sons and daughters. They have not been stimulated by the marked encouragement of the colleges; for, at the present day, several important colleges still decline to regard any pre-collegiate course of study as comparable in value to the traditional classical course.[1] Would it not have been the duty of the "leading" schools of the country to lead public opinion, and not allow themselves to be guided by it? When some large and influential schools adopted many parallel courses, the majority of the smaller and less important schools imitated the larger ones, or were practically forced to do so. After these schools had yielded to external demands, it was but natural that there "has also come a desire on the part of all to justify such programmes by an appeal to reason."[2]
This appeal has been made most forcibly by President Eliot on various occasions. We have heard that his most serious charge against Jesuit colleges is their adherence to prescribed courses. To this indictment the President added: "Nothing but an unhesitating belief in the Divine wisdom of such prescriptions can justify them; for no human wisdom is equal to contriving a prescribed course of study equally good for even two children of the same family, between the ages of eight and eighteen. Direct revelation from on high would be the only satisfactory basis for a uniform prescribed school curriculum. The immense deepening and expanding of human knowledge, in the nineteenth century, and the increasing sense of the
