore the official adviser, student ad- viser, or class officer who is made a " clearing house " for all facts regarding a small group of students. For this extra service colleges usually pay nothing in dollars or in credit ; the University of Illinois pays $50. Among duties of successful advisers are found these: I. At registration time: I. To interpret regulations and alternatives; to help stu- dents elect studies with a view to future courses as Helping Advisers Help Students 26y well as present interest; to explain how deficiencies may be made up or irregularities adjusted. 2. To prevent ill-advised electives. 3. To give information and advice as to outside activ- ities. 4. To see that registration blanks are correctly filled out. 5. To give help on purely personal matters, such as how to look for rooms; why to attend convocations; where to find information. 6. To get acquainted with new students and help them feel at home. II. Between registration times: 1. To hold regular office hours. 2. To see every advisee within a fortnight. 3. To review class cards. 4. To act promptly upon reports from instructors that work is unsatisfactory. 5. To ask instructors what the trouble is. 6. To get in touch and keep in touch with parents. 7. To ask the help of parents and high-school principals. There is many a slip 'twixt adviser's program and ad- viser's practice. Where unsupervised, the adviser system is apt to become a mere formality or nuisance to both faculty and students. Unless the weakest adviser is provided with and instructed to follow the methods employed by the strongest adviser, a college will deal quite inequitably with its students. Even where deans cannot personally see stu- dents, as Dean Keppel finds possible with over 1200 Co- lumbia College students, deans can exact from all a pro- cedure that will include minimum essentials while still pro- viding unlimited differentiation above minimum essentials. Several devices and practices are listed in Record Aids in College Management which are equally helpful to instructor and adviser. The self -surveyor will do well to see whether advisers and 268 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities instructors acting as advisers to their own students are bene- fiting from best practices. 1. May a student change his adviser for good reason? Where possible may advisee choose adviser and ad- viser choose advisees? 2. Are advisers fitted to students; i.e., are advisees given preferably to advisers vi^ith whom they have class work? Is the same adviser continued through two lower-class and two upper-class years? 3. Is the confidential information which is obtained re- garding freshmen from preparatory school or par- ents made available to and used by advisers at first registration time? F. . . iV. . . f,,, 4. Are advisers given written instructions as to their duties ? 5. What meetings have they before or after registration ? 6. Are advisers furnished with a codification of ques- tions previously raised, with proper answers? 7. Have the catalogs and announcements anticipated stu- dent questions, thus reducing to the minimum ques- tions left for advisers to answer ? 8. How is the way they answer questions observed ? 9. Is adviser furnished with cards for recording the minimum of information regarding each advisee, in- cluding substance and results of conferences? 10. Are teachers furnished blanks with which it is easy for them to send important information before it is too late to prevent student failure? One college sends the following questions to an instructor regard- ing a student found weak in his subject : a. Do you think student was properly prepared for your subject? b. Has he attended class regularly? c. Has he explained absence from his class ? d. Do you know whether or not he has been do- ing outside work for his support ? e. Do you know whether or not he has been in- terested in outside activities? 12 Criticisms of Adviser System 269 f. Has he seemed to be interested in your subject? g. Has he prepared work assigned to him from day to day? h. Have his recitations been satisfactory? i. Has he failed to pass most of the quizzes ? j. Does he lack ability? k. Is he a student who should be given a chance to continue at the university ? 1. Have you any suggestions to make concerning the student ? 11. Are parents notified where students excel F. . . iV. . . and when students begin to stumble ? Y , , . N . . . 12. Has the dean a central record which shows who are the advisers and who the advisees, thus locating the responsibility definitely and promptly? 13. How much time is given by advisers to students at first meeting? Is it enough? Does it vary with dif- ferent types of student? F. . . N, , , 14. How is adviser work supervised and checked; i.e., who learns if adviser enforces rules regarding the early return of students to him, or how promptly, or how effectively the adviser acts upon receiving word of advisee's difficulties? 15. Is the adviser system or adviser principle used in summer sessions ? Y. . . N . , . 16. What step is taken to codify the experience of ad- visers so that deficiencies or difficulties of catalog, an- nouncement, college discipline, living conditions, in- structor dealings with students, etc., may be made available to the college management? 17. Is the net effect of the adviser system an increase . . . or a decrease ... in the individual instructor's sense of responsibility for knowing what his students have to give and do give to his subject ? The following criticisms were made by one faculty of its adviser system. Do they apply to your college ? I. Relations are mechanical where they should be highly personal. F. . . AT... f,,. 270 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II 12 There are too many advisees for each adviser. F . . . N ^ Too many young instructors are used. F. . . N... ? . . . Unsuccessful advisers are required to continue. JL««* XV**« •••• Advisers are given students who are not in their classes. F . . . A^ . . . ? , . , Advisers are ignorant of facts necessary to intelligent advice. F. . . iV. . . f . . . Advisers' offices are too small. Advisees' right to privacy is violated. F . . . A/" . . . ? . . , Advisers have too much other work. F. . . A^. . . f , . . Advisers do not meet advisees often enough. F. . . A^... .^... Too little attention is given to freshmen. F . . . AT ? Advisers do not try to know enough of aims, grades, and activities of advisees. F. . . A^. . . ? . . . Good adviser work does not count toward promotion. F A/" ^ 96. How Classroom Instruction Was Photographed by the University of Wisconsin Survey Effort was made to have university surveyors report re- garding the same courses. The following instructions were talked over by observers and supervisors before the classes were visited. By agreement with the university, classes for training teachers were selected for visit, hence the at- tention to child background, etc. I. Shall quality of instruction be judged by the extent to which a. The subject matter is academic, theoretical, cul- tural — studied for its own sake ? b. The recitation concerns itself with an applica- tion of principles, theories, facts of child nature Classroom Instruction: Analysis 271 and education to actual school and classroom problems ? c. The teaching has inspirational value, sets up worth-while ideals, and in such a way as to create a strong desire in students to want to observe child life, and to test and apply prin- ciples of education in actual school situations ? d. The subject matter considered and the method of treatment illuminate and explain sources and causes, showing the influence of the past on the present, making possible an intelligent com- prehension of present-day educational move- ments and problems ? e. The conduct of the recitation stimulates pupils, arouses interest, awakens emotions and respon- sive attitudes, utilizes past experience of stu- dents, results in worth-while questions, or whether the teaching is formal, mechanical, lifeless, largely reproduction of words and terms which seem to have little if any content in students' minds ? f. The teaching is worthy of emulation by stu- dents in their future work as teachers in the public schools ? g. The recitation makes good use of the time — arrives; is fairly complete, leaving certain clear, definite impressions as opposed to leav- ing questions " up in the air," vague, indefinite, and unclear ? Does the recitation " kill time " ? h. The conduct of the recitation makes necessary careful, painstaking preparation by students? Does the teacher do the reciting, leaving pu- pils passive, indifferent, bored? Note I. Every conclusion or judgment must be supported by a fact basis; that is, the work seen should be so described as to show specific- ally what led to the conclusion stated. Note 2, All statements of fact regarding any 2*j2 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities work seen will be submitted for verification to the one whose work is described. 2. While getting this information, is it feasible to note a. The type of recitation — extent to which it is ( 1 ) lecture ? (2) quiz? (3) combination lecture-quiz? (4) topical? (5) problem inductive-deductive? (6) other? b. Questions by teacher ' — extent to which they (i) test memory (mainly — who, what, where, type) ? (2) test judgment (thought provoking, vi- tal — how, why) ? (3) are leading — suggestive, pumping? (4) are vague, indefinite, scattering, repe- tition ? (5) are abstruse, formal, mechanical, or concrete, explicit, intelligible? c. Attitude of students — extent to which they (i) are really attentive, interested? (2) are indifferent, bored? (3) are delighted to be in the class, or re- verse ? (4) show hearty good fellowship with the instructor, or reverse? d. Class management ( 1 ) Do students choose their own seats, or are they given permanent seats? (2) Is time taken at each meeting for roll call? (3) Do students appear to be called upon in a certain fixed order so that they know when they will recite ? (4) Is time taken up with mere mechanics of class work, as passing out papers. Classro om Instruction : A nalysis 273 etc., or are these matters cared for without taking time of class? e. Responses of students — extent to which they X I ) are ready and hearty, or slow, mechan- ical, unwilling? '(2) are fluent, coherent, definite, showing clear thinking? (3) are fragmentary, disjointed? (4) show definite, careful preparation or skillful development by instructor? (5) appear to be guesses — " stabbing " ? f . The instructor — extent to which he ( 1 ) gives evidence of thorough mastery of his subject? (2) illuminates with illustrations drawn from experience and wide observation of school work and school conditions? Is he contributing to educational prog- ress in the state and country ? How ? ;(3) is resourceful in adapting his work to reactions of students, as against for- mal program, regardless of students' reactions ? (4) is ready in expression, able to use dy- namic, effective language ? (5) has a sense of humor, and is skillful in employing same in conduct of class ? (6) has dignity without formality, force and power without harshness, courtesy and sympathy without partiality ? (7) is vital, effective, a leader, or opposite? g. Lesson assignment — is it (i) definite, clear? (2 ) formal — from textbook ? (3) by topics or problems? (4) hastily made at dismissal? (5) omitted? 274 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities h. Results ( 1 ) What was accomplished in recitation ? (2) What seemed to be the frame of mind of students when they left classroom? 97. Personality of Instructor Only a small part of the world's teaching is done in col- leges. Only an infinitesimal fraction of men are at any time in the position where they are not both giving and receiving instruction. Foremen are instructors as well as bosses. Corporation presidents are instructors as well as managers. Successful salesmanship is based upon successful instruction. It is no more true of college instruction than of any other vocation that personality is an important if not a determin- ing factor in success. What and how information reaches the student cannot be separated from the instructor's personality, but that does not mean what many collegians assert, that because personality cannot be literally measured instruction cannot be described. The first few times one is told : " Oh, you can't measure personality, for that is undefinable, immeasurable, untest- able, vague, indefinite, spiritual, etc.," one subsides abashed and apologetic. Eventually the mind rebels and asks: " But is it true that personality is the hardest thing in the world to test? Why can't it be described ? " The surveyor will be surprised at what will happen if he timidly asks when told that of course personality is an intangible, incorporeal quality : " What is there about a man that you judge quicker than his personality? Does not personality dis- close itself in less time than either grasp of subject or teach- ing technique ? " If personality can win appointment, promotion, dismissal; if it makes one such a good fellow that his time is wasted in good fellowship; if it causes students to flock to or from an instructor's courses ; if it draws students like a magnet for conference ; if it drives them away like a sign marked " third rail"; if it wins confidence; if it compels and expresses thoroughness; why, pray, is it impossible to describe it? Instructor Personality Analysed 275 Minnesota notes each instructor's special aptitudes, kinds of student attracted, reputation for teaching with faculty and students, whether high or low marker. As Record Aids in College Management shows, many colleges are finding it pos- sible to factor student personality. Why is instructor per- sonality undecipherable ? If it were necessary to concede that describing personality is impossible, there would still remain the possibility of de- scribing the effect of teachers' personality upon students. The number of students who go to sleep or look out of the window or whisper can be counted ; an indefinite or imperti- nent answer can be copied ; rudeness begotten by rudeness or sympathy begotten by sympathy is easily described. There are just two hard things about describing person- ality; wanting to describe it, and trying to describe it in terms of appraisal, evaluation, or judgment. Describing personality has been found possible and scientific by histo- rians, library reviewers, and political reporters. What men can do out of college about people out of college men in college can do about one another and themselves. So long as self -surveyors aim to secure facts that will not be denied and facts that will help the instructor and the col- lege personality, surveys need not be feared. Many thou- sands of the " personality camera " card on page 257 have been used by principals and teachers. Unless there is something about the business of instruct- ing college students that draws a deadline beyond which per- sonality can no longer improve, then it will pay college in- structors to analyze their personality and to ask help from colleagues and superiors in making and in using such analy- sis. Nothing could be more unfair than for colleges to let picked men mistake personality weaknesses for signs of cul- ture or genius and choke or dwarf personality's strong points for want of pruning and weeding. Whatever objection there is to having a committee tell Professor M of personality weaknesses disclosed before classes cannot apply to handing Professor M a looking glass in the form of a list of personality weaknesses with which to 276 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities check himself. Such a list was used by David E. Berg when preparing Personality Portraits of ^2 College Instructors, some of whom were visited only once, most of them three times or more. Although Mr. Berg's personality descrip- tions teem with direct quotations from lectures or questions, his motive in making these portraits was to test the claim that because personality defies description classroom visiting is futile. With his permission the personality elements listed on pages 2yy to 280 are commended to self -surveyors. As suggested elsewhere, more attention by college in- structors to instructor personality and to teaching efficiency will hasten the ability and willingness of the public to in- crease salaries and facilities for college instruction. Intelligent conservation of intellectual and teaching powers calls for such personality aids as this : President A wrote to a sister university about Professor B and was told that Professor B was a man of unusual power as student and teacher but that he had an unfortunate and unusual pitch of voice that made him appear weak and unpleasant. " Well met," said President A, " this is a fine chance to test our new voice clinic. If Professor B is willing to help we will gladly give him a year to remove this obstacle to his ad- vancement." Within a few months both the clinic and Pro- fessor B had proved their worth. Mens Sana in sano corpore is the faculty's justification for compelling a minimum of health signs and vitality for every student. To make health and physical vitality a sine qua non for membership in faculties would surpass pension sys- tems in beneficence. A complete physical survey, such as is used for students, would disclose innumerable opportunities to strengthen faculty personality. 98. Personality Portraits The claim that personality is too elusive to be measured or weighed led Mr. David E. Berg, now of New York City — university graduate, public-school teacher, and principal — to visit 72 university instructors, mostly of professorial rank, in order to see whether and how far personality lends itself Personality Portraits of 72 Instructors 2^^ readily to simple description. Two results of six weeks' constant visiting are Personality Portraits of 72 College In- structors and a handbook of advice to students on ways of avoiding the type of personality that inspires and compels study. To digest Mr. Berg's descriptions would be unfair to por- trayed and portrayer. College teachers and administrators may welcome, however, the following list of personality ele- ments which he built up inductively as his visits increased. They are purposely not classified here in the hope that readers will think of each as a separate element that should or should not be separately noted when selecting instructors and deciding whether to continue and promote them. Per- sonal elements appear not always in degrees of positive qual- ities, but often as negative qualities; therefore the second list, inductively built up of negative or disqualifying ele- ments in personality. Four principles of grading will interest college teachers : (i) candle power (C.P., intellectual illumination) (2) heat (B.T.U., British thermal unit, emotional heat) (3) energy (K.W., or kilowats of volitional energy) (4) class temperature (C.T. ; i.e., class interest) Among ^2 instructors Mr. Berg found 11 distinct types which are here repeated. Please note that the marking of C.P., B.T.U., K.W., and C.T. is based upon the standards exhibited by the three personalities who are listed in the first type. 1. The highest type, — the dynamic type, great intellectual qualities, wit, geniality, verve, depth, with students keyed to a high degree of interest, where a splendid personality obtains splendid results. Average 100: C.P. 100; B.T.U. 100; K.W. 100; C.T. 100. Three men are in- cluded in this group. 2. Great intellectual stature, alert, exacting, straining, but lacking in geniality and sympathetic contact with class. Although highly gifted intellectually, the coldness of their personality seemed to have inhibited the highest development of the power to impart knowledge through a lack of power for imaginative projection; they were 278 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities not as luminous as those of the first type. But they were obtaining excellent results from their students. Average 87: C.P. 90-95; B.T.U. 60-70; K.W. 90-100; C.T. 90-95. Four men are included in this group. 3. Lesser intellectual stature, but alive, keen, alert, certain amount of humor, good contact with class. Fine results. Gave promise of further development. Average 82: C.P. 80-90; B.T.C. 70-90; K.W. 75-85; C.T. 80-90. Seventeen men are included in this group. 4. The indolent, lackadaisical teacher of considerable abil- ity but resting on his oars, putting forth only part of his powers and energies. Average 75 : C.P. 80-85 > B.T.U. 65-80 ; K.W. 40-85 ; C.T. 80-90. Five men are included in this group. They accomplished certain results by sheer weight of prestige and their latent smoldering powers. Four of them had a certain aptitude for witti- cism, and a proclivity for humoring the students. 5. Men of considerable training with good grasp on sub- ject, sincere, a certain contact with class, poor methods, a laxity of standards, achieve only mediocre results, but interest fairly well sustained. Average ^2: C.P. 70-80; B.T.U. 60-80; K.W. 60-80; C.T. 65-75. Fifteen teachers are included in this group. 6. The cold, assured egotistical type — medium ability but enormously self-assured, men past maturity who have accomplished certain things but are petrified and sta- tionary before the final decline into senility. Classes are deadly boring. No humor. Average 55 : C.P. 70-75; B.T.U. 40-45; K.W. 50-60; C.T. 40-60 Five men are included in this group. 7. The young, immature teachers of considerable keenness, whose vision is not developed, lack of perspective com- bined sometimes with vicious method of teaching. Lack of a sure grasp on the subject matter. Also lack of humor in all but one case. Average 52 : C.P. 50-65 ; B.T.U. 40-50; K.W. 40-60; C.T. 50-^0. Seven men are included in this group. 8. The fakir, who runs a game of bluf¥, men in higher po- sition who put on a bold front to retain their position. Average 49: C.P. 40-50; B.T.U. 40-50; K.W. 50-65; C.T. 50-55. Three men are included in this group. 