Education: College Boards

A Latin master at Lawrenceville last week glanced over a paper, chuckled, went off to play golf. . . . Heat shimmered over a brick high school in Mobile, Ala. A proctor in academic gown looked bored, listened to the scratching of a couple of pens. . . . Perspiring Hill students finished a tennis match, trooped with a hundred others into a hall where they settled themselves noisily. … In Paris a lonely student racked his brain, gazed vacantly from the Salle des Conferences in the American University Union at scuttling trotteurs and lazy cafe-sitters in the Boulevard St. Germain. … In Ojai, Calif., a student hurried across Thacher School campus, slammed a suitcase shut, dashed to catch a train. . . .

Elsewhere throughout the world there was similar activity. It centred in 350 cities, took place at the same hours _ in each on six days of last week. It occupied the attention of some 22,000 preparatory and high school students. Soon schoolboys who meet on holidays will groan in exaggerated despair. “How’d you make out?” or boast cockily: “It was a pipe.” Then in Manhattan clerks will write out, for each & every one, a certificate of grades from the College Entrance Examination Board.

At the turn of the century, U. S. headmasters found it a prodigious job to get their students into college. No uniform requirements existed, each college held its own examinations in June or September. to which the candidates were obliged to journey no matter how far. In 1899 a national Entrance Board was suggested by Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, who already, at 37, was a moving spirit in U. S. pedagogy. Many an august college president objected. But Harvard’s liberal Dr. Charles William Eliot approved, pointing out that such a board would only set the examinations. Colleges could still admit and reject applicants as they pleased. In 1900 the College Board was established in the Middle States. Colleges throughout the land fell in line, gradually discontinued their separate examinations. Today nearly every U. S. institution accepts, and most big ones require. College Board ratings.

The College Board has offices in an old brownstone house near Columbia University. On the door is this warning: ALL BUSINESS WITH CANDIDATES, PARENTS AND TEACHERS IS CONDUCTED BY MAIL. Money or position will not move the Board to release its grades in advance. Every candidate for examinations pays $10, although the actual cost is estimated at $11 per examinee. Last year the Board made some $11,000 selling old examination papers, ended up with a $216 deficit.

Secretary & Treasurer of the College Board is red-faced, white-haired Professor Thomas Scott Fiske of Columbia University. He starts the brownstone house humming long before examination time. Last December he summoned the examiners—college and secondary school instructors—to begin work on the papers which are to be given in June 1933. In May the papers went to the printers. Last week the examining proctors at schools and examining centres all over the world handed out papers prepared in December 1930. They did it simultaneously every day, allowing for differences in time, to thwart shrewd youngsters who might receive news of examinations by telegraph from East to West. There is no “honor system,” for the Board realizes that while a student may be honest in loyalty to his own institution and his own kind, he may not honor a distant nebulous Board whose emissaries are strangers.

Up to Manhattan’s Morningside Heights last week journeyed 700 school and college teachers from throughout the land, to mark examination papers. They felt privileged and honored. They were housed in Columbia University dormitories, received $50 of their traveling expenses and about $15 per day for two weeks. Chief readers get $25. New readers attend a conference for instructions. Marking is to be fair, unbiased, for the College Board hears no appeals from its grades. A very good paper or a very bad paper is usually read but once. A paper near 60% is gone over thoroughly.

Last week the reading began. All day long the readers worked. Evenings they talked over papers, swapped “boners” with academic gusto. A biology marker found this one:

(Q.) “Define and clearly distinguish between a spore and sperm.”

(A.) “A spore grows right straight up into adultery but a sperm does not.” Most difficult mathematics question:

A school spends $200 in preparing for an outdoor pageant. In case of rain, the $200 will all be lost: but, if the weather is fair, the pageant will give a profit of $400. To protect itself against loss, the school takes out insurance against rain. The insurance policy is for a definite sum paid for by the school at a definite percentage of the amount of the policy. After paying the cost of the insurance, it is calculated that in case of rain the school will clear 3/10 of the amount for which it is insured, and that in case of fair weather the school will clear ½of the amount for which it is insured. What is the amount of the insurance carried and at what rate?*

Most difficult English question: to interpret an obscure poem called “Camelot” by one Charles Dalmon.

Translating vaisseau from the French, a student wrote ‘on his scratch pad: “vessle, vessil, vassel.” Then, apparently giving it up, he thought of a synonym, wrote “bote.”

Exceptionally long, but not too difficult, was the examination in Virgil. Most difficult Caesar question: to account for the mood of exsecuturus esset in the sentence, Caesar respondit se fore aequissimum Pharniaci si quae polliceretur exsecuturus esset.†

Hardest question in U. S. History: “What controversies concerning Canada have arisen in the history of the United States? Describe definitely the settlement arrived at in two instances.”**

In discussing U. S. courts, one student wrote: “Justices of the Supreme Court are subject to good behavior and if found guilty, they are impeached.” Another, in writing of the advantages of centralized federal government, said: “For instance, we have 48 different divorce codes. A lawyer from Pennsylvania told how a man by acting as a gentleman could get himself guilty of bigamy, perjury, adultery, seduction, abandonment and rape.”

Kudos

Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.)

John Dewey, philosopher, humanist LL.D.

Samuel Seabury, New York lawyer (President Lowell: “This Knight . . .”) LL.D.

Ogden Livingston Mills, Secretary of the Treasury LL.D.

Richard Bedford Bennett, Premier of Canada LL.D.

Lewis Perry, principal of Phillips Exeter Academy LL.D.

Robert Andrews Millikan, scientist … .Sc.D.

Dr. Edward Reynolds, onetime director of Peabody Museum M.A.

John Livingston Lowes, Harvard English professor Litt.D.

University of Oregon (Eugene, Ore.)

Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise LL.D.

Robert Gordon Sproul. president of the University of California LL.D.

Trinity College (Hartford. Conn.)

Most Rev. James De Wolf Perry. Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church D.D.

Rt. Rev. Frederick Bethune Bartlett, Episcopal Bishop of North Dakota. . .D.D.

Charles Adams Platt. architect Sc.D.

Kenneth Ballard Murdock, Harvard dean of Arts & Sciences Litt.D.

William Gwinn Mather, Cleveland manufacturer LL.D.

Morgan Bulkeley Brainard, president of Aetna Life Insurance Co. M.A.

*Answer: $500 at 30%.

†Translation: Caesar replied that Pharnaces would meet with the utmost justice if he would perform his promises. Exsecuturus esset is a “quoted condition.”

**Answers: In 1842 there was controversy over the boundary line between Canada and Maine; also over the boundary line of Oregon. During the Civil War there was disagreement over disarmament on the Great Lakes, and whether or not reciprocity should be abrogated. Disarmament continued on the _ Great Lakes. Reciprocity was abrogated, and still is.