L120 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUGATION. 
manner. But the point which we ought especially to note is that two 
lirections of the development of later years. the humanistic and the 
scientific, were already apparent. 
Into these scholastic institutions there came, at the end of the four- 
teenth century and during the fifteenth, the influences of the Renascence. 
I'he discovery and interpretation of Latin and Greek manuscripts gave 
new play to the human mind, and created a new wealth of interests. The 
old course in arts became enlarged. In addition to Latin grammar, Latin 
literature was studied. Tn place of the study of one group of manifesta- 
tions of the Greek mind, namely, in logic, ethics, physics, and meta- 
physics—and that in Latin translations—all the manifestations of the 
Greek mind were studied, and that in the original texts. The degree of 
Bachelor of Arts lost, therefore, nothing of its essential meaning ; it only 
gained a richer significance. In later centuries, also, the degree gained 
vith respect to the other of its two original sides, but it gained more 
slowly, having to make its way against unjustifiable prejudice. In the 
eighteenth century the universities were behind the outside world in the 
cultivation of the sciences. In the further expansion on the scientific side, 
and in the still later recognition of the importance of the study of modern 
languages, the curriculum has gained immensely, and the degree of 
Bachelor of Arts has been still further enriched. 
But the process could not go on indefinitely. The growth of modern 
scholarship made specialization inevitable if the student desired to do any 
serious work ; and the demands of specialization, strengthened by the 
demand for the adaptation of the college course to the wants of the indi- 
vidual, produced what is known as the elective system. The elective sys- 
tem necessarily affected the amount of time given to Greek and Latin, 
which now reversed their older process of growth. Some of the subjects 
by the addition of which the old curriculum was enriched were, however, 
still kept by the stronger universities, like Harvard, through the pushing 
down of these or other subjects into the preparatory course; so that it 
became possible for a student to enter with a good start in Greek, Latin, and 
mathematics, and with a start not so large in a modern language or in 
natural science, and then, in his years of elective work, to turn his atten- 
tion with considerable success to any field in which his tastes had shown 
themselves to lie. This stage continues to be represented by many of our 
older colleges. Before this process had reached its logical development 
within the university, however, the principle of election had been brought 
down to the high-school curriculum, through the organization in many 
colleges of four distinct courses, in arts, in philosophy, in letters, and in 
science ; the first requiring Greek and Latin, the second requiring Latin, 
the third substituting for Latin a considerable amount of modern lan- 
guages, and the fourth emphasizing mathematics and natural science. 
Cornell is a notable example of this system. The degrees granted by Cor- 
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