9. The man of little ability, poor grasp on subject, cold and Mr. Berg's Personality Portraits 279 flabby personality. Results are extremely unsatisfac- tory. Average 44: C.P. 40-50; B.T.U. 30-40; K.W. 30-50 ; C.T. 40-60. Five men are included in this group. Senile dotard type, no life, warmth, or interest, no humor. Average 37: C.P. 40-50; B.T.U. 10-30; K.W. 30-40; C.T. 20-60. Three men are in this group. The practically futile teacher, with no strength of char- acter, poor grasp of subject matter and lack of proper training. Average 28: C.P. 10-30; B.T.U. 15-30; K.W. 30-40 ; C.T. 30-40. Three teachers are here. 99. Desirable Personal Elements Found by Mr. David E. Berg when Observing ^2 University Instructors Intellectual Qualities 10. II. Profundity- Vision Interest-arousing Comprehensiveness Imagination Wit Incisiveness Associativeness Brilliance Open-mindedness Originality Figures of speech Balance Resourcefulness Related anecdotes Logicality- Clearness Personal experiences Coherence Verve and dash Emotional Qualities Tact Pleasant voice Democracy- Courtesy Expressive face Address Neatness Good diction Charm Natural manner Humor Taste Poise Enthusiasm Esthetic sense Sympathy Responsiveness Tolerance Even temper Volitional Qualities Dignity and reserve Decisiveness Clear-mindedness Aggressiveness Sincerity Courage Encouraging Industry Exacting Independence of judg- Fairness Firmness ment Modesty 100. Undesirable Personal Elements Found by Mr. Berg Shallowness Narrowness Bigoted Erratic Illogicality Intellectual Qualities Dependence Obscurity Muddle-headed Inertness Short-visioned Tedious Matter of fact Dullness Wooden-minded 28o Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities Blundering Seediness Slovenliness Aflfectation 111 at ease Unsympathetic Irascible Lackadaisical Repressing Hidebound Wavering Emotional Qualities Grating Impassiveness Poor diction Solemnity- Diffidence Snobbishness Volitional Qualities Hypocrisy Indolence Autocratic Conceit Poor contact Boorishness Lack of taste Thick-headed Prosaic Intolerance Lasciviousness Cowardice Lax lOI. Use of Minimum Essentials The efficiency of a teaching program will quickly be learned by asking where and what minimum essentials have been defined and insisted upon. One reason why the clas- sics, mathematics, and exact sciences have so long been held to have special disciplinary and educative value is that each has its definite list of minimum essentials to be taught and to be acquired. No subject is without its peculiar minimum essentials, lacking any one of which a student cannot master that sub- ject. Physical training has minimum essentials. Admis- sion requirements have minimum essentials. Most colleges advertise minimum essentials of attendance and of punctu- ality. Whether each instructor of each subject has definitely out- lined minimum essentials for his course can be learned by self-surveyors. Whether these essentials are personal and secret, or known also to colleagues and to students, can also be learned. If communicated to students, it is important to learn whether the communication is oral merely or by syl- labus. Where students have been told what the minimum essentials are, it is possible by examining papers already written, or by imposing special tests, to learn whether mas- tery of these minimum essentials is tested and rigidly re- quired. Knowing how to study ought to be a minimum essential for college and student. No college has the right to accept Minimum Essentials for Colleges 281 tuition and time from a growing or grown man or woman who after earnest and well-directed effort by instructors has not learned how to study. No student capable of learning how to study is getting his money's worth until he has learned. Whatever time is required to find out if each stu- dent knows how to study, that time should be spent. Whether each instructor looks for this minimum essential for each student in his course is a question of fact for sur- veyors to answer. What the minimum essentials are for each subject taught in college would require several volumes to answer. In ele- mentary schools extensive use is being made just now of standard scales. Unfortunately a movement which started with the minimum-essential idea has been rapidly swinging toward the average-accomplishment idea. Obviously the two ideas are quite distinct. A student may be far above the average and still lack minimum essentials. An in- structor may be above the average and still lack minimum essentials, absence of any one of which should disqualify a man from instructing. The absurdity of measurements against averages was re- cently pointed out by William McAndrew of New York, who noted that Brooklyn pupils when measured by Courtis arith- metic tests were above the average in speed but below the average in accuracy : " In other words it takes us less time than it takes others to do things wrong." Local search for description and use of minimum essentials will help far more as a first step than unquestioning adoption of stand- ards set up by others. Dr. A. E. Winship reinforces this truth by citing the speed of an express train, an automobile, a horse, and a wheelbarrow and asking what use can be made of their average speed ! Among minimum-essential tests that should be found at work in every college are these : I. For each instructor — minimum essentials 1. Of personality. 2. Of previous teaching and field experience. 3. Of teaching ability. 282 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 4. Of specific preparation for each course. 5. Of special preparation for each meeting with class. 6. List of minimum essentials for each course. 7. Exaction of these minimum essentials from each student. 8. Analysis of each student's needs, capacities, difficulties. 2. For each subject — minimum essentials 1. Of purpose — before and after it is admitted to the curriculum. 2. Ground to be covered. 3. Methods to be employed. 4. How to be studied. 3. Other minimum essentials needed 1. For every set of examination questions before they are given to students. 2. For every method and textbook before and after trial. 3. For every instructor's work before he is per- manently engaged or promoted or voted a sal- ary increase. 4. For every instructor considered for a depart- ment head, before his election. 5. For every department head after trial before being continued or reappointed. 6. For all persons considered for directorships of courses before giving them serious considera- tion and before continuing or reappointing them. 7. For all persons proposed for administrative po- sitions before serious consideration and after trial, before continuation, reappointment, or promotion. 8. For all persons proposed for presidency and deanships — which call for a rare combination of teaching and administrative ability — before Minimum Essentials Needed 283 serious consideration and after trial, before permanent appointment, reappointment, or sal- ary increase. 9. For every person proposed or tentatively con- sidered for trusteeship before serious consider- ation and particularly before reappointment. 10. For every student desiring to continue merely as a college student before permitting him to register. 11. For all official statements by colleges. 12. For college appeals and budget estimates. Since in most cases it will be found that the idea of mini- mum essentials has not yet been accepted, the main value of a survey for minimum essentials will be to interest the fac- ulty in working out for each department and for college ac- tivities generally a statement of purposes and minimum essentials. 102. Analyzing Student Capacity and Need Dean Keppel of Columbia College keeps a personal mem- orandum for each student, showing his college record, his outside activities, plan for life, special interests, etc. Pratt Institute has a point and honor system in its physical-train- ing work which proves the value of factoring student needs and capacities. Lafayette's dean requires a special report for each delinquent student, in which the student must as- sign a reason for failure, state assistance given, and suggest future treatment. Pratt Institute requires from each in- structor for each student a personality impression with a list of weak points, strong points, and needs. Cincinnati's dean of arts learns for each halting student facts about entrance preparation; outside work; health; teacher's estimate of ability; diligence with respect to attendance, papers, and quizzes ; time given to studies ; purpose and plans and recom- mendations. Capacity analysis is carried further by Dean Schneider of Cincinnati's engineering school, who does not wait until de- 284 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities linquency before studying and noting characteristics. (Detailed in Record Aids in College Management.) Dean Jones of Northwestern' s college of education has asked other divisions to allow his faculty and research stu- dents to take these steps regarding failures: 1. To retain them a second semester instead of dismiss- ing them. 2. To refer them to the college of education for analysis of causes. 3. To require them to take with the college of education a two-hour non-credit course in " How to Study." Reason enough for analyzing causes and costs and inci- dents of failure may be found in studying the mortality or dropping out of any college. For a large university the number runs into the hundreds annually. Surveyors will ask: 1. Do records show failures by number ..., semester . . ., subject . . ., instructor . . . ? 2. How many credit hours were attempted and failed? 3. What total costs of instruction and living are repre- sented by these failures ? 4. What instructions are given to faculty members with respect to learning the causes of failure? 5. What is done to see that instructions are carried out ? 6. What preventive steps are taken, recorded, studied, and announced ? 7. What subtraction should be made from the total reg- istration in order that credits failed shall not be in- cluded in the total of effective student registration? This item often runs to 15 or 20%. 8. What explanations were published last year for stu- dents' failing ? Was inefficient teaching or ill-chosen course among them ? 9. Of total number reported as dropping out before com- pleting the year, how many dropped out voluntarily and how many were advised to drop out because of student failure or weakness ? Dayton Bureau of Research Preparing comparative tables for citizens is quite different from preparing such comparisons for college students who cannot stay away or get away Professional educators also learn best by doing Dayton Graduate Work Needs Challenge 285 103. Graduate Work Whatever method will find the trouble about and oppor- tunity in undergraduate work will find the trouble about and opportunity in graduate work. There are, however, a few questions which seldom arise in colleges until graduate courses are given. " Insincere " is declared by President Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation to apply to graduate work as to no other work in American colleges. So far as insincerity char- acterizes graduate work, it inevitably affects undergraduate work also and any other work done by the same organiza- tion. Although a small minority of colleges are as yet giving actual graduate work, it is the secret, if not heralded, ambi- tion of most of them to grow until they can offer graduate courses. They advertise their " easement " by giving the master's degree. All but three colleges in the Association of Colleges in the Southern States offer master's degrees. Credit for in absentia graduate work — i.e., for "pro- jected registration " — is growing. There is every reason to believe that the smaller colleges will organize for supervising study and research by persons at work in different profes- sions who can receive exactly as much help from a small col- lege as from the same grade of instructor in a university. When the fact becomes clearer to small colleges that great universities are giving master's degrees for a year's work that is graduate only in the sense that it is done after a per- son has graduated, and undergraduate in the sense that it is elementary work, they will refuse to let universities monop- olize the tuition and prestige that come with the name " graduate instruction.'* Among the insincerities that President Pritchett doubtless had in mind may be mentioned these : 1. Attracting graduate students by announcements of courses that are not given. 2. Giving first advanced — i.e., master's — degrees, without significance of scholarship or attainment, 286 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities thereby sharing the student's effort to trade upon the ignorance of school boards and other employers. 3. Calling any work graduate which is taken by a grad- uate student, although it may be freshman or junior grade (a practice opposed by the Iowa and Wisconsin surveys). 4. Overstating and misrepresenting the amount of ad- vance work done, by publishing the total graduate stu- dents without making clear how many of them are taking all or part of their work in undergraduate courses. 5. Accepting or retaining graduate students after they have demonstrated absence of ambition or capacity, and absence of personal initiative or courage to meet the world's tests. 6. Encouraging recent graduates who know no world ex- cept college to stay at college until they secure higher degrees. 7. Allowing courses to repeat or overlap. 8. Allowing graduate students to waste time on futile reading or futile lectures even if there is a commercial advantage in reputation for graduate work. 9. Failing to give the personal supervision which is sup- posed to be the essence of graduate work. The fol- lowing quotation is not untypical : " Absolutely the only thing which any professor did about my thesis was to call attention to three words that were several times misspelled." 10. Giving superficial examinations for degrees. 11. Accepting superficial studies leading to inconsequen- tial theses for degrees. 12. Failing to test study plans, working papers during the study's progress, or thesis. 13. Accepting and advertising as contributions to knowl- edge theses which no magazine or independent pub- lisher would issue, with inaccuracies, poor construc- tion, and errors in English which would flunk a fresh- man. Frequently the fact that a work is a doctor's Graduate Work: Fetich or Worth? 287 thesis is not mentioned because publishers, Hbrarians, and buyers have grown skeptical about doctorate prod- ucts. On my desk is a doctor's thesis published by one of our greatest private universities which is nine tenths " pastepot and scissors" work; i.e., extracts from papers by public employees, etc. Most of the persons quoted would not be allowed to attend under- graduate lectures at this university for want of aca- demic training; yet a graduate student is given a doctor's degree for cleverly clipping their published reports. 14. Allowing theses to appear as if published and en- dorsed by scientific journals when in fact the author- doctor pays for issuing them. 15. Asserting that there is per se something about giving graduate work which improves the character of under- graduate work. All over this country able teachers and supervisors are overworking and underfeeding themselves and neglecting their own pupils in order to save money and time for grad- uate work in education. Not infrequently this work is con- sidered by them in every way but one an obstruction to pro- fessional growth. They waste time and listen to people who ought to be listening to them, for such reasons as the following given to me by a school superintendent whose an- nual report showed that he had actually done notably well what his graduate instructors had never even attempted and could but feebly talk about : " No one seems interested in my work results. If I play the little white-haired boy on the front seat with Professors Blank and Blanker, they will back me for a better position than I can ever hope to secure just from successful superintending." Obviously the question for surveyors is not how can we get along without graduate work but how specific are the in- sincerities and inadequacies of our graduate work ; and how can we substitute definitcness for vagueness, educational pur- pose for money purpose, growth for time killing? The president of the Association of Southern Colleges hazards 288 Self Surveys by Colleges and Universities the ** guess that not more than ten institutions in the United States are indubitably equipped to give the Doctor of Phil- osophy degree." Think what it means that a student can secure a doctor's degree in education without having taught or supervised other teachers one hour, and without having had one hour's contact, even as investigator, with a growing educational concern ! In surveying graduate work it is particularly important to take nothing for granted and to check every statement and belief by examination of actual work. What is needed first is a careful, exhaustive description of all the elements of what any particular college calls graduate work. How many courses are offered ; how many are given ; how many not given? Is it possible to take a whole program of graduate courses in one's chosen field ? F. . . iV... ?,,. How many are exclusively for advanced students in the particular course and subject? What is the grade distribution of all students in all courses where graduates are registered ? What facts are recorded with regard to graduate students, their previous work, their aims, and field work done by them ? 6. What if any difference is there between the work re- quired of graduates or attention given to them and the treatment given to undergraduates? Does the M.A. " mean only that a promising student has stayed on for another year or so and continued his under- graduate studies " ? 7. How are thesis subjects selected ; i.e., with what refer- ence to student capacity, student experience, local materials, and local needs ? Do subjects indicate pur- poseful selection? 8. How definitely are investigation subjects outlined be- fore studies begin? 9. What record have the professor and graduate dean of plans for investigations and theses? Questions or Notes 289 For Questions or Notes by the Reader 290 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 10. How does the student make record of time spent, fields examined, sources consulted ? 11. Is the trail blazed; i.e., are working papers filed as evidence of workmanship ¥.,, N . , . f . . . ; are they examined by professor or dean as Mr. Edison ex- amines working papers of employees conducting in- vestigations under and for him ? y . . . N . . , ? • • • • 12. Is there any record of the time given to investigations and theses by the supervising instructors? Y.,. N... 13. How far is so-called investigation largely " pastepot and scissors " work, and how far actually research ? 14. To what extent is the graduate student allowed and compelled to learn via doing something which needs to be done for his college or for society? 15. Do professors feel that their function in graduate in- struction is to keep forcing the student back upon himself . . ., to keep him and PROBLEM in proper contact . . . , rather than to do work for him . . . , lay information before him ... or test his memory . . . ? When it comes to testing actual workmanship, only de- tailed scientific analysis of results will help. The manage- ment's plans may be scholarly. On paper the procedure may be scientific. The questions which the dean is supposed to ask may be comprehensive. The surveyor must review actual registration cards; actual working plans; reports of progress, etc., to see whether the management is doing what it defines as necessary. Student workmanship calls for the same kind of analysis which research reports, history text- books, and literary essays receive from commercial labora- tories and publishers. There may be some difference of opinion as to the ex- haustiveness necessary in graduate study or as to its social value and originality. There is no outspoken belief that within its scope graduate work may be inaccurate or super- ficial, graduate writing slovenly or unreadable, graduate per- sonality unfitted for work undertaken, or graduate examina- Scientific Tests of Student Research 291 tions superficial and futile. The quality of a thesis cannot be determined by its general appearance, the neatness of its typography, the reputation of its endorser or a survey of its title page. Theses must be read word for word. Misspell- ing, incorrect English, involved sentences, bad paragraphing, confusing punctuation, plagiarisms, and futilities must be noted as discovered. Evidences of unscholarly workmanship have each an abso- lute value not to be outweighed by excellences or ingenuity. Only by featuring each deficiency discovered can a college ask the questions necessary to ascertain whether it expects enough from and does enough for graduate work; whether its instructors, departments, and deans are asking enough questions about work in progress and are sufficiently protect- ing student time and college reputation. A professor of history responsible for reviewing a large number of historical works says : " The only purpose of a reference to author, book, chapter, or page is to help the reader find a fact or verify a statement. If the reference is wrong the reader's time is wasted.'' Whatever motive leads to a direct quotation in a master's or doctor's thesis also calls for a correct quotation. Any student who has not acquired during graduate work the habit of automatically checking for accuracy is apt to be injured rather than helped by his postgraduate experience. Whether he has the habit of veri- fying experiments and references ; of automatically checking processes; of applying scientific methods of analysis and in- vestigation to tasks, large or small, surveyors can learn not by talking with the man or his instructors but by examining his everyday workmanship. The more exacting American colleges are when surveying graduate work, the greater will seem the need and oppor- tunity for graduate work. The more closely the fetish of *' original contribution to knowledge " is analyzed, the more clearly our colleges will see that the greatest possible service of graduate work is to uncover, try out, and prove student ability to apply the methods of scientific analysis and the ideals of cultured citizenship to specific, localized, time-lim- ited human problems. 292 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities Five recommendations regarding graduate work at Iowa State University and its State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts were made by the Iowa Survey Commis- sion: 1. That development of graduate work be encouraged. 2. That graduate status be denied to students not having a definite proportion of their registration in courses for graduates only. 3. That some representative body decide which depart- ments are to be encouraged to develop graduate courses and which to be discouraged. 4. That greater care be exercised in admitting students from other institutions to graduate standing. 5. That there be a standing committee on graduate work, to consist of two members of the state board of edu- cation and two members each from the two institu- tions giving graduate work, — the latter to be elected for a term of years by graduate faculties. The foregoing recommendations are preceded by state- ments of fact and discussion, the essence of which follows : 1. Iowa University distinguishes between admission to the graduate college and admission to candidacy for a degree. 2. Each case is determined upon its own merits. 3. Students coming from approved colleges are not tested at all. 4. Students coming from not-yet-approved colleges are tested by departments as to their major work only. 5. Graduate students register in courses for undergrad- uates. 6. Master's degree is given for four summer sessions of six weeks each — i.e., 24 weeks ; or for two semesters of 18 weeks each — i.e., 36 weeks. 