With the introduction of the principle of promotion by subject instead of by class, the strong high schools have been enabled to undertake to teach subjects in their last years which were formerly taught in the first years of the college. They have done this so well that the practice has grown up in some parts of the country, especially on the Pacific Coast, of extending the course of the high school to six years and of completing in them the work of the first two years of college. This enables more young men and women throughout the state to receive collegiate education, and as the best-equipped teachers in the high schools are usually in the last years and the worst-equipped teachers in the college are usually in the first years, the system makes for better education. Moreover, it relieves the state universities of the crowds of students in the first two years and permits overworked professors to concentrate upon the advanced work of the last two years and upon research work in the graduate schools. A system which offers so many advantages and is so popular both in the high school and the university bids fair to spread.
=The abbreviated and condensed college course=
While the movement making for the elimination of the college from below has been taking place in the West, another movement having the same effect has been taking place in the East, only the pressure has been from above. The tendency is spreading for the professional schools of the strong universities to demand a college degree for admission. If the full four years of the college are demanded in addition to the four years of the secondary school and the eight years of the elementary school, the great majority of students will begin their professional education at twenty-two and their professional careers at twenty-six, and they will hardly be self-supporting before thirty. This seems an unreasonably long period of preparation compared to that required in other progressive countries. The German student, for example, begins his professional studies immediately upon graduation from the gymnasium at eighteen. Hence the demand has arisen for a shortening of the college course. This demand has been met in several ways. In some colleges the courses have been arranged in such a way that the bright and industrious student may complete the work required for graduation in three years. In others, as at Harvard, the student may elect in his senior year the studies of the first year of the professional school. Another tendency in the same direction is to permit students in the junior and even in the sophomore years to elect subjects of a vocational nature. This has been bitterly contested by those who hold that the minimum essentials of liberal culture should be acquired before vocational specialization begins. Columbia _permits_ a student to complete his college and professional studies in six years, and at the end of that time he receives both the bachelor's and the professional degrees.