Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/180

152 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Perhaps the chief modification of the original plan was that relating to Majors and Minors. It was originally intended that each student should take only two studies, to one of which he would give eight or ten hours of classroom work a week, to the other half as many. One of the professors states, that, so far as he can recall, the reasons for giving up the system were two: partly the difficulty of arranging schedules so as to avoid conflicts, and partly the belief that, in some subjects at any rate, longer time was requisite to give satisfactory results than was provided for in the six-weeks' term originally planned. But we have retained so much of the principle as requires a student to take three subjects as his normal number rather than a larger number. The principle underlying the system of Majors and Minors was concentration. It was this principle which President Harper had in mind in the major and minor courses. The following is the strong statement of President Judson: Another feature which has essentially remained is that of concentration of work. While it does not take quite the original form, at the same time the normal work of the student in our Colleges comprises three subjects of study which are given from four to five hours a week each. As a mere matter of nomenclature a course which is offered four or five hours a week for a quarter is called a Major. The original organization was based not on the quarter system, but on the term system, each quarter being divided into two terms, and a student was supposed to take in each term only two subjects of study, one being a major and the other a minor. The major was a subject presented two hours a day throughout the term. A subject presented two hours daily throughout the entire quarter was called a double major, and a subject pre- sented one hour a day throughout the quarter was called a double minor. This plan was changed within the first two years to the present system. The only remnant of the division of the quarter into terms is found in the Summer Quar- ter, in which the two terms are still convenient, and in which a minor subject of instruction is still found. Even with the present change it will be noted that the student usually carries only three subjects. The substitution of group election for promiscuous election, with the requirement of work in arranged sequences, carried out the concentration idea with undergraduates; and the plan of devoting two- thirds of the time to the principal and one- third to the second- ary subject accomplished this result with graduates. The great object, therefore, which President Harper had in view concen- tration on a few subjects was attained.