7. The summer session work is supplemented by " pro- jected register " — i.e., work in absentia, according to a plan agreed upon with some authorized instructor; credits earned through projected register may equal Iowa Survey Criticizes Graduate Work 293 those previously earned in the same subject and resi- dence. 8. The projected register reduces materially the time required for earning the doctor's degree. 9. There is a wide difference in the amount and spirit of graduate work in the different departments. 10. Instructors not distinguished for published results of research are directing thesis work or are engaged in " creative work " which is regarded as equal to re- search. The following opinions expressed by the commission have important bearing for other colleges and universities: 1. A student registering for work in a field for which he has had no preparation in his undergraduate work should be registered as an undergraduate until he is ready to carry advance courses or courses for grad- uates only. 2. No institution can do equally strong work in all de- partments that announce graduate courses, even if an equal number of students should appear for each de- partment. 3. Certain departments should be specially encouraged to develop the most advanced courses of instruction and research by special care in selecting new men, by encouraging research workers of promise already on the staff, and by generous appropriation in the uni- versity budget. Not a word is said as to supervision of graduate work or is there intimation that the researcher of distinction may be a hopeless incompetent when directing graduate work by oth- ers, or that the undistinguished or not-yet-distinguished fac- ulty member may be notably efficient in finding questions that need to be answered and in directing graduate research and reporting. 104. Learning via Doing Every teacher of natural science asserts the superiority of the laboratory method. Where is the geologist who 294 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities would decline to organize his work from top to bottom if given Woods' Hole or funds for conducting a geological survey ? Learning via doing is the justification for oral and writ- ten composition in Latin; for vivisection in zoology and physiology; for themes in English and reference work in history ; for scientific research in the graduate school. Colleges become skeptical about the laboratory method at the point where their own laboratory facilities give out. Having done the best we could for generations without work needing to be done, without telescopes and microscopes and clinical material, we find it disheartening to be criti- cized for the inevitable consequence of our poverty. Talk about doing and things done — talk about business, com- merce, sick bodies — is so thoroughly organized and so com- fortably under way that even when funds are provided for so-called practical courses in journalism, business, transpor- tation, statistics, we run true to form and give new courses of talk about practical things. Whether a particular college is fully using its facilities at hand for training students via doing rather than via listen- ing and reading is a simple question of fact that a self- survey can quickly answer for each instructor in each course. Typical of learning via doing at the University of Wiscon- sin the following were cited by the survey: 1. In the library course 8 weeks out of 36 given to actual work under supervision in various public libraries. 2. In the law course after July i, 19 16, at least 6 months of work in a law office. 3. Working fellowships for students engaged under university supervision in work in state departments at the Capitol. 4. Teaching fellowships for selected students from the training course for teachers. 5. Industrial scholarships for practical artisans whom it is desired to retain for teaching practical subjects. 6. Special appeal by the Medical School for opportunity to extend its present course to include not only the Learning via Doing at Wisconsin 295 usual clinical education, but also field service in the hospitals and other public institutions of the state and of various cities away from Madison. 7. Six months of actual work on a farm a prerequisite for a degree in the College of Agriculture. 8. Full charge for one week of a practice cottage re- quired in the home economics department. 9. Recognition by commerce course and economics de- partment of the need for a laboratory of practical problems. 10. Beginnings of use of college student publications as " clinic " or '' laboratory " opportunity for students of journalism and presentation of technical matter — The Wisconsin Engineer for the engineering depart- ment and Country Life for the course in agricultural journalism. In October and November, 1916, stu- dents of journalism had nearly three columns a day in two Madison newspapers. 1 1 . Use of assistance from state department through prob- lems under which students of political economy, en- gineering, etc., work under joint supervision of uni- versity and state departments. 12. Assignments given by state legislative reference li- brary and state library commission at the Capitol to students in political science, economics, library school, etc. 13. Laboratory instruction of prospective teachers through the Wisconsin high schools. 14. An extensive course of lectures, including special li- brary and field studies in labor problems, which bore notable fruition in the opportunities for students in this course to participate in the state and national work of the industrial commission. 15. Opening the fields of higher education to students who are unable to attend the university and who wish to do the work by correspondence or by correspond- ence supplemented by class work in the district offices of the Extension Division. 296 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 16. A " German House," with rooms for women and board for men and women where only German is spoken. 17. Beginnings of special work for engineers in city plan- ning, in making roads and pavements, and inspec- tion tours (at least two weeks for seniors), besides visits to manufacturing plants in Madison. 18. Normal-school work accepted in exchange for two years at the university. 19. Music regarded as college work and given credit, hour for hour, through the college course in music. 20. Crediting special advanced work during vacation in laboratories and library, if certified by supervising professor, toward an advanced degree. Probably the best first step for a survey is to ask each instructor to list specific ways in which he uses the laboratory method. This composite will be for most colleges much larger than officers have realized. It will be more profitable to start with steps already being taken than with steps not yet taken. The fact that learning via doing is attempted does not prove that students either do or learn. Having listed the places and times when getting done is used for teaching, the surveyor has still to test the completeness and worth-while- ness of the doing and the extent to which students learn by doing. For example, a college class was taught the mean- ing of averages, mediums and norms, by picking, counting, measuring, and classifying dry leaves. Similar doings will raise a question whether educational results justify the method. Substitutes for picking dry leaves will be found by most faculties rather than abandon the principle of teach- ing via assignment of work and via laboratory practice; for example, medians can be learned by counting rooms not used or too small classes. Nothing will prevent the thorough discrediting of learn- ing by doing except a jealous insistence upon efficiency and value of the doing and upon making educational use of it. English Needs Surveys 297 Nothing is so impractical and deadening as practical courses unimaginatively and uneducatively taught. 105. English as Taught and Practiced English requirements illustrate a distinction that is gen- erally overlooked between requiring every student to use English correctly and requiring every student to take a cer- tain number of English courses. It by no means follows that a student who uses poor English in history ought to take more English in the English classes. Colleges are beginning to suspect that a cure for bad English in history is good English in history. If the privilege of remaining in college and of taking subjects that one wants depends upon ability to use — read, understand, write, speak — the Eng- lish language, perhaps the shortcut for colleges is to stress the result and stop worrying about the means. Compulsory English in colleges begets compulsory Eng- lish in high schools, more compulsion in colleges begets more compulsion in high schools. Yet colleges themselves insist that student English would " make literate angels weep." Most colleges will be surprised when the facts are laid out which show how many students after being vaccinated with compulsory English have chosen or been willing to risk later exposure to English electives. Starting with this fact for each college, these questions will follow : 1. Has our compulsion given us creditable student Eng- lish among freshmen ..., sophomores ..., juniors ... and seniors . . . ? 2. What is there about our particular student body which would naturally make it shun the riches of English literature ? 3. Do our instructors themselves appreciate and under- stand the value of English literature . . . ? 4. Is failure of appeal due to courses offered ..., an- nouncement of courses — , reputation of elective courses . . . , or earlier compulsion . . . ? 5. Are the content and method of the compulsory 298 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities courses calculated to accomplish the results which prompt the compulsion? Y , . , N . , , Help in answering the above questions will come from detailed study of the English actually taught and practiced in the compulsory courses. Oral work will be observed and written work will be examined in both English and other classes. Errors will be listed, with what is done about them by instructors. Student improvement will be noted by com- paring first-term work with second-term work, not in gen- eral but with respect to particular weaknesses noted at the beginning. As suggested elsewhere, a study of students* written work will be far more productive if the surveyor is looking for student need and instructor opportunity rather than for student attainment. Helpful survey questions include these: 1. Are there "trailer" classes in English; i.e., "no credit " classes for those whose work shows them de- ficient in power to read, write, or speak correct Eng- lish? F... iV...^ 2. Is deficiency ascertained by instructors in other than English classes ... or solely by tests in English courses . . . ? Do we " actually have to write letters of application for our senior teachers who are apply- ing for positions " ? 3. Are freshmen who possess satisfactory ability ex- empted from compulsory English courses? Y,,. iV... 4. Is effort made to learn whether the lagging students* trouble is inability to use English ... or in his grow- ing and trying ; i.e., in his feeling for the ends to which English is but a means ? Is his capacity to en- joy literature and language killed by meticulous dis- section of masterpieces? Y . . , N , , , 5. Are first English courses given on the assumption that all freshmen will take the full college course or on the assumption that probably the majority will drop out before taking other English ; i.e., is this com- English Instruction: Questions 2C)g pulsory English vocational preparation for later courses that many will not take ... or is it vocational preparation for mere living . . . , for business or pro- fession . . . , and for enjoyment of literature . . . ? 6. What is done to learn about the student's reading be- fore and after coming to college? Do English teach- ers learn whether students know how to read for pleasure . . . , how to gain a story from a page with- out reading every word . . . ? 7. What subjects do students write about? Have they to write something ... or have they something to write . . . ? How far are incidents and conditions of vital concern to students used as clinical matter in English? Would current magazines and newspa- pers furnish a shorter cut to love for masterpieces than does forced labor at masterpieces or themes about masterpieces ? 8. Have we ever tried substituting assignments in ob- servation and service for assignments in reading and composition? Y.,, N... 9. Is work in literary and debating societies, school jour- nals, etc., credited as college work in English? F. , . iV. . . Is class rhetoric made vital by current events . . ., debates . . ., self-government . . ., tests of leader- ship . . . ? 10. Is individual instruction more productive than class instruction in English? 11. Is it made easy for instructors in other than English courses to secure correction and improvement of stu- dent English ; i.e., are they permitted to refuse credit where English is unsatisfactory? Y... N.,. May they subtract 10 or 25 points for deficient form and English? F. . . N. . . Are they supplied with slips or cards by which they may notify the Engb'sh department of a student needing special attention to points checked on this slip? F. . . A/"... Is the English department equipped to follow up promptly such notifications? F. . . N, , , 300 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 12. Do English instructors visit classes in other courses to observe oral English ? F . . . N . . . 13. Are special courses offered for workers in special fields, — engineering . . . , medicine . . . , law . . . , teaching . . . ? 14. What general reading or what reports upon outside reading are required? Do English instructors meet students socially for cultivation of literary feeling and expression? Y.., iV. . . 15. What do instructors who give advance English courses note from observation of difficulties and ac- complishments of beginning courses? Some years ago, Mr. C. R. Rounds, of Wisconsin's nor- mal inspectional staff and later of its university faculty, made a number of suggestions regarding English in college classes, which are repeated here for use by self -surveyors : 1. That instead of treating freshmen as inferiors, col- leges recognize that in their senior high-school year the same boys and girls were treated as refined, re- sponsible, steady, manly and womanly young people? 2. That more attention be given to oral English, be- cause we talk nearly 100 times as much as we write; that a ban be put on incomplete statements, mumbles, and monosyllables. 3. That in oral and written work more use be made of college events and enterprises, such as public lectures and entertainments, papers and magazines, outside life of students. 4. That real letters to real people be liberally used in theme work to recognize the need for ability to write frank, courteous, chatty, interesting matter which some one wants to receive. 5. That requirements as to proper spelling of possessive nouns, capitalization of titles, proper punctuation and form be rigorously enforced. 6. That in the first literature courses warmth, life, spon- taneity, and ideaHsm be featured and not suppressed. Language Instruction: Tests 301 7. That the importance of proper method in teaching be recognized and not underestimated or ignored. [To illustrate poor technique Mr. Rounds cited instructors who read themes of from 150 to 300 words without having told students what elements they were to look for and then asked students to criticize the sentence construction or to repeat the opening paragraph.] 8. That more attention be given to the art of question- ing. An instance was cited of a professor who asked a question and before the student had time to answer changed the question five times so that the student after the sixth question did not know what the pro- fessor wanted. 106. Status of Foreign Languages So far as foreign languages are compulsory suggestions for surveying them are given on page 238. If, as many believe, the status of foreign languages will improve when they are placed upon an equal footing with other courses and deprived of compulsion, there are many questions to be asked about foreign languages. After having the number of registrations for each course offered, it is important to know the distribution of grades given by each instructor. These grades will show what the instructor believes is acquired from his course. More vital than the reason cited for teaching foreign languages is the manner and content of such teaching. I. Is the direct (speaking) ... or indirect (reading) . . . method employed? If the speaking method is not employed, how much time is given to pronunciation ? If the speaking method is employed, what are the evidences that it is successful? How are results tested ? How many hours a week are given to speak- ing? How many chances has each student a week? In what ways is the classroom opportunity supple- mented by out of class opportunity, as at a special table in a French house, on a German hike or Zug^ through foreign newspapers or magazines? 302 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 2. How early in the course does the teacher use only the foreign language ? From the beginning . . . ; at the middle . . . ; enough . . . ? 3. What advance courses are given in the foreign lan- guage only ? What in English only ? 4. How much and what kind of written composition and oral composition is done by a student in foreign lan- guage? How often? In what size class? 5. What concrete evidences are there that students taught by the direct method have been able to conduct busi- ness or professional conversations in that language? One reason why the direct method is not more generally used is that colleges have been unable to obtain men and women who are at once college graduates, capable instruc- tors, and capable linguists. It is easier to secure persons who combine general teaching ability with a reading knowl- edge of the language, hence many of our stronger universi- ties are found to have both beginning and advanced classes in foreign languages conducted by men and women unable to compose and pronounce properly the simplest sentence necessary for ordering a meal, entertaining a customer, or explaining the origin of the European war. Where this in- direct method is found the first question should be Why ? — i.e.. Do we have it because we want it or because we do not find a person capable of teaching the conversational method? Justification for the indirect method is by no means lacking. Many business houses want ability to translate Spanish into English without ability to translate English into Spanish or to speak a word of Spanish. Graduate students want to read in foreign languages without expecting to write or speak in those languages. Ability to pronounce bromidic phrases in foreign tongues is an asset worth much to many. Distinction may be gained in professions and careers where ability to read foreign languages is or seems indispensable without even one's intimates discovering one's inability to write, pronounce, or speak a complete sentence in those lan- guages. What a particular student or class can do in our college Benefits from Foreign Languages 3^3 after studying a foreign language six months or four years is a question of fact easily testable. Even the extent to which his English, his feeling, his vision, his sympathy have become refined, cultured, catholic, can be tested. The main trouble is that the need for testing has been obscured by the traditional reasons for taking foreign languages, such as that per se they have higher disciplinary value, and in prac- tice are better taught than are other subjects. This alleged better teaching is v^ithout doubt due to the grammar prob- lems involved in learning foreign languages; elements are cubbyholed and tackled more definitely than in the social sci- ences and the content has a broader appeal than that of mathematics and natural sciences. Whether a foreign language gives discipline and is well or badly taught is to be learned in the same way that any other fact is found out, by analyzing and observing the phenomena under discussion : 1. What is the purpose of each course? 2. How many students have taken courses? 3. How many have not given evidence that they learned so much of it as was covered in their course ? 4. How many have given evidence of benefiting in pro- portion to the opportunity? 5. What is the nature of that evidence? 6. So far as there was failure, what is the evidence that the fault was with the student, or with the method used in teaching, or with the instructor ? 7. What kinds of test have been worked out by each foreign-language department to see how many stu- dents obtain the minimum they are expected to ob- tain? 8. Which departments have and have not worked out the minimum essentials which must be obtained from each course ? 9. If survey courses in foreign literatures are given in English, why should there be foreign language pre- requisites; i.e., why should courses not be thrown open to all students ? 304 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 10. If the engineer who elects French finds German un- necessary, and the engineer who chooses German finds French unnecessary, why is either French or German necessary for an engineer who reads current engineer- ing journals in English? In few colleges will foreign-language faculties welcome a test of their work by members of other faculties, at least until after they themselves have made the test. Few, how- ever, will decline to work out tests to be applied by them- selves. How far unbiased consideration of the need for and suc- cess of foreign languages in a given college is made dif- ficult by the " vested rights '' idea of those now teaching foreign languages and sister compulsory subjects will quickly develop on self -survey. The case for requiring foreign languages before and after admission to college was summarized for the Uni- versity of Wisconsin survey by Dean E. A. Birge as fol- lows: I. Disciplinary 1. A foreign language offers a definite study, with long-tested and well-established methods. Les- sons are definite, and methods definite. The student knows what he has to do, how he must do it, and when he has done it. The teacher knows how much to assign, and can test imme- diately and with precision the amount and qual- ity of the student's work. 2. It demands preeminently constant, close, and ac- curate work, and is therefore a peculiarly ef- ficient means of education. 3. It demands that the student hold closely in mind a considerable (but not unreasonable) number of facts and principles and apply them exactly in numerous cases every day. It demands memory, accuracy, and precision in a way which Leadership qualities tested Carleton College Learning via serving Carleton Making hygiene attractive Carleton Rivaling the disciplinary value of compulsory languages Case for Foreign Languages 305 is not true to the same extent of any other study. 4. It requires the student to direct his attention, consciously, to the basic facts of language. This comes at a time in his education when his knowledge of the similar facts of the vernacu- lar has become in large measure subconscious. 