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considerable increased. The effect will soon be apparant, I have
no doubt, in the superior quality of the work done in other
departments by those who are in the present preparatory
[crossed out] department] [end crossed out] Greek classes. But at the same time another
bad effect must be deployed in the case of the scientific
students. Being required during the last two years of the
course, to pursue the same studies as the classical
students, they will necessarily work at a disadvantage,
for they will lack almost two years of
valuable intellectual discipline, which then follows
students have received
The considerations suggest the importance of a
change in our policy. Our present scientific course is
unworthy of the bachelor's degree and in the interest
of sound learning wrought either to raise it to an
equality with the course for which we confer the
bachelors degree of arts or to abandon it. The most
desirable step would be to make the two courses
equivalent; but to do this with our present teaching
[crossed out] course [end crossed out] work is impossible. There ought to be at least two more
teachers in order to accomplish satisfactorily what our
present course demands
It deserves to be seriously considered whether if we
are to do the best quality of work which our facilities
and the ability and scholarship of our Faculty render
possible and if we are to maintain the institution in the
reputation which such an institution ought to possess
we should not abolish our present scientific course and cease to confer
the bachelor's degree for anything less than a full
equivalent of classical course of our best colleges.
The concentration of all our means and all our labors
on the production of a board and thorough scholarship
in the highest order of studies will be of the greatest value
to the student and constitute the best service that we can
render to the cause of education. To accomodate the demands
of the various departments of study and the wants
of different classes of students as many elections as our
means will justify should be introduced in to the later
years of the course; and special students may still be
admitted
The arrangement of the courses of study belonged by law
to the Faculty; but I present the subject here partly as a
matter of information, but also because the power to confer
degrees is rested in the Board of Trustees and
because the kind of work to be done will have much
to do with the employment of teachers and the
distribution of this work