The chief part of the present college curriculum, therefore, cannot wisely be made optional, for it belongs on the other than the university side of the college; it belongs to the secondary education. It is an indispensable part of that training which enables the youth, where universities do exist, to exercise such choice of subjects and teachers (Lernfreiheit) as belongs to the university education. To make this part of the college education optional would not advance us one step toward converting the college into the genuine university. My objection—and it is an objection which seems to me unanswerable, except by raising greatly the standard of secondary education outside the college—my objection to making the entire college curriculum elective is the necessary sequence of the facts. The freshman in the best American college, irrespective of his age and his wisdom, whether in his own eyes or in the eyes of others, has not had (except in rare instances) a secondary education of sufficient extent or thoroughness to fit him to enjoy the privileges of the university idea. Place the average Harvard or Yale student who has just passed his entrance examinations beside the German student who has just gone through with his Abiturienten-Examen, and compare the two. The latter is greatly superior to the former in respect of "general scientific culture;" he is even superior to the average Harvard or
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