5. It is usually given in continuous courses of two or more years, and in this respect has an advan- tage over other subjects of high-school study as a preparation for college. II. Linguistic 1. It necessarily requires a definite, precise, and discriminating use of words. Students resent this when required in the vernacular, but ac- cept it as a matter of course in foreign lan- guages. 2. It necessitates attention to accuracy of enuncia- tion and correct differentiation of sounds. 3. Learning even the elements of a foreign lan- guage, the student gains a wholly new view of the nature and capacities of language. 4. For these and other reasons it is a most im- portant instrument of training in the use of the vernacular. 5. The study of one foreign language affords a basis for the study of any other one. III. Literary 1. It gives a fresh view of literature, and one that cannot be gained from similar study of the vernacular alone. 2. It deals with a limited amount of reading of acknowledged literary excellence. 3. It gives the student capable of such training practice in the nice use of words, which can- not be reached as directly and quickly in any other way. 3o6 Self 'Surveys by Colleges and Universities 4. Even a two years' course of foreign language, well taught in a high school, gives a new point of view from which to see English literature. IV. Moral 1. The student who attempts in high school a course in foreign language is undertaking a longer and more important piece of intellectual work than he has attempted before. The com- pletion of such an attempt is the best kind of moral preparation for success in the continuous work of the four years of college. 2. It makes for culture and enlightenment by bringing the high-school student into direct con- tact with the words and thoughts of men of other countries and times. 3. It develops sympathy and understanding for some fundamental aspects of life and thought of foreign peoples, and so contributes to civiliza- tion. Colleges contemplating a survey of their foreign-language situation will do well to have the foregoing declaration of faith tested and the above listed questions answered by both foreign-language and other faculties. In addition, the management or faculty committee may wish to ask the fol- lowing questions. When the University of Wisconsin an- swered similar questions from experience its faculty recom- mended a course with no required foreign language. 1. How many students would take foreign languages if they were not compelled to take them? 2. Are foreign languages as effectively taught as they would be if they were compelled to compete with other subjects for the interest of students? F. . . iV. . . 3. How many students now elect foreign languages be- yond the number of hours of work which they are compelled to take? 4. If it is necessary to give general foreign-language literary courses in English in order that advanced stu- Foreign Languages: Self -Survey Questions 307 dents of foreign languages may understand, why should not these courses require previous work in German or French, and why should they not be open to all students ? 5. How many students would like an opportunity to learn while at college to speak foreign languages ? 6. What benefits does a student receive from a foreign language, who obtains in his final examination a mere passing mark ? . 7. Is indifferent work or poor training in foreign lan- guages better discipline or better cultivation than ex- cellent work in another subject? Y N , , , Is there any reason why any subject taught in the uni- versity cannot be so organized and presented that the student will receive as much benefit from the learning process as from the learning process in foreign lan- guages ? 8. Should any subject be taught in a university merely for the sake of keeping alive the teaching of that sub- ject in high schools ? 9. Would it be well to offer students an opportunity to elect sections where they might learn to speak ? 10. Why are there so few students in advanced courses in foreign languages in proportion to the very large num- bers who are compelled to take these courses during their freshman, sophomore, and later years ? 11. If, as the engineering requirements indicate, it is felt by at least one college, that concentration upon one language is more effective before entrance, would there not be a similar advantage to the student after entrance in taking 16 units of one language rather than dividing two years between two languages ? 12. What advantage is there to students who do not pur- sue foreign languages beyond the elementary and re- quired courses? In what ways do these advantages show in the study of other languages ? 13. If one of the main reasons for requiring foreign lan- guages is that better methods have been worked out 3o8 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities for teaching foreign languages than for teaching other subjects, should colleges continue to require for- eign languages, or take steps to insure equally efficient instruction in other subjects both in the high schools and in the university ? 14. Of what practical use to an advanced scholar in other subjects than foreign languages is the degree of ability to use foreign languages which is brought out by the present examinations for doctor's degrees ? 15. Should the major professor in charge of the work of a candidate for a doctor's degree certify not merely to the ability of a student to use the foreign-lan- guage resources in that department, but also to the fact that this student has actually been making use of such resources? 16. What justification is there for compelling college men and women to take modern and foreign languages, besides keeping no one knows how many other quali- fied students out of college, when distinguished leaders in all professions including college managers never had one of those languages? 17. How far does actual practice show that the study of foreign languages produces the results defined in the above statement of the dean of a college of arts which does the teaching? 18. Should all elementary language courses be called sub- freshman courses without credit, and be shifted as rapidly as possible to high schools ? Instead of compelling students to take what does not ap- peal to them and what will not help them unless it does ap- peal to them, modern education would so organize and so present any subject that each student taking it must, in the words of James Bryce, " draw sufficient mental stimulus and nourishment from it to make it a real factor in his edu- cational growth." " The conflict is not between letters and science," says Lord Bryce, " but between a large and philosophical concep- tion of the aims of education and that material, narrow, and Grading Needs to be Surveyed 309 often vulgar view which looks only to immediate practical results and confounds pecuniary with educational values." 107. Methods of Grading Students' Work Several new theories are gaining headway in college grad- ing: that there is a "normal distribution" of marks for a class ; that there should be more publication, especially as to students engaged in outside activities, of those who excel and those who fail ; that not even upon inquiry should stu- dents know their grades except when unsatisfactory; that all marks should be dispensed with except passed and not passed ; that no work is creditable unless correct or useful ; that the only marking worth while is the factored marking which discloses to each student where he can do better to- morrow than today. Conditions and not theories confront college instructors and managers. We have marking. What's more, mark- ing is here to stay. Examinations are costing a small for- tune every year. They cost time, worry, and earnest ef- fort. Before they are abolished or lengthened or shortened or otherwise changed, they need to be examined by ad- ministrative officers and faculties. With few exceptions surveyors will learn more from studying instructors' methods of marking than from studying students' marks. The first step, therefore, is to ascertain what the practice is; what basis of marking is used by each instructor — i.e., what weight to term work and examination — class quizzes, special quizzes, term papers, laboratory notes, English used, etc. ; how far the basis is defined by departments ; in what ways the grading by individual instructors is checked by col- leagues or superior officers; what use is made of examina- tion results for the benefit of individual students marked and for the benefit of all students in the course; what ad- ministrative use is made of marking by deans and president. What people say about their marking is far less to the point than are concrete evidences of marking found in stu- dent papers. Why should not every faculty ask a com- mittee or administrative officers 3IO Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities I. To secure answers to questions given in Appendix, pages 364 ff . ? 2'. To collect for a semester all formal examination papers ? 3. To collect for a fortnight all informal papers, includ- ing daily themes ? 4. To collect for a semester all notebooks, including notes on readings and classroom notes, as well as re- quired experiment notes, etc. ? 5. To have answer compared with grade, point for point ? 6. To list, for reference back to instructors, all cases where reviewers feel that marking was too high or too low? 7. To " high spot " and " low spot " the action of in- structors as shown by evidences on the papers that opportunities to help students were or were not used ? 8. To learn by inquiry steps taken by each instructor to help the whole class benefit from strong or weak points in student papers? 9. To compute the cost to this college of examinations, including time of faculty and students ? 10. To list changes in procedure which are shown to be advisable ? The facts for our college are infinitely more important than the facts for examination and grading in all colleges. A grade may be an index to student achievement. The paper or work graded, however, is an index primarily to student need and instructor opportunity. Where faculties keep their eyes on student need and instructor opportunity, the reading and grading of student work can hardly become a perfunctory bore. So easy is it for grading to become perfunctory that surveyors will not be surprised to find weaknesses like these: 1. Plagiarism condoned or not discovered. 2. Different standards used by the same instructor for the same classes. 3. Incorrect answers receiving full credit; incomplete Averaging Grades, Worse than Useless 311 answers receiving the same credit as complete an- swers. 4. An average for class work, mid-semester examina- tions, and finals higher than any one of the three. 5. Incorrect English accepted, including incorrect punc- tuation and paragraphing. 6. Slovenly form accepted. 7. Incorrect English and slovenly form not even noted by instructor. 8. Inadequate, incomplete, unvital questions that too often do not deserve the time required for answering them. Two ways of surveying grades will be found to help lit- tle or actually to injure ; viz., the " normal curve " survey and the " average " survey. Averages and norms are as misleading and useless when surveying grades as when surveying instructors. A fatal error of this method is that it analyzes marking and not instructional efficiency or student need. As Superintendent Hughes of Sacramento recently pointed out, not even does a student have an average. If he begins badly and ends well, splitting the difference states no fact about him and omits the fact that both he and his instructor have gained solid ground. The instructor who marks one student A and the next student C has not given an average mark of B. If instructors give one 30 A's and the other 30 B's, their aver- age is not halfway between A and B. Averages for a class conceal differences within the class. Averages for a de- partment conceal differences within a department. Aver- ages for a college, even if complete, lend themselves to no administrative use. Finally, averages do not account for students who drop out. The number of students receiving each grade, the number failed, and the number dropped out are called for in term reports by several colleges. So long as they are used to raise and answer questions about the in- structor reporting them, these facts are serviceable. The normal curve theory of grading epitomizes the hu- man yearning for " a level road in a hilly country," for a 312 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities rule, a formula, a panacea. What is simpler when con- fronting 50 history papers than to decide in advance that the normal curve shall be used: "2% excellent; 2% failed; 23% good; 23% poor; 50% fair"? The trouble with this theory is that it fits the mark not to the written or spoken work before the faculty but to a statistical curve that never fitted any particular individual, class, or situation. In fact, while this paragraph was going through the press it was discovered that 7%, not 2%, should fail and 389^, not 50%, should be average. Whether " A " is too high, right, or too low should de- pend only on what the student has done when compared with what the instructor's questions or requirements call for. The only legitimate use for the normal curve in grad- ing is to make sure that throughout a term or throughout a college the instructors use the same standard of value for reading, recitation, laboratory, or library notebook examina- tion or for progress or attainment. It is important to know whether in different sections of the same subject oral recitation alone has twenty different values ranging from ^% to 90%, as in one large department recently studied. As the unfactored, unexplained grading of a student will unquestionably give way to the type of character and per- sonality grade which is being kept by Wisconsin Library School, Rhode Island State College, Pratt Institute, Kansas State Agricultural College, etc. (see Record Aids), there will always remain the necessity for grading and annotating written work so that the student will " see himself as in a looking glass." 108. Students' Written Work One of the most helpful courses I ever had at college was a course in economics in which we were required to hand in every day our own abstract of the text assigned for that day. Professor William Hill gave more attention to our abstracts than to our recitations. Later, when I was my- self an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania, I gave four classes in political science the choice between taking Written Work: Useful Indexes 313 a written examination or compiling five significant proposi- tions from each chapter of Bryce's Volume II on the Amer- ican Commonwealth. Student-like, the verdict was unani- mously for abstracting Bryce. They builded better than they knew. Written work furnishes several indexes important to sur- veyors. It indexes student need; student effort; student attainment; student facility; student pains; student form; student English ; student imagination ; student conception of the instructor's requirements. It also indexes, especially after it has been marked, similar characteristics of the in- structor. After college the student's success will depend very largely upon what he does and what he requires of others by way of written work. Mistakes and inadequacies which an instructor overlooks in written work are a far better index to what he is giving and what the student is getting than is the instructor's syllabus or the departments nominal plan for supervision. One reason why tests of written work are deprecated by educators is that the base has been too narrow. For ex- ample, in New York City where the Gary idea is being tried out it is manifestly unreasonable to limit the examina- tion of written work to the papers handed in on one occa- sion. It would quite as manifestly promote understanding of the Gary idea if written work for a term were pre- served and studied with respect to penmanship, care, imag- ination, interest, content, purposefulness, initiative, and progress. Refusal to credit work in engineering and history unless it is creditably expressed in English means that students do not leave their interest in English behind in the English classroom. Reference to the English department, by word or slip, of all history papers badly written and all students whose English in history classes shows need for special at- tention means that three factors are thinking about this im- portant vocational requirement: (i) the student; (2) the history instructor; and (3) the English instructor. Refusal to accept a mathematics paper that is not in presentable 314 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities form means that students will acquire and habitually prac- tice the minimum essentials of proper form. On the other hand, colleges that accept slovenly workmanship in written papers accept slovenly workmanship in oral recitations and shift to later employers the painful and expensive task of correcting slovenly habits. In addition to all that it costs the later employer, it costs the college in reputation lost, in confidence lost, and in time and opportunity lost. Wherever surveyors seek to explain instructor relation to student or student relation to his opportunity they will do well to ask that the following types of written work be sub- mitted for survey analysis : 1. All examination papers after they have been graded and marked. 2. Student notebooks, including notes on readings — these are what later the world will call working papers. 3. Informal papers submitted to instructors. 4. Term essays. Regarding this source of information about student courses and instructor, questions like these will be asked : 1. What written work is required? 2. How heretofore have the results of examining writ- ten work been used for improving instruction or for helping individual students ? 3. What concrete hints for improving instruction do the papers examined disclose? 4. In what instances is incorrect work graded as correct? 5. How much of an answer may be wrong and still re- ceive a passing mark? 6. Is plagiarized or frankly borrowed material accepted ? 7. What instances are there of incorrect English? What evidence is there that they have been noticed by the instructors? What suggestions or comments have been made? 8. Are minimum essentials of good form insisted upon . . . ; proper margins . . . ; organization of material Testing Instructors' Questions 315 . . . ; paragraphing . . . ; proper capitalization . . . and punctuation . . . ? Is form stressed to the neglect of content? Y,,, N... 9. Has the student to say something ... or has he something to say . . . ; i.e., how much personality, in- itiative, naturalness, and interest does a student ex- press? 10. Are student notebooks or working papers graded? F. . . N.., How often? How exactingly? Are all drafts of written work handed in ... or just the final draft . . . ? When written tests given to college students are com- pared with the importance attached to the results, the unsuit- ability of the test is often appalling. Even the central ex- amining boards sometimes miss it in their idea of minimum or typical essentials. Of 33 students admitted without ex- amination in history, only one passed the questions used by the College Entrance Board. Of 16 admitted without ex- amination, only one obtained as high a mark as 42 in ge- ometry, five were marked 20 and above, four between 10 and 19, and seven o. Merely calling for questions that have been asked or are to be asked will appreciably raise the standard of question- ing in any college. Centralizing responsibility within a department — in a chairman or committee — for objectively reviewing each in- structor's questions will do much to insure proper attention to this problem. Often instructors in other departments, like a committee from allied departments, will detect lack of plan, pettiness, indifference, unreasonable demands, etc., that escape insiders. Whether questions test memory or power; whether they invite and compel or forbid exhibition of student initiative, naturalness, imagination, constructive power, is quickly apparent. For example, it is important for every college which is preparing teachers, to know whether questions in class, quizzes, and finals ask who Herbart was or ask stu- dents to " point out specifically how you now feel that your 3i6 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities teaching attitude, purpose, method, emphasis, will be af- fected by your study of Herbart," — a la M. V. O'Shea. 109. Lecture and Over-Lecture In theory the lecturer saves time for the student. In practice he often wastes time by giving the student less in an hour than could be obtained by reading. In theory the lec- turer illuminates the subject with results of research and personal experience. In practice the lecturer often absorbs more light than he reflects. In theory the lecture is not only fitted to students but is intended to stimulate and in- form students. In practice the lecture often dulls the stu- dent's sensibilities and inhibits the desire to question, read, or think. To a greater extent than has ever yet been tried it is pos- sible for lecturers to mimeograph their lectures for distribu- tion among students and thus release time for finding out each student's difficulties and abilities; teaching students how to study; reviewing notes; encouraging independent thinking. Wherever students have been questioned, whether as undergraduates or as alumni, — i.e., at Chicago and Wis- consin, — they report serious criticisms of the quantity and quality of lecturing. Every faculty member can profitably ask regarding his own lectures : 1. Which courses have I given this year substantially as given once, twice, or five times before? 2. If I read notes, do I also study my students? F. . . N . . , How do I test their benefits received ? 3. How many and which students in each class seem un- responsive to my lecturing? What chances to re- spond do I offer? 4. How carefully do I prepare each lecture? 