The economists have not been active in urging their subject as a requirement. The call for increasing requirements in economics has come from the public and from the alumni. The steady increase in the number of students electing economic courses without corresponding additions to the teaching forces has made the overworked professors of the subject thankful when nothing more was done to increase by faculty requirements the burden of their class work. It is charged and it is admitted in some institutions that the standards of marking are purposely made more severe in the economics courses than in courses in most other subjects. The purpose avowed is "to cut out the dead timber," so that only the better students will be eligible for enrollment in the advanced economics courses. An unfortunate result is to discourage some excellent students, ambitious for high marks or honors, from electing courses in economics because thereby their average grades would be reduced. In many cases, for this reason, good students take the subject optionally (without credit), though doing full work in it.
=Organization of the subject in the college curriculum=
We have already, in discussing the place of economics, necessarily touched upon the organization of the courses. In most colleges this organization is very simple. The whole economic curriculum consists of the "general" course, or at most of that plus one or more somewhat specialized courses given the next year. The most usual year of advanced work consists of one semester each of money and banking and of public finance. A not unusual plan, well suited to the situation in a small college where economics takes the full time of one teacher, is to give the general course in the sophomore year, and to offer a two-year cycle of advanced work, the two courses being given in alternate years, the class consisting of juniors and seniors. In this plan the additional courses may be in transportation, in labor problems, in trusts and corporations, and frequently of late, in accounting. Ordinarily the "general" course itself involves a logical sequence, the first term dealing with fundamental concepts and theories, and the second term covering in a rapid survey a pretty wide range of special problems. The majority of the students take only the general course. Those who go on to more advanced courses retrace the next year some of the ground of the second semester's work, but this is probably for few of them a loss of time. Indeed, in such a subject as economics this opportunity to let first teachings "sink in," and strange concepts become familiar, is for most students of great value. Yet the plan was adopted and is followed as a compromise, using one course as a ready-made fit for the differing needs of two groups of students. We have seen above (page 221) that preceding the general, or systematic, course, there is in a number of colleges a simpler one. In some cases[22] the experiment has been undertaken of studying first for a time certain broad institutional features of our existing society, such as property, the wage system, competition, and the amount and distribution of wealth. The need of such a course is said to be especially great in the women's colleges. If so, it is truly urgent, for most young men come to college with very meager experience in economic lines. Few, if any, teachers would deny that such an introductory course preceding the principles is distinctly of advantage.[23] Some would favor it even at the price of shortening materially the more general course. But most teachers would agree that together the introductory course and the general course should take two full years (three hours a week, twelve college credit hours, as usually reckoned), an amount of time which cannot be given by the "floater" electing economics. And to accommodate both those who have had the introductory course and those who have not, the general course would have to be given in two divisions and in two ways. Again we come to the thought, suggested above, that probably we are attempting too much in too brief a time in the general course today. A longer time for the study would permit of a sequence that would be more logically defensible. It would begin with historical and descriptive studies, both because they are fundamentally necessary and because, being of more concrete nature, they may be given in a form easier for the beginner to get. In this period a good deal of the terminology can be gradually familiarized. Then should come the more elementary analytical studies and fundamental principles, followed by a discussion of a number of practical problems.