5. Could I sell these lectures to a scientific journal? F... iV... 6. Could I hold a body of alumni or of professional col- leagues by these same lectures? F. . . N . , , Individual Instruction S 1 7 7. How far and how successfully do I attempt to utilize the experience, observations, and other studies of stu- dents or myself? A personal experience with one substitute for lecturing is relevant here. At the University of Pennsylvania several sections took a course entitled " Practical Politics," which be- gan with the issues of the national campaign for President in 1900. Campaign textbooks and party papers were read and discussed and clippings classified. Bryce's American Commonwealth^ second volume, was then intensively studied. One senior section clearly had insufficient back- ground in economics and politics. I asked the dean if in- stead of meeting them and alternately lecturing and quiz- zing I might deal with members individually and try to in- terest them in the basic literature of economics and political science or, at least, in using their own minds when thinking about public questions. Permission was given and an- nouncement made that instead of meeting three times a week as heretofore we should meet once in two weeks for class sessions but that I would be in our room at each scheduled hour for personal conference and informal dis- cussion. We then took up, one man at a time, his present interest; his past reading; what he was going to do after graduating, etc. One prospective journalist started with Bemis' Monopolies. The class funny man started with Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class. Another who in- sisted he never had been interested in anything finally de- veloped an interest in postal savings banks because of a prospective trip to England. Two results were gratifying. A much greater amount of reading was done than could have been required; and the regular attendance during the five voluntary conference hours was higher than earlier when attendance was com- pulsory. Incidentally the instructor worked harder, cov- ered more ground, hit more marks, answered more ques- tions, than in many terms of lecturing. Instructors teach more by stimulating than by anticipating questions. 3i8 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities no. Specialization and Overspecialization Three phases of overspecialization are general: 1. By student in selecting work. 2. By instructor in presenting material. 3. By departments in course of study. The sections on correlation, course of study, and research suggest problems for self -surveyors. The short cut is to watch what happens to students and to see what means of testing results are officially employed. III. The Point System of Improving Scholarship No college is without a minimum quality of work which it will accept. The nominal minimum varies. The actual minimum varies still more. Some institutions have not the heart to dismiss any student, whatever his scholarship, so long as he does not burn down the college buildings or play jokes on instructors. Having established the required passing mark colleges find that many students are entirely satisfied so long as their work permits them to remain. They will do the least pos- sible amount of work of the poorest possible quality. No college wants to have a large percentage of these " border " men. Hence various devices to force up the standard. Raising the standard of admission, of athletics and other outside activities is one method. The point system or honor system is another. This means that in addition to a min- imum number of passing grades or credits it is necessary for students to have a certain percentage of honor points above mere passing. Counting ten A's as more than the equivalent of ten C's will be universally approved. Refusing to graduate a stu- dent who has failed to secure an average better than " passed " will raise protests not only from student victims of their own neglect or inability but also from parents, out- side friends, and in the case of state institutions from offi- cial boards of visitors and legislatures. The Wisconsin board of official visitors protested that it was inconsistent Point System in Scholarship 319 to mark a student " passed " — i.e., satisfactory in credits totalling the minimum required for graduation — and then refuse graduation because the student had not done better than satisfactory work. It may prove easier to eliminate such students during a course than to refuse them gradua- tion. Use of the point system to stimulate competition for recognition among students and among fraternities, between sexes, etc., will go on independently of the decision any col- lege makes as to actually refusing graduation, if the points do not exceed the credits earned by eight or twenty. Dean Jones of Yale reported in 19 16 that the committee on sophomore class administration regarded as beneficial the " system of quality credits," and recommended that warn- ings be issued to all men failing to earn eleven quality credits. At Miami University average ability in a subject by stu- dents of recent years is taken as the base. For exceeding that average grades of A and B are given ; for falling below it up to 20% the grade of D is given; all other grades of partial or complete failure are reckoned as zero in all com- parative statements. The purpose in taking average ability is to avoid the former system, which Miami said " was to predicate a standard of absolute perfection and rate down from that point, . . . which system is difficult of application since the standard is of itself impossible and even the approxima- tion of it depends upon many variable factors." The weighting of grades by Miami is this : Hours of A count each 130% Hours of B count each 115% Hours of C count each 100% Hours of D count each 80% Other hours o, no credit be- ing given at all for unsatis- factory work Please note that average ability at Miami means average grades earned. 320 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities 112. Segregation of Sexes in Certain Courses That men and women should have separate dormitories and so far as practicable should lodge in separate private houses, is an agreed-upon minimum essential of college man- agement. That it is not necessary to segregate men and women in dining rooms is similarly agreed. Whether if financially possible it is better to have sexes in separate classes for undergraduate work is still an open question in many quarters. Whether a small college or a tax-supported college should or should not segregate the sexes is not only unsettled but is a profitless question, because nothing is clearer than that this country refuses to consider working such educational plants at less than their maximum capacity. Our genera- tion refuses to deny women education simply because mix- ing them with men may theoretically be less advantageous to them and to the men than separate instruction. Because we have rejected segregation so far as attend- ance at most private colleges is concerned and at practically every publicly supported institution, as in every high school where city funds do not permit equal facilities for both sexes, is no reason why segregation should not be adopted within a college wherever separation of sexes will benefit men and women alike or either of them. Nobody expects a coeducational institution to have mixed classes in gymnasium work. Only now and then does any one suggest mixed classes in sex hygiene. No serious ob- jection will be raised to experiments which will answer several questions now troubling students of college instruc- tion : 1. Is it true, as many teachers of English maintain, that men students are so self-conscious in English courses that they avoid such courses rather than exhibit to women students their efforts to improve self-expres- sion? y... A^... /... 2. Is it true that for similar reasons women evade classes where success depends upon discussion, as in Sex segregation via iiitcrcsl scKrcKi'li"" ( ";ililoriii;i Coeducation perm lis sex segregation too How Certain Courses Affect Sexes 321 economics, political science, sociology? F... iV... f . . . How men and women elect subjects can easily be learned. Whether their reason for evading subjects is the presence of the other sex can be learned partially by comparing electives in educa- tional and coeducational institutions, but best of all by experimentation within each college. 3. Is it possible that even where in a large lecture sec- tion sexes are advantageously combined they would be more profitably quizzed on these lectures in sepa- rate sections? 113. The Junior College Two different conditions are being called junior college : a segregated college of under classmen within a college or university which for administrative and instructional pur- poses draws a line between the comparative immaturity of freshmen and sophomores, and comparative maturity of juniors and seniors; secondly, courses in local high schools scattered throughout a state which offer continuation in- struction of college grade. After learning whether a college will, with or without ex- amination, accept work of college grade done in high schools, several other questions will be asked : 1. Do all high schools know that such work will be ac- cepted? y... A/"... 2. Which high and preparatory schools can, with reason- able effort and expense, extend high-school work one half year or a year? 3. Will more students go to college if part of their work can be done at home high schools without expense for tuition and living? 4. Will the total tuition obtainable by colleges be in- creased or decreased if they make it easy for students to secure a degree in less than four years of resi- dence ? 5. Would it extend the radius from which students come 322 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities to college if for introductory college courses there could be three or ten or twenty centers in a state ? 6. Provided students pass satisfactorily the test of the college itself as to college-grade work done in high school, what if any complications will such students cause in college organization? 7. Would students be inclined to stay on in high school even when sure they could not finish a college course, if credits beyond the high-school courses were recog- nized by colleges and universities so that these stu- dents could think and speak of themselves as having had two or eight or twelve college credits? 8. Would it be fair to taxpayers for state universities to encourage junior colleges by declining to give cer- tain elementary work or by offering inducements to have work taken in high schools or small colleges ? 9. If colleges admit from high schools upon examina- tion, will history repeat itself and call upon colleges to accept without examination all students from ac- credited schools having accredited college work? The division of a particular college into junior college and senior college is being urged as a protection to both groups. Where such separation is not made, it is often felt that upper classmen suffer from contact with less ma- ture lower classmen and the necessary adaptation of instruc- tion to less mature minds. At the same time it is feared that lower classmen are given less drilling than they need and are introduced too abruptly to the freedom of lecture courses and the self -responsibility that are felt to be neces- sary characteristics of upper-class instruction. What, if any, differences there are in instructional methods between upper-class and lower-class groups, what if any differences are provided in the catalog, and how rigidly they are ad- hered to, are questions for surveyors. For a small college there are these practical questions : I. Will the small private college accept the position of drillmaster and trainer for under classmen with the Junior College Problems 323 expectation of sending advance students on to the state university or other central university ? F . . . N.,. 2. Will universities encourage students to take the junior college work before coming to the university and recognize such work given by a small college? y... iv... 3. Is it feasible for both small college and university to have the latter give a degree, Master or Bachelor, in behalf "of Hamilton College and Cornell Univer- sity/' or "of Grinnell College and University of Iowa '* ; i.e., can a plan be worked out by which both the small college and university will recognize the stu- dent who has done two years' work in Beloit and two years' work at the state university as an alumnus of both institutions? F. . . AT. . . " In the matter of correlation of private colleges to the State University, Wisconsin colleges," according to President Evans of Ripon, " have been studying the problem very carefully and have been making a few experiments which are successful. The dean of each leading school in Wisconsin has accepted an invitation to come to Ripon College and aid us in our attempts to make proper correlation of courses and proper adjustment of undergraduate work with graduate work ; or, of pre-prof es- sional with professional work." That the junior college should be taken more seriously even in proposals for self -surveys will be held by many edu- cators. President Frank L. McVey of North Dakota writes : " The junior college question really represents a reorganiza- tion of higher education of the country, and a discussion should point out what effect it would have upon the upper years of the present college course and the relation of it all to the grad- uate school." My apology for not trying to develop these relations is that the present-day surveyor has to do primarily with going concerns, and secondarily with substitutes for present or- ganization. My personal opinion is that until faculties have 324 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities compared what they are now trying to do with what they are actually accomplishing, the resort to junior colleges, ex- cept for reasons above indicated, may easily do more harm than good. One assumption will need constant checking after senior colleges divide from junior colleges; viz., that senior col- lege students are necessarily and without considerable ex- ceptions more mature than junior college students, and are without considerable exceptions capable of benefiting from instruction that does not aim to educe, discover, and help the individual student. 114. Experienced Teachers for Less Experienced Students Miami announces that in 1916 " the beginning work in every department but one was given wholly or in part by the head of the department." Yale reports that 24 of 36 available assistant professors and 16 of 32 professors were giving elementary instruction. Without assuming that upper-class teachers are by virtue of rank or experience more effective than under-class teachers with under-class students, every survey will want to learn who is teaching the supposedly neediest students. Where graduate students are numerous, their share of stronger professors must be com- pared with that of undergraduates. Many colleges already keep a record showing for each class of each instructor the number of Freshmen 1 . , Sophomores >'^<^^'' <='^^^'"^'^ Juniors 1 - Seniors /"PP^"" Passmen Specials ") - Graduates /"PP^"" classmen What to do with the facts is another matter calling for further surveying. After inquiry it may be clear that the faculty high lights would not teach freshmen as well as do lesser lights ; or it may be clear that lower classmen, upper- class instructors, college, and scholarship are all the losers Stronger Instructors for Under Classmen 325 because high lights are marooned or self-marooned with upper classmen. If not feasible to let higher-priced high lights carry en- tire courses for under classmen, it may prove feasible for them to give introductory survey lectures, to be responsible for the course, or even to lecture, leaving the quizzing to others. ^ What is feasible and economical must be decided with this fact in mind, that considerably more than half the tuition is paid by under classmen, many of whom will never reach upper classes. President Hadley, speaking in 19 16 of ex-President Nichols of Dartmouth, says : ** He proposes by choice to teach Elementary Physics. The men who think that we have no more of the old type who found time both for ele- mentary teaching and for productive investigation may take comfort from an example like this." ^15- Effects of Research upon Teaching Efficiency A discomfiting dilemma is confronting colleges. One set of distinguished educators declares that there can be no high-grade college teaching where faculties are not conduct- ing research. Another set of distinguished educators de- clares that only a handful of universities have the library equipment which makes research possible. If both beliefs are true, either the overwhelming majority of American col- leges are doomed to mediocre teaching, or else they must bring up their scientific equipment, including libraries, to the standard of California, Chicago, and Columbia. Every- body knows that this alternative is impossible. Therefore our colleges must either give up hope of efficient instruction or disprove the contentions that research depends upon ex- ceptional library facilities and that high-grade instruction depends upon research. Self-respect and self -protection alike require that the smaller colleges conduct the self -surveys necessary to set- tle on the basis of fact a question heretofore discussed on the basis of prestige, wealth, and theory ; viz., what is the effect of faculty research upon teaching efficiency ? 326 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities So far as research is found essential to efficient teaching, colleges must raise the money for equipment and time neces- sary for research. Not much longer may research and its costs be dealt with indirectly and by estimates as an inci- dent of instruction and a reason for a smaller number of teaching hours. If desirable men leave colleges or refuse their invitations because research opportunities are lacking or limited, the sooner such losses and competitive disability are proved, specified, and advertised the sooner can colleges raise the needed money. Local facts, not professional opinion, must be invoked. Even if professional opinions are unanimous, trustees and donors will not be convinced without local evidence; much less will they be convinced when professional opinion is not unanimous. If President Van Hise of Wisconsin is quoted as saying that no one can be a first-rate teacher who is not a productive scholar. President Hadley of Yale will be cited as urging that " our colleges need all the good teachers that we now have, whether they are productive scholars or not." If the University of Iowa is cited to the effect that " in- structors who do not develop the tendency for research shall have no chance for promotion whatever," Teachers College, Columbia, may be cited to the effect that *' one man may be greatly stimulated by the opportunity to do research work, whereas another comes out of it with little or no gain." President G. Stanley Hall believes that a " college which fails to provide specifically for research by its instruc- tional staff is doomed to have mediocre teaching." Presi- dent King of Oberlin, who has specially studied college effi- ciency, insists that " some of the most mediocre teaching is now done by men who have done a good deal in the way of research." That there is something in the research virus which causes it to spread and seek to dominate, observers will agree. Unless its relative value is definitely ascertained, with conditions for guiding and controlling it, research in- terest will supplant teaching interest, and research ability How Research Affects Instruction 327 irrespective of teaching ability will determine academic pre- ferment. Yale finds it necessary to announce : " No quali- fication is demanded more insistently of a candidate for ap- pointment than the qualification of a teacher." In the face of such frank admission as President Butler's, that many of the most distinguished scholars are execrable instructors, why the worm — the student — does not turn when given execrable instruction by estimable scholars is an important subject for study. In conducting self -surveys there are two sets of questions to be asked, — one relating to direct research products and easily countable research costs ; another relating to indirect results and costs that have not heretofore been studied even by the large universities. Fact questions must be separated from opinion questions. Among fact questions are these: 1. How much weight is given to research — proved ability . . . , prospective ability . . . , when selecting and promoting faculty members ? 2. Does sentiment practically compel research or ap- pearance of research by faculty ? F. . . A^. . . 3. What provision is made for faculty research in col- lege time; i.e., is a definite allowance made; i.e., is need for research assigned as a reason for reducing hours of teaching? F. . . iV. . . 4. Is any record called for of time given to research? F. . . A^. . . Is that record accurate . . ., continu- ous . . ., cumulative . . ., or is it occasional . . . and estimated . . . ? 5. What attempt is made to record or estimate the cost to the college of research? Are laboratory supplies, special books, or other research materials charged to research ... or to instruction . . . ? 6. For survey purposes would the faculty record for a year, a semester, or a typical week, time actually given to research ? 7. So far as research means work in addition to the regular teaching load, does it add to ... or subtract from . . . teaching efficiency ? Where special provi- 328 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities sion is made for it, does it increase ... or decrease . . . the instructor's interest and efficiency in teach- ing? 8. What discoveries, inventions, publications, are the visible results of faculty research? Is a cumulative record kept . . . published ... of these results ? 9. How far is the college treated as a partner or share- holder in the emoluments or credits of faculty re- search ? 10. How extensively are students used as aids to faculty research? What colleges will do with answers to these questions need not concern the surveyors — certain it is that no college can help benefiting from having the answers before it. The quality of faculty research will seldom be taken up by self-surveyors. Any one reporting upon state-supported research, however, is in duty bound to examine research products for their quality ; i.e., for the earmarks of scholarly workmanship and social productiveness. For some time to come presidents and other college surveyors will not be free to ask questions about research efficiency of colleagues. They are, however, free to ask questions each about his own research. Occasionally a group may safely survey one an- other's products. Every faculty will benefit from taking up abstractly and impersonally the tests which should be ap- plied by scholars, wherever located, to faculty research. Among the elements to be tested are these : 1. The original plan. 2. Method pursued. 3. Progress made compared with time spent. 4. Workmanship during study. 5. Workmanship of presentation. Only factored questions will bring helpful information about research. To ask if faculty research is considerable or valuable will bring meaningless answers. Instead, self- surveyors will first learn the time given to research and to Accounting for Research Costs 329 other university purposes as per the schedule on page 148. Additional information will be needed : 1. Time given by students or assistants to each in- structor's research. 2. The cost of time paid for by the university, including rebates in number of weekly meetings with students or required hours of instruction, or other university duties. 3. The cost of supplies and equipment borne by the uni- versity. 4. The cost in time, supplies, equipment, etc., borne by the instructor, properly chargeable to the college. 5. Corresponding facts for research work done during vacation periods which it would help the college to have done during the college year if funds permitted. 6. Indirect measurable costs, including time known to be diverted from instruction. 7. Results of research in findings ; i.e., conventions, con- tributions to knowledge, publications. 8. Specific uses made of research questions, procedure and results for instruction of students, both those en- gaged in research and others. 9. Evidences that instructors come to or remain at a col- lege because of research opportunities. Is provision specifically made for research when making up each instructor's time schedule or when admitting experi- enced instructors. to the faculty? If so, is more or less provision made for those instructors whose effi- ciency is supposed to be most in need of outside in- centive and aid ; viz., the younger instructors ? In the light of local experience it would be well for each college to ask each faculty member for himself and each department and dean for their respective jurisdictions spe- cific data in support of answers to the 21 questions on pages 331 to 333. Faculty answers will disclose significant dif- ferences of opinion that will prompt continued self-survey- ing. These questions were worked out for the University 330 Self 'Surveys by Colleges and Universities of Wisconsin Survey by the directors, with the aid of Pro- fessors Henmon and Sharp of the University of Wisconsin and Professor S. F. McLennan of OberHn. Answers were received from 57 researchers and supervisors of research, including 18 college presidents and deans; 6 normal-school presidents; 22 college professors; 8 administrators in pub- lic service ; and 3 editors. The answers of the distinguished contributors to this survey symposium are not given here because it is vastly more important to each college to learn how its own faculty would answer these questions than to learn distant educators' beliefs. The need for local study and the free field for it are indicated by the fact that of 57 collaborators not one an- swered that there is any verifiable evidence as yet collected to show how research affects the quality of university or col- lege instruction. The significance of this admission is not weakened by the other fact that the majority of collabor- ators, particularly from college groups, believe teaching effi- ciency is increased by faculty research. While making self -surveys of research effects and methods, two facts will profitably be remembered: (i) unaccountable — i.e., irresponsible; i.e., unsupervised — re- search will show the same gaps between attempt, achieve- ment, and delivery as does any other human activity that is unaccountable, irresponsible, and unsupervised; (2) the more emphatically any faculty believes that research is in- dispensable to teaching efficiency the clearer it becomes that the short cut to efficiency is to watch the teaching product rather than to worry about the research. By insisting upon efficient teaching would faculties then secure research? If lack of opportunity for research is a reason for inefficient instruction, what better stratagem is there than to show trustees evidence that instruction is not as competent as it ought to be ? Certain it is that teaching efficiency is reduced wherever emphasis upon research and self -advertising tempts faculty members to such half -facetious cynicism as one experienced and influential professor writes: " If I were young again, ^ (IJ) t:J >> CU ^ d > J-H ^ tn O M— 1 d 'oj m CD '3 -1-1 a ■4-> 'o cn o -a u -> J5 *2 S P u a; a3 xi >> 4-1 .B tn tn :3 "3 ^ CJ 3 C/2 C! fcJO cT • S "en *s p; en 'c3 4-> s 1 Wl OJ ^ t3 Oj > -u g u A Research Symposium 331 and if I were starting in to make a place for myself in uni- versity work, and if, moreover, I had no conscience, I would neglect my teaching absolutely and would cultivate those in authority, get up some fake scientific treatise, keep off the campus, and pose as a great educator. My doctor's thesis would be on the topic : ' Families which keep cats are likely to have many children.' " Twenty-one Factored Questions as to Effect of Research upon Teaching Efficiency 1. What verifiable evidence has been collected to show how research affects quality of university or college instruc- tion? 2. Does research by an instructor improve his teaching (a) in other subjects than that in which his research is con- ducted, (b) in that subject? 3. Does research affect method of instruction and command of subject matter equally and similarly; if differently, in what respects? 4. Which improves the efficiency of teaching more, (a) the research which an instructor conducts alone, (b) re- search in which he is assisted by his students, or (c) re- search by his students under his supervision ? 5. Which benefits the student more, (a) helping the in- structor conduct the latter's research, or (b) being helped by the instructor to conduct the student's re- search ? 6. Which is the more important to the student, (a) the new knowledge gained by research, (b) the technique of investigation that he develops, or (c) the effect upon his future ability to teach? 7. What effect has an instructor's research into a given sub- ject upon his enthusiasm (a) for teaching the result of his investigation, (b) for teaching subjects related to but lying outside of his special investigation, (c) for teaching freshman and sophomore classes, (d) for teach- ing junior and senior classes, (e) for teaching graduate classes, (f) for teaching per se as distinguished from investigation ? 332 Self-Surveys by Colleges and Universities 8. What difference is there in the effect upon an investi- gator's teaching abihty whether the knowledge sought is (a) new to his field, or (b) is merely new to himself? 9. Which is more valuable to the student, (a) to conduct an extended study in some narrow field, or (b) to help investigations in several fields? 10. Would it be desirable to waive the requirement of a dissertation, and insist upon a wider knowledge of the subject in which a degree is given (a) for a master's de- gree, (b) for a doctor's degree? 11. What difference is there in the effect upon a researcher's teaching ability whether the increment he adds to human knowledge is in the form (a) of heretofore undiscov- ered truth, or (b) of heretofore undiscovered or unex- plained method of applying truth? 12. Is teaching helped more, equally, or less (a) by an in- structor's search for something immediately useful, or (b) by a search for something that would have value only because it was " some new truth " ? 13. Would a study of the particular problems involved in a university's instruction react as favorably upon teaching ability as the study of problems not connected with uni- versity instruction ; i.e., would research into how to teach chemistry most effectively be as serviceable as the search for a new formula? 14. In what ways is instruction affected by the search for a new element, a new serum, a new principle of taxation, a new fact about Napoleon, or a new star, as it would not be affected by search for undiscovered possibilities of students in the researcher's class, difficulties which confront individual students, and opportunities to help such students? 15. To what extent is the stimulating effect of research due to professional recognition? 16. Would research into methods and results of instruction, courses of study, etc., within chemistry or English de- partments have as beneficial an effect upon instructors in chemistry or English as upon instructors in depart- ments of education? 17. In what ways and for what reasons is research less nec- essary for vitalizing instruction in elementary, high, and normal schools than for vitalizing university instruction ? A Research Symposium 333 18. Is the college or university which fails to provide spe- cifically for research by its instructional staff doomed to have mediocre teaching? 19. What evidence is there that American scholarship among instructors has been more productive, man for man, in a given university or given subject since the development of so-called graduate work? 20. What evidence is there that the same instructors will do more productive research work if they teach 6 hours a week than they would do if teaching 15 hours a week? 21. How far and in what ways does administrative work by instructors have a stimulating or broadening effect upon their teaching, similar to the effect generally attributed to research? For Questions or Notes by the Reader IX RELATION WITH COLLEGE COMMUNITIES 1 1 6. The Home Town nEED COLLEGE and Its City-wide Campus is the leg- xV end of a chart showing five different relations between that college and the city of Portland. The chart is headed : " Has Reed College Reached Your Home? Study this map. Make inquiries." Five centers are charted, showing four ways in which a college works for a college town : 1. Extension courses. 2. Community service by Reed students. 3. Addresses by Reed teachers. 4. Homes of Reed students. To this list might be added civic work by Reed instructors. The circles which show student activities for the city are almost as numerous as those showing residences of students. In November, 1916, an instructor of Mount Holyoke ad- dressed chambers of commerce on the relation of the college to its city, South Hadley. As the outcome it was agreed that the class in economics would work with the local cham- ber in preparing a description of the town which would serve as a high-school textbook in civics. At the alumni banquet celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Vassar, Miss Evelyn B. Hartridge discussed the college and city as follows : " President Dabney of the University of Cincinnati says that * Society is a real thing on its own account, with a plan of its own, a life of its own, principles of its own, and func- tions of its own different from and more important than any of its parts.' He says further that we are beginning to realize that the chief end of education is not the develop- ment of intellectual power merely, but is also the forma- tion of character trained and habituated to think in terms of social obligation. I doubt if any real contributor to the educative forces of the world ever thought that the 334 Colleges and College Towns 335 chief end of education was the development of intellectual power merely, but I admit much truth in the statement that its end should be the formation of character trained and habituated to think in terms of social obligation. " Now how can a college better prepare a student for her place in the community after graduation than by giv- ing her, in connection with her studies, practical knowl- edge of community life before graduation? And what community life can be more easily studied by her than the community in which she is living before graduation? If the gospel of the age is service, she must have her appren- ticeship. On the other hand, if she is to have courses in chemistry, in economics, in sociology, etc., she can well use the neighboring community for her laboratory. " Would your chemistry be more or less interesting to you if you were helping your instructor to analyze and test samples submitted by the city, the results to be of practical value? " Would your work in social science be more or less valuable if you were cooperating, under supervision, with public institutions, such as the Juvenile Court and the de- partment of charities and corrections, or with private associations such as the Associated Charities, the Anti- Tuberculosis League, and the Juvenile Protective Asso- ciation ? *' Would your lessons in political science suffer if you covered council meetings and visited city departments; if you helped organize a municipal reference library; if you made continuous surveys of streets for cleanliness ; if you recognized your obligation of citizenship to Poughkeepsie, an obligation at least to know all her problems, desires, difficulties, resources ; if you organized an efficient-citizen- ship club which would make a complete list of the most advanced steps taken by municipalities in all parts of the country, checking off against this list steps not yet taken in and for Poughkeepsie and making the results available ; if you tendered your service to city and county officers, arranging for the college to supervise your work — the results again to be of practical value? For visiting city departments will tend to tone up those departments, while proving valuable lessons to the students of civics; and 336 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities officers are glad to improve their work if they can count upon volunteer aid under intelligent supervision. " Would your very modem department of psychology object to your testing (as helpers only) backward pupils in the city schools rather than one another? Such work might lead to one of those so-called educational hospitals for defectives, which sometimes save children from being classed irrevocably with idiots and incompetents. "And what about your studies with your physicians here? Do they teach you household science, including house sanitation? And elementary bacteriology and household hygiene? If they do, could you persuade one of the clever members of your faculty to take five or six of you as helpers and start a class in Arlington or Pough- keepsie? It might lead to the saving of some of those tiny babies about whom our Miss Lathrop is so justly concerned. It might lead some day to the saving of some of your own children. " You have proved that you can get the cooperation of your instructors. I understand that on your own initia- tive you employed a district nurse in Arlington and that you now have in that connection a committee of Arlington people with a faculty member. You already help with the Day Nursery, you read to the old people in the alms- houses, you teach in the Sunday schools, perhaps you sing in the churches. I am sure that you do not fail to patron- ize Poughkeepsie stores and that many of you belong to the Consumers' League. Why not go a little further? Professor Lough of the New York University says that he is convinced that you have more knowledge than many girls in Poughkeepsie, that if you can persuade competent instructors to act with you and to count you as their aids you can in your extra hours organize classes in the city for these girls in house economics or home nursing, or house sanitation, or domestic art, or practical housekeep- ing, or home bookkeeping, or what I call a purchasing partner's class — teaching the members how to expend a salary or an income wisely with a due sense of propor- tion. Why not? It would be very valuable for you. Perhaps some day it might come to pass that in already existing departments these same subjects would be taught Which is better for higher education, road making or road using with roadsters ? Berea College Student-built chapel Learning via serving college and town Berea College Cooperates with City Schools 337 for you. It would be no more marvelous than it was to us of '92 to hear that we might study economics and so- cialism. " There are several points to be remembered, however. One is that you cannot all of you do all of these things any more than you can carry courses in ancient and modern languages, English, history, mathematics, science, art, and music all at the same time. Whether regarded by you as laboratory work or as service in the field of citizenship, they must be considered with moderation and an appreci- ation of the fact that there are not nearly hours enough in any one day. Another is that in approaching munici- pal affairs you must have an humble spirit. You must realize that you will be indebted to them for a chance to learn citizenship at first hand. " As far as the matter of service is concerned you Vas- sar girls have already demonstrated in many ways that you fully understand that what you give you have." Dean Elmer E. Jones of the department of education of Northwestern University has arranged with the board of education of Evanston, Illinois, for university students to make a number of studies, to include these: • I. Physical survey of school buildings. 2. School organization and administration. 3. Investigation and analysis of the conditions revealed by the age-grade-progress study. 4. Study of elimination — extent to which children drop out of school, at what age, in what grades, and why. 5. Tests of the school work done by pupils. 6. Adequacy of course of study to meet the educational needs of the children in the schools. 7. The teaching staff — their education, training, and experience. 8. Health work — scope, method, and results. 9. Janitorial service — cost, quantity, and quality. 10. Unit costs in District 75. 11. Salaries of teachers and cost of living. 12. Study of the educational needs of Evanston as a whole and the opportunities for cooperation between 33^ Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities the different school boards in the interests of greater efficiency and economy in the administration of Evanston pubhc schools. In requesting such opportunity for students. Dean Jones wrote as follows : " The following are some of our problems : ( i ) We should like to offer inducements for mature, well-trained men and women to come to the University to study edu- cation under these favorable conditions. We should like to have your schools for the laboratory in which superin- tendents and supervisors can be wisely trained. We feel that the supervisory problem in education is so important that we should like to emphasize it by offering induce- ments for well-trained students to come here to engage in study for advanced degrees. In order to induce such students to take up such work with us, we hope to be able to offer scholarships and fellowships which may be at- tractive. (2) We should like to have opportunity for seniors in the University who meet certain standard re- quirements to serve as apprentices in your schools. They might serve as assistants to certain teachers, as helpers in special drills, teachers of special groups, or they might serve in some other capacity deemed necessary by your administration. This would put them in touch with your schools and give them an experience more valuable than many years of teaching without such supervision. (3) We should like to have opportunity for our advanced students in education to carry on investigations that will be of value to you, if properly worked out, and for which we can give credit as research for advanced degrees. (4) We should like to have the opportunity to be of serv- ice to you in the solution of many smaller problems which individual students might work out in connection with the various courses offered in the department. The de- partment of education would welcome such problems from your superintendent. For example, students in school administration could very well work out one or two prob- lems of an administrative character each semester which would involve the expenditure of a few hours each week. Gown's Responsibility for Town's Conditions 339 " The administration of all of this work presents a con- siderable program and some vital difficulties. However, they are not insurmountable, and while the burden of such a program would rest upon your superintendent and his staff, the department of education stands ready to co- operate in working out the problems in a manner satisfac- tory to both parties." Municipal universities emphasize municipal services and are beginning to recognize the training value of community services that need to be rendered. Toledo University, for example, is voted funds by the city council for work to be done by the university for the council, such as investigating electric-light and power rates for use, including future rates from private companies. Cincinnati's University gives its students of engineering and chemistry part-time instruction in testing foods and building materials for the city and mak- ing state roads. The term " extension work " usually refers to extending college activities for the sake of extending college influence and benefiting communities rather than for the sake of ex- tending college resources for giving instruction to regular students. ^ This more familiar phase of extension work is taken up in a separate section. Extension for the sake of the college; for enriching and definitizing its instruction; for training its students and broadening its faculty, are re- ferred to here. The college buys food and other supplies. Is it doing its part in checking the rise in cost of living; in encouraging introduction of substitute supplies; in preventing the mo- nopoly of land and of business ; in organizing for its faculty and students cooperative buying and selling? The college pays taxes and is exempt from taxation. Is it using its influence to see that the taxing bodies explain to the public the purpose and nature of taxes; reasons for levying them; results secured by spending them? In a word, is the college itself an efficient citizen? The college is a heavy purchaser of transportation. Is it doing its part to secure an agreeable approach to the city; 340 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities a clean, beautiful, and convenient station and courteous, ac- commodating service? College health is influenced by town health. Is the col- lege doing its part to secure a sanitary town and an efficient administration of health laws? Is it complying with a strict interpretation of the sanitary code? Civic beauty affects the drawing power of a college and its power to teach those drawn. Are its own grounds and buildings a practical demonstration of civic beauty? Are its classrooms a living illustration for city classrooms? Does the college give a culture tone ? Town life means normal life, up-to-date life, human need and human ingenuity. Does the college use these forces in imparting information and in developing character? College towns frequently misunderstand their colleges. Misunderstanding breeds gossip, backbiting, community forces that reduce student receptivity. What steps does the college take to remove and prevent misunderstandings and to reduce to the minimum the occasion for unfavorable town gossip about the college ? With few exceptions the constituency of a college is near by, when not local. Tone, like support, is largely given by the home town. What steps does the college take to make sure that it is the town's or near by's best which is given to the college? Has the college the courage to fit itself to its own town and the communities from which it draws rather than to " authorities " in foreign towns ? 117. A c crediting Secondary Sch ols For mutual help and protection in maintaining a desired standard for accepting high-school or secondary graduates, colleges have organized several different federations which decide for all colleges in a federation which preparatory schools should be accredited. In theory this accrediting is based upon an examination which includes field examination of physical equipment and facilities, number and qualifica- Accrediting High Schools 341 tions of teachers, curriculum requirements and standards of instruction. From schools accredited by a federation, students may be received by any self-respecting college as freely as students from schools intimately known to and approved by such col- leges. Whether standards of accrediting are high enough or whether given schools are improperly accredited can hardly be told by testing what happens with pupils from such schools. Certain colleges receive from certain high schools the poorest-equipped pupils only or the least ambitious or most unruly. The only way to ascertain whether the high school itself has done its part satisfactorily is to survey it. That, however, is rarely a question for individual colleges to answer, since they receive verdicts from federated agencies. Several state universities are held directly responsible in their states for accrediting high schools. This recognition from the state university is a much sought prize. Few com- munities are happy until their high school has received the stamp of approval from the university. In such states im- portant questions for surveyors are: 1. What are the standards for accrediting; i.e., what curriculum, how many teachers, what preparation of teachers, what maximum of teaching hours, what min- imum of pupils, what specifications as to scholarship? 2. Is there an enforcement of these standards? 3. How many visits are paid to each high school ? How far apart? Of what duration? 4. To how many classes of each instructor and to what portion of each period visited? 5. What tests are applied to classroom instruction? What examinations of written work? What special questions are asked? 6. What reports are made to the accrediting college; i.e., how specific and comprehensive are they ? 7. What specific reports are made to the community, 34^ Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities public, trustees, superintendent, principal, and teach- ers as to the minimum essentials for accrediting? During the visit? Orally or in writing? How soon after return to central office ? 8. What instructions are given to inspectors ? Are they written ? Do they call for opinions or facts ; i.e., for analysis of each standard into its elements; i.e., do the standards consist of minimum essentials lacking any one of which accrediting will be withheld, plus provision for accrediting additional qualifications? Or is an average accepted in which desirable qualifi- cations offset undesirable conditions ? 9. How has the accrediting institution protected itself against being influenced by the presence of its own graduates as supervisors or teachers of preparatory schools seeking indorsement? 118. Relations to Secondary Schools The most important relations of colleges with elementary schools are two : 1. Colleges prepare teachers for secondary schools. 2. Colleges obtain students from secondary schools. Each of these relations presents many phases for analysis by surveyors. Whatever questions ought to be asked of normal schools or of colleges of education need also to be asked about the teacher-training activities of any college. It is not fair for colleges to ask that their certificates be accepted without further examination of graduates by school boards and state officers who certificate teachers, until col- leges make sure that their own standards of teacher per- sonality and teacher preparation are high enough to protect and help secondary schools. Survey questions for teacher- training work are needed by all private colleges. Think what it means that professional training is required by law and that even Teachers College, Columbia University, does not require classroom teaching before accrediting teachers ! What colleges do to secure students from secondary 100% of College Constituency 343 schools and to merit the confidence of those schools will generally be considered the private affair of the college and the secondary school. Without urging certain reasons why this relation is of public concern, it will suffice here to con- sider the relation from the standpoint of the college itself. College reports do not indicate that college managements generally hold themselves responsible for knowing each the main facts about every high school in its immediate terri- tory. Yet experience shows that most colleges draw the great majority of their students from their immediate neighborhoods, A business house confronted with this same situation would have a complete hst of every pre- paratory school for a hundred miles around, of every teacher in those schools, and of every pupil in the graduat- ing class. A business house would go further, and have a list of editors, ministers, leading lawyers, public officers, citizens with boys and girls coming on toward college age, and of every student within two years of college. Busi- ness colleges have such lists, private schools have corre- sponding lists. One reason why colleges do not have them is that without making this effort many of them have as many students as their resources will take care of profit- ably. Colleges will be helped if surveyors ask what steps are taken to secure the cream of graduates from their legiti- mate territory. (Colleges with special constituencies of de- nomination, of sex, of profession, may reasonably count a much larger circle as their legitimate constituency.) It is hardly enough that all seats are occupied. Colleges may legitimately work for the highest quality of student ma- terial. Thoroughgoing attempts to understand one's constituency will provide a deeper motive than the desire to secure stu- dents. After a college once recognizes, as several of them do, the obligation to act as torchbearer in its territory, and a direct obligation both to the student whom it re- ceives and to the parent and community that send this stu- dent, it cannot help taking anticipatory steps to benefit the 344 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities prospective student. Moreover, it will become interested for the community's sake. Whether the college has fitted itself to receive the boy is becoming a more important question than whether the boy is fitted to receive what the college has to give. Col- leges want to know the boy's background, not merely his marks ; therefore they ask preparatory schools to tell about the boy's health, his personal characteristics, his strong and weak points, his leanings, the capacities which promise suc- cess and those which promise difficulties. Nor do they cut the channels of communication with the boy's background after he has been admitted; instead, they inform the parent the first week who the boy's adviser is and ask the parent's cooperation. Similarly, they commu- nicate with the principal, ask him for his assistance, and invite future suggestions. If the boy has difficulties, whether social or educational, these are reported to the prin- cipal, not merely because he may help the college deal with the boy, but because knowledge of one boy's stumbling at college may help the principal discover where other boys in his school are stumbling from preventable causes. Special pains are taken to inform preparatory schools of their graduates' success at college. Pride begets fellow- ship and loyalty. Preparatory schools like to have their boys and girls where their boys and girls have succeeded. Conferences are called to consider problems of mutual concern; experiences are exchanged; questions and com- plaints are frankly discussed. Conferences at the college are followed up by visits to the schools, not for the purpose of accrediting these schools or of marking them A, B, or C, but for the purpose of finding out where if at all condi- tions in preparatory schools prove the need for changes and improvements in the college. Finally, personal contact is supplemented by printed bul- letins. Whether these documents express and invite co- operation it is important for the surveyor to learn. By looking to preparatory schools for suggestions which will make colleges more serviceable and more efficient, colleges Extension Service to Community 345 will find the fountains of perpetual use. To the extent that colleges regard themselves as judges of secondary efficiency and their standards as hurdles, to that extent will col- leges find themselves out of adjustment with the prepara- tory schools and the communities which colleges exist to help. 119. Extension Work A great deal more extension work is being done by col- leges than is generally appreciated. A special bulletin is- sued by the United States Bureau of Education in 19 14 showed that 32 institutions were giving correspondence courses and 35 were giving extra-mural instruction through special classes and through a combination of syste- matic lectures with local class groups. The number today is much greater. For public employees in New York City the College of the City of New York and New York University have for three years been giving special courses, not only in subjects that lead to a degree, but also in vocational subjects in- tended primarily to increase the student's value to the city. For example, there are engineering courses for bringing graduate engineers up to the latest date in road building; employees of the charities department have lectures and reading in modern philanthropy, not for credit but for wid- ening their working horizon ; stenotyping is taught, not for mental discipline, but to increase rapidly the supply of stenotypists. Columbia's extra-mural instruction, like its intra-mural work for non-collegiates, has increased by leaps and bounds. Just as normal schools are taking up extension work as a means of vitalizing instruction and to deepen and broaden their relations with the communities from which they se- cure their students and money, our colleges and universities will go in for extension work. The popular phase of so-called university extension will always be better done probably when done on a large scale, such as will be possible in most states only by the state uni- 346 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities versity or, as in Massachusetts, by the state board of edu- cation. There is, however, an intensive, more personal kind of extension work which self -surveyors may help colleges con- sider. In absentia instruction can be given just as well by a professor of education or of history in a small college as by a professor of education or of history in a great uni- versity. That it can be given is maintained by an increas- ing number of colleges. For example, Williams will give a master's degree for supervised study and written work in a graduate's major. State universities like Iowa, North Da- kota, and Wisconsin are doing it. Many a graduate who has gone out into teaching or secretarial work will be more apt to continue her work in English or German or history if encouraged to build on the beginnings already made at her own college under the supervision of instructors who al- ready know her. Why should not small colleges build up this type of graduate work What is there about it which cannot be done just as well from Carleton College as from the University of Minnesota? Once having established this method of retaining contact with graduates, small colleges will find it possible to include former students who did not graduate and students from other colleges who are in the immediate neighborhood and feel the need of supervision over their reading and study- ing by some one near enough to know personally. Wisconsin's practice of leaving it to the individual de- partment whether or not it shall develop this in ab- sentia contact wdth credit might well be tried as a first step. Contact by correspondence will usually lead to a demand for closer contact through lectures and class groups. The University of Pennsylvania is rapidly developing an intensive service for teachers in population centers, which differs from ordinary extension work in that the courses given are the same courses as are given at the university. It is obviously easier for a university instructor to travel Extension Possibilities of Each College Center 347 from Philadelphia to Scranton than for forty teachers to go to Philadelphia. Similarly, Columbia is giving at New- ark and Brooklyn courses which duplicate courses given at Columbia. City College is opening special courses in Brooklyn. Why should not this method be employed by practically every college? Where is there a college town which would not support collegiate work in one or more of Its factories, in its city hall, or its nearest neighboring town ? Every college will do well to make a survey of the ex- tension possibilities and needs of its locality : 1. What part is for work below collegiate grade ? What can the college do to direct attention to these needs by state universities or boards of education? 2. How many recent (within 10 years) college grad- uates live in the college town? 3. How many within an hour's ride? 4. What would it cost to circularize them in order to learn what the demand is for continuation courses ? 5. What would it cost to circularize all other groups capable of doing collegiate work; i.e., former college students who did not graduate and high-school grad- uates who never entered college ? 6. Into what profession groups do these totals fall ; i.e., how many teachers, how many lawyers, how many women interested in philanthropy or literary societies, how many faculty members ? 7. Is there any other agency than this college capable of directing continuation work? F. . . N,., f . . . 8. How much would have to be charged in order to make the work pay for itself; i.e., pay for all energy diverted from present work? 9. Are there faculty members capable of making a suc- cess of such work ? F. . . N... ?.., 10. Would collegiate grade work downtown or in the next town strengthen ... or weaken . . . work at the college ? 11. Is it out of the question to organize late afternoon 34^ Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities or evening courses in the college or downtown in a bank or city hall? F. . . iV. . . f . . . In few instances will it be better for a community to have work of high-school or elementary grade done by the college instead of by the public schools. Popular lec- turing frequently hurts more than it helps the college lec- turer. It is probably better for colleges to use their efforts in the interest of central state-directed extension work of second- ary and elementary grades, unless they happen to be rich enough to organize this work separately. Few college in- structors will ever be able to straddle both unsystematic or systematic extension work of elementary grade and work at college. Where this is being tried surveyors should test both kinds of work. 120. Municipal Universities If universities came free, every city would want its own municipal college or university — for its boys and girls, for the advertising, for business reasons, for extension work, for the indirect benefits expected. If universities could be obtained from rich men or re- ligious bodies for the asking, the boost clubs and chambers of commerce of all cities in the country would try to se- cure this attraction. Since, however, it costs money, lots of money, to start and to run a municipal university, cities are compelled to stop, look, and listen before they decide to tax themselves for building and maintaining their own local institutions of higher learning. Because municipal universities are classified with schools, it behooves the public schools of all cities to wonder if there is school money enough to go round to elementary schools, high schools, and municipal universities. Testing the efficiency of municipal universities calls for the same steps as are here suggested for other colleges, with one exception; viz., the taxpayers to whom the mu- nicipal school must account require more definite evidence Municipal Universities 349 oftener than do state universities or private colleges. A municipal university cannot thrive on the argument that it helps society or posterity or children of talent and ambition. It must prove that it helps the whole city which supports it, including those who do not attend its regular or extension classes. Thus we find Toledo's university making reports for the council, keeping strict account of time given by the faculty to municipal research and other municipal purposes, and keeping further cumulative record of all ways in which it has helped Toledo. Cincinnati's president reports not merely to his board of trustees about the university but also to the people of Cincinnati about The Service of the University to the City, which records divers kinds of service to the whole public. Municipal universities must be model budget makers, model tax spenders, model stewards, model publicity agents, model champions of the public's right to information that enlightens. Only blind alleys of popular distrust and event- ual popular repudiation lie ahead for municipal universities which fail either to take their publics frankly and fully into their confidence, or to do such work for the whole com- munity as when rendered and described will make the whole community wish to have that work continued. Asking for $164,000 increase over last year in a total of $758,000, without one syllable of explanation, as did New York's City College in 191 6, will bring the municipal university to a short turn, not because it owes any more to its supporters than do other colleges and universities, but because the people who support it are near at hand and are compelled yearly to consider the alternatives presented to them for spending their taxes. Given service such as several municipal universities are rendering to their communities and given, secondly, the conviction voiced as follows by Dean E. G. Woodbridge of Columbia University's faculty of political science, it is prob- able that within a generation every city of 100,000 or over 350 Self 'Surveys by Colleges and Universities in the United States will have a privately or publicly sup- ported municipal college or university : "The university should be a place to which resort not only those who seek degrees, but also those who seek enlightenment, encouragement, and inspiration. There should be found the youngster who needs in- struction, the men and women of society, those busied with affairs, the writer, the publicist, the statesman, the men of the professions, the inquisitive wanderer, who may find in the university the best which its or- ganized effort in the pursuit of the best can afford. " With such a clientele the university should be stim- ulated to achieve what it can never achieve by helping the immature to secure degrees." An impecunious municipal university will be an anemic disappointment. The kind thing, therefore, to every city which is moved by valid reasons for having a municipal university is to postpone action until after the city's ability to support it has been investigated. This procedure was followed in Dayton, Ohio, in 191 7. The mere statement of the advantages of a municipal university led influential business men to demand its immediate establishment. The Dayton Bureau of Research advised examination first; was retained to make a hurried study ; prepared a succinct report of 36 pages under eight headings : Summary of Findings The Municipal University Colleges and Departments Enrollment Probabilities Financing a University College Facilities in the Miami Valley The Junior College An Alternative Program The school committee of the board of trustees of the Dayton Bureau of Research believe Look before Starting a University 351 " That as a charge upon the community a municipal university is not at this time considered desirable, but with sufficient endowment the matter would be opened for discussion from a new angle, as many of the pres- ent objections would be eliminated." The summary of findings listed 1. Dayton's exceptional facilities for university work along technical, university, and governmental lines. 2. Functions which a municipal university might per- form. 3. Reasons for not adding another small and weak col- lege to Ohio's list. 4. Other present unsatisfied needs which would compete with the university for consideration, such as flood prevention, city planning, elimination of grade cross- ings, parks and playgrounds, sewage disposal, new city hall, central police and fire stations, city abattoir, the public schools in nearly every phase of their work. As an alternative to establishing at once a municipal uni- versity the Dayton bureau recommended : a. Improvement of existing schools. b. Reorganization for better vocational training. c. Encouragement and extension of cooperative courses. d. Study of the junior high school advantages. e. Establishment of a junior college. f . Cooperation with Cincinnati's university. g. A study of normal-school needs. The report itself may be secured by addressing the Dayton Bureau of Research, Dayton, Ohio. How naturally one's idea of accountability and publicity adapts itself to the source of support is illustrated by the recent action of the Municipal University of Akron, in sub- stituting for a formal annual report a series of bimonthly bulletins. 352 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities The first short message was 12 pages — 5 J4 x7M» Feb- ruary, 1917. A pink sHp announced: " The directors of the Municipal University believe that the citizens of Akron should at all times be in- formed regarding affairs of their university. They are, therefore, adopting the plan of reporting several times annually to the people. . . . Any citizen may receive these bulletins, etc." Taxpayers are shown graphically how the Municipal Uni- versity has increased in numbers and has decreased in per student cost. The last page is given to " needs and aims " and begins: " Indications point to a strong desire on the part of Akron citizens to be allowed to share personally in the benefits of the university. The demand for evening- class work has surpassed all expectations. . . . Espe- cially encouraging is the cooperation of Akron's indus- tries. ..." The second bulletin listed the service rendered by the university's bureau of city test to seven different city de- partments, including the board of education. If establishing municipal universities means making higher education community-minded, perhaps the municipal university will become the benefactor of all higher educa- tion. 121. Colleges and Central Boards of Education What colleges do for and to society is so many sided and so vital that society cannot afford to ignore its re- sponsibility for minimizing dangers and maximizing bene- fits from higher education. Isolation for colleges is becoming impossible. False ad- vertising by one college not only injures those upon whom University of Cincinnati One way to find what Dean Schneider calls "the yellow streak" in future engineers "Coop." students in real foundries and shops Cincinnati Municipal university uses factories Central Boards of Education 353 it imposes but also injures every other near-by college. Therefore our older states require that colleges be chartered and that they issue annual financial reports. One or two states have gone farther and prohibit the giving of degrees by any institution that has not an endowment of $500,000 or the equivalent in assured income. To secure facts, the power of visitation is given to a central supervising board of education. Where universities and normal schools are supported from public funds, their responsibility toward other pub- licly supported schools makes necessary some clearing house for information and study that will promote helpful adjustment of one educational activity with all the others. The current demand for central boards of education can- not be ignored by privately supported colleges and uni- versities, nor can it be blocked by ill-considered, stand-pat opposition of private colleges working naturally with state- university and normal-school officers who, perhaps natur- ally, resent any attempt to bring them under central super- vision. However it is accomplished, a 100% view of every state's educational activities is a necessity. It behooves self -surveyors in private and public institutions to ask them- selves where they, their courses, and their institutions stand with respect to other educational work done in their state, and secondly, to ask how best their state can organize for central supervision of education. The most detailed study that has yet been made of educa- tional opinions regarding central supervision of education was by Governor E. L. Philipp of Wisconsin in 19 15. Letters were written to college presidents, foundation officers, state governors, in all parts of the country, not merely asking them what they thought about central super- vision but asking one specific question after another for the purpose of eliciting definite answers. The correspondence was digested and given to newspapers. After much dis- cussion a central board of education was established, with extensive powers of inquiry and administration. 354 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities Since even in Wisconsin governors do not go on forever, perhaps the shortest way to obtain this information in the future will be to address the Legislative Reference Library, Madison, Wisconsin, where undoubtedly the correspond- ence will be filed. A succinct published report entitled Five Different Reasons for a Central Board of Education for Wisconsin's Educational Systems, and a brief report by L. P. Benezet on a field study of Iowa's central board, sum- marize the findings. Unless self -surveyors are watchful, they will find them- selves naturally siding for or against a proposal for their state according to the political line-up in the legislature, or perhaps without study they will be influenced for or against it by university or normal-school officers. The following incident may encourage educational lead- ers and followers to ask for specific facts before taking sides : After a number of letters from educational leaders in different parts of the country condemning the central board had been read to the Wisconsin legislature, a sen- ator asked for a copy of the letter which had drawn out this opposition. This letter, written by an alumna of national reputation, had not only clearly invited opposition but re- ferred to a bill that not only was not before the legislature when the letters in opposition were read but had actually been withdrawn for amendment before it ever went to com- mittee ! 122. The Effect of Foundations upon Colleges No American college is free from the influence of great foundations like the Carnegie Foundation for the Ad- vancement of Teaching, (Rockefeller) General Education Board, and Rockefeller Foundation. Whether colleges want to be influenced by foundations is no longer the question. They are influenced and will continue to be influenced both directly and indirectly. The only open question regarding foundation influence is whether that influence shall be toward or away from de- Foundation Dangers to Education 355 mocracy in education; toward or away from freedom and elasticity; toward or away from recognition of merit for its own sake even if it disagrees with foundations. To maximize foundation benefits and to minimize foun- dation dangers is one of the greatest single opportunities and duties of the American college. That foundation influences can be so studied, discussed, and directed that they will be negligibly injurious and not- ably beneficial is certain. It is equally certain that a laissez faire policy or an adulation policy or a policy of that grati- tude which is a lively sense of favors to come, will take from colleges more than foundations can put back. This is still a difficult question to discuss openly, for sev- eral reasons. Looking a gift horse in the mouth will never be a popular procedure — scores of our colleges have re- ceived gifts of money from the foundations. Looking a gift horse in the mouth before it has been given to us is particularly ungracious and embarrassing — hundreds of colleges hope for gifts from foundations. Again, founda- tion trustees include presidents of private and public col- leges and universities who have hosts of friends in the col- lege world — to question foundations ostensibly managed by one's friends seems hardly loyal. Conceding that foundations are animated by the most unselfish, most altruistic, highest educational and patriotic motives, there is nevertheless inherently in their position a danger to themselves and to their beneficiaries. Not needing money, they necessarily find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to see the world as it is seen by those who desperately need money for their good work. Not being under pressure to make out a case, — i.e., to sell their goods; i.e., to convince their audience, — they instinc- tively grow lax in desires, in scientific method, in accuracy, in attention, in consecutive study, in vision, and in sym- pathy. Having money to give away, they exercise an influence proportionate not to the money they hold or to the money 356 Self -Surveys by Colleges and Universities they give away but rather to the necessities of the rest of the world that wants some of that money. It is not foundation greed for power but college poverty that gives to foundations influence which they cannot possess and colleges cannot yield without jeopardy to American edu- cation. Because of the money power they represent these great foundations are " good news." Not only can they afford to prepare their stories for the press in attractive, wide- margined, prettily tinted releases, but news agencies can afford to telegraph broadcast extracts from these releases and local papers can afford to print stories about them. When foundation benefactions are misrepresented and exaggerated, the harm cannot be undone by showing that the misrepresentation and exaggeration were by newspapers or school journals rather than intentional by the publicity agents of the foundations. For example, a headline reads that $100,000,000 has been spent by one foundation on schools — this sum is ten times too large. Another headline reads that a certain f oimdation gave colleges last year $12,435,780 — this is the total pledged in 15 years. An educational journal edited by a professor of education who is making studies for a certain foundation refers to ** a model teachers' home dedicated February 16, 19 17, the first of its kind to be built in Amer- ica." Hundreds of teachers' manses had earlier been built in America, in the South, Northwest, and Middle West. One hundred and forty- four in Washington under the leadership of State Superintendent Josephine C. Preston, 200 in Texas, 27 in North Carolina, 75 in Oklahoma, etc. In these three announcements alone over a million read- ers are given false statements and misleading impressions. Can any one doubt that with these false impressions has gone an undue influence which prepares those million odd readers to ascribe a soundness of judgment and carefulness of statement proportionate to ability to have sound judg- ment? For purposes of self -survey concrete instances are not Local Effects of Foundations 357 cited, although many exist, of foundation pressure and foundation influence in directions prejudicial to the interests of American education. To cite these instances will help no self -survey or. On the contrary, his problem is three- fold: 1. In what respects am I, an individual college teacher or officer, influenced by foundations as I would not be influenced by the same fact or suggestion from a colleague, citizen, or editor ? 2. What, if any, evidences are there that the man- agement of our college is giving more thought to what will favorably impress foundations, than to what is needed and wanted by our own constituency ? 3. What, if anything, can be done to make American colleges and universities equal to and not subservient to the great foundations? A constructive program for increasing the effectiveness of foundations and for decreasing the possibility of leth- argy or arbitrary use of power is here tentatively suggested to students and managers of higher education. The rea- son for putting this program tentatively and in the form of questions is the same as for asking questions elsewhere instead of making assertions ; namely, to invite the reader to reach an independent conclusion with respect to each ques- tion. See Exhibit I, pages 360-361. Instead of discouraging interest in education, everything possible should be done to multiply the number of men and of agencies who will contribute devotion, study, and money to the upbuilding of our colleges and universities.^ Foundations as handmaidens to higher education can be of infinite helpfulness. Foundations as arbiters and patrons of higher education can and will incalculably deter and en- ervate. The shortest cut to the proper relation between higher education and educational foundations is a continuous, frank, independent self-survey by our colleges and uni- versities. Appendix 360 Appendix Exhibit I. — A Constructive Program for and for Decreasing the Possibility of 1 — Should all philanthropic agencies engaged in in- terstate philanthropy or investigation be required to secure national charters and be made subject to inspection and supervision by the national gov- ernment? a— Should such foundations be required to report an- nually (a) not only cash in and cash out but work done; (b) whether income has been spent or allowed to accumulate; (c) opportunities met and not met; (d) cost of each kind of work and of each important undertaking? S^ — Should the number, character and purposes of ap- plications received but not acted upon favorably be reported and accompanied by statement that all applications have been read and accounted for? 4 — Should failure to read and account for all applica- tions be reason for a special examination and report by the government? 5 — 'Should interlocking directorates be prohibited either within a group of foundations established by one donor or between independent founda- tions? Or, whenever donors wish to have the same man or men in control of several founda- tions, should donors be required to act under sin- gle charters so that the ultimate control and re- sponsibility will be constantly advertised? 6 — Should foundations be prohibited from giving away money or services to any other organization or individuals, e. g., any college, civic or charitable agency, church, hospital, etc.; i.e., should charters be limited to foundations which will direct the spending of their own incomes and capital and will assume responsibility for the efficiency and safety of the results? 7 — ^At least should charters be refused for the double service of giving away money to colleges, civic agencies, etc., and at the same time conducting general investigations in these fields? 8 — Should all charters include provision for public ex- amination of foundation records subject only to Exhibit I: Program for Foundations 361 Increasing the Effectiveness of Foundations Lethargy or Arbitrary Use of Power reasonable restrictions such as now control citi- zen inspection of governmental records? 9 — ^In order to insure periodic comparison of work by foundations with the opportunities for service which have been presented to them and in order to keep the burden of proof upon the foundations rather than upon an unorganized, unwatchful and generally uninformed public, should the life of a charter be limited to 20 years, renewable only by new appeal and submission of new evidence to the public? 10 — Should all findings of fact by foundations regard- ing public or private agencies or officers be sub- mitted to such agencies op officers for confirma- tion or modification according to the truth before being finally incorporated in a report for the pub- lic or for the governing board of the foundation? 11 — Should the fact base of all generalizations and pro- posals made by foundations regarding individuals involved in such proposals be clearly stated to- gether with the proposals: how many persons and who were examined, how many and what records were examined, how long was the investigation, what conferences were held, etc.? 12 — Should membership upon boards of foundations by officers or employees of national, state or city governments or bodies be prohibited on penalty of forfeiting the foundation charter? 13^ — Should trustees of foundations when elected to pub- lic office be required to resign their trusteeships? 14 — Should charters specifically prohibit foundations or officers speaking for foundations from recom- mending or urging the appointment of individu- als to public or semi-public office, such as mem- bership on boards of education, presidencies of colleges and universities, and professorships, and should recommendations made by foundation of- ficers in their individual capacities with respect to fields within the foundations' scope be reported to the trustees in writing and made a permanent record? 362 Appendix Exhibit II Madison, Wis., May 22, 1914 To the Faculty Members of the University of Wisconsin The inclosed questions and requests for information and suggestions are going today to all persons who have to do officially with instruction and research at the University of Wisconsin. Individual members of the faculty are addressed, including all posi- tions and including the most recent accessions to the faculty, because it is felt that no one else can so effectively explain and demonstrate the personal and social value of his subject or his department or his work, as can the faculty member charged with giving instruction or training through his work, subject and department. Each question calls for definite information which the State Board of Public Affairs feels should, in fairness to the state which supports the University and to the University itself, be obtained by the Uni- versity Survey directly from the faculty members. Similar information has been obtained from all who have part in normal school instruction in this state; and similar information will later be obtained from instructors in high schools, county training and agricultural schools. We particularly hope that you will take advantage of repeated in- vitations and of the blank pages which ask for your help in securing statements of fact, and suggestions not specifically called for in this set of questions. Will you think of these questions not as a duty but as an opportunity to record the essential truth about your work and the University so that the public cannot fail to understand? The only purpose in asking for the information here called for is to obtain facts or suggestions that will help the University and the State of Wisconsin when considering the numerous questions that come biennially before the legislature and constantly before the administra- tive officers of the University and the State. We ask for the informa- tion in order that we may use it in our report. We shall, however, regard as strictly confidential any part of your answer which you may mark confidential. Every precaution will be taken by the University Survey in reading and using papers returned to it so as to insure confidence, where confidence is requested. Special conferences have been held and will be held further with the president, the deans, chairmen of the departments and others having special responsibilities. All findings of fact will be submitted in advance of publication or of use for conclusion or recommendation to the departments whose work and needs are described. THE UNIVERSITY SURVEY, By the State Board of Public Affairs. Francis E. McGovern, Governor and Chairman State Board of Public Affairs. A. W. Sanborn, Chairman University Survey Committee, Exhibit II: Faculty Questionnaire 363 DIRECTIONS Note. This was written on University Survey stationery covering all committees, names and State Capitol photograph. Signatures were facsimiles. Size sheet 8J4 x lo^. 1. Answer every part of each question. If you leave any question unanswered it will be necessary for us to resubmit it for your reply. If you cannot give the information called for, or if any question does not seem to apply to your work, write "I don't know," or " Does not apply," or equivalent. 2. In cases where you have previously given the information called for in the question, if you prefer to do so, indicate the page and number of answer giving the information desired. 3. In all cases, unless otherwise stated, all questions apply to the cur- rent University year, October, 1913, to date. 4. Make your answers as specific as possible. Concrete illustrations are very much desired. Avoid generalities. 5. Wherever available, send copies of instructions used, forms, syllabi, conference programs, etc. If not available, please indicate where they may be obtained. 6. In most cases sufficient space for the answer' is left on the paper on which the question appears. If space is insufficient use blank sheets at the end of this set of questions. Be sure, however, that every answer is given the same notation as the question to which it applies. [Generous use was made of blank spaces, varying from % inch to 3 or 6 inches and including several blank pages. Where it is easy to write faculties will write. Spaces omitted here.] 7. It is desired that in all cases replies be made without conference with any one else, except when it is necessary to get specific in- formation from an associate. In all matters calling for your suggestion, advice or criticism, the committee desires what you yourself think or believe. 8. Suggestions or information not called for, which you consider help- ful, will be appreciated. 9. Enclose your answers in the envelope supplied, and then mail direct to the State Board of Public Affairs, or if you prefer, deliver to the University's mail service. 10. Please return your replies as soon as possible, but not later than June 20, 1914. II If you desire information regarding the Survey, or an interview, please address University Survey, attention of William H. Allen or of A. N. Farmer. 3^4 Appendix a u Ck :Q C to G O M 4J p 3 ^ CO ^ V o X! t-t -M C/J Wi ^ (U W ^ H CO X G W O O ^ T) M ^5 ■«-• o .. - S 2 Q.+. 3 SO 3 «- c II llu-'sS on: g"ew O'rl > 2«« ^1 «43 So :2s .s « V ■!-> 0.3 c« J3 0, ^^ .s £f • Wi o — P. *. .H 03 « e <" i» i-i 4) o o. — ^■— s 1 ji series of constructive educational hooks of bandy size 1 i covering all educational activities 1 I I. THE PUBLIC AND ITS SCHOOL | I By William McAndrew | I Contains matter not usually found' in reports and treats things in a | I big way. Its suggestions are in the highest degree practical. lUus- I i trated. 6o cents | I a. STANDARDS IN ENGLISH | i By John J. Mahoney i I A course of study in oral and written composition for elementary i I schools. Also literature outline, picture list, model letter forms, list | I of errors, etc. go cents 1 I 3. AN EXPERIMENT IN THE FUNDAMENTALS | i By Cyrus D. Mead | I Giving the results of tests made in the Cincinnati schools with two | I kinds of practice material. The first contribution to the literature of | I scientific practice work. Illustrated. 60 cents | I 4. NEWSBOY SERVICE | i By Anna Y. Reed | I Introduction by George Elliott Howard. Prefetory note by W. | I Carson Ryan, Jr. A detailed study of a social-economic problem I = very close to schools. Treats of educational, social, economic, 1 I physical, moral, vocational, and avocational aspects. Of value to I 1 those interested in the workings of the Smith-Hughes Act. go cents § I 5. EDUCATION OF DEFECTIVES in the PUBLIC SCHOOLS | i By Meta L. Anderson 1 I A thoroughly readable and instructive book with much of value I I presented in print for the first time. Introduction by Henry H. I I Goddard. In press | I Other volumes in active preparation , 1 1 Descriptive folder on the Series nvill be sent on request | I WORLD BOOK COMPANY | I YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NeW YoRK | I 2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago | niliiuiiumiiHiinniiiiHiniuiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiuniiiniiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiniiiiriiiiiiiHiiiiiHiiiinnMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiMiMn siiiiiiiiiiniiiiniiniitiiitniniMiinniiiiinuuiiniiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiitMiiuiiinniniiiiiiiiniiiiiiHiiiiiiiiniHiiiiiiiHiniiiniiiniiiiiniiiiMniininiiiiiii^ i i^obernment Handbooks; i 1 i I Edited by David P. Barrows and Thomas H. Reed | I GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS | I OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE | I By Fritz-Konrad Kruger | i Doktor der Staatswissenschaften {^Tiibingen^j m.a. (^Nebraska) I I This book is the result of years of careful study, and in its i I preparation a mass of German first- and second-hand sources I I has been used, which has not been used heretofore by Ger- | I man or English writers. Furthermore, many chapters cover | I questions not systematically treated in any previous book I I written in EngHsh; e. g., population and territory in their | I relation to German politics, the nature of the Empire, party | I principles, the chancellors, etc. In short, this is the first | I systematic monograph in English dealing with the politics of | I Germany. There is a critical bibliography, covering thirty- | I three pages, at the end of the book; two colored charts and | I eight colored half-tones. | I Cloth, xii + 340 pages. Price, $1.20 I iiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiii The Government Handbooks are planned for the double pur- pose of supplying college classes in government with handy, authoritative texts and of furnishing the public with convenient volumes for reading and reference. The plan is to cover the important governments not only of Europe but of other parts of the world and certain colonial dependencies. Each volume will be written by a specialist in the history and institutions of the country concerned, and from first-hand knowledge of actual conditions. Send for the pamphlet announcing the series. I WORLD BOOK COMPANY | I YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK | iuiiiiiHiiuiiiuimuuiiHiiiiiuuiuuiniuiiiNiiiiMiuiHiimiHnniHuuuiiiiiiuuiiiHiuiiiuiiiiiiniiiiiiiuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiHinuiHiHiiiiuiniiiiiiiniiHn