differentiation in the commercial course during the last two years of high school work. This allows students to specialize along the particular lines for which they are best fitted, and at the same time relieves the pressure on the course of study by eliminating unnecessary subjects. As a consequence, students are enabled to elect a greater range of non-technical subjects.

Second. In some high schools three or even four years are spent upon the clerical subjects, shorthand, typewriting, and bookkeeping. From a very careful study of published courses, I find that the actual standards in shorthand and typewriting are generally no higher in schools devoting three or four years to them than are the standards in schools covering the work in two years. Students are frequently forced to begin the study of shorthand, for instance, before they have had sufficient training in English. Moreover, the dragging out of a subject over three or four years frequently indicates inefficient teaching; it tends to create time-wasting habits in students; makes a monotonous program of studies; and narrows the training of the prospective business man or woman to strictly clerical subjects. For not only are mathematics, science, language, and social subjects forced out of the curriculum by this waste of time on clerical subjects, but even commercial geography, commercial law, economics, business organization, advertising and selling are frequently eliminated. Let it be understood that I am not advocating the lowering of standards in clerical work, but that I am protesting against the waste of time so frequently apparent.

Third. I find in a few cases that school authorities have arbitrarily limited the field of electives for commercial students. In other words, the course of study may be well planned so far as the commercial subjects are concerned, and an opportunity may be given to elect non-commercial subjects, but only a few academic subjects are offered. In some cases language is not included among the electives, in others science is not included, and in still others mathematics.

I am ready to concede that at present ninety per cent of our high school commercial students are not going to college, and it will probably always be true that the majority of commercial students will enter business immediately after graduation. But on the other hand it must be remembered that the notion that commercial students do not go to college is the natural result of the high school commercial course having been established before the collegiate school of commerce. Commercial teachers and commercial students alike have looked upon the high school commercial course as the last word in training for business. But the advent of the collegiate school of commerce has changed all this. Not all high school commercial students select the business course because of financial inability to go to college, nor because they are looking for a snap, but many choose it because they are interested in business as a life work. As we find collegiate training for business becoming more popular, we shall also find an increasing number of high school commercial graduates knocking at the doors of our higher institutions. We must not plan our high school courses so as to neglect in any way the ninety per cent of commercial students who are going directly into business. But are we fair to the ten per cent who may desire to continue their special preparation in college?

FORM A.

(VALID AND INVALID ARGUMENTS.)

(A Test for College Freshmen or Sophomores.) CHARLES A. S. DWIGHT, PH. D., KEUKA PARK, N. Y. HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, KEUKA COLLEGE. A. Write your last name here

B. Write your first name here

C. What is your age?

...

D. Where did you prepare for college?

E. How many years have you attended school?

This is a test in discrimination between valid and invalid arguments. False judgments are frequent, says Schopenhauer, false conclusions very rare. Look well both to premises and conclusions, and to the grounds of all inferences. Fallacies are either formal, where there is an error in the structure of the argument, or material, where one of the premises is untrue. The student is in this case, however, asked not to classify but to detect the fallacies that may exist in the sentences on the next page. In the case of valid arguments simply put an "X" in the blank space at the right of the sentence; in other cases, briefly state the nature of the fallacy, or the reasons for disapproval of the argument.

You will be allowed 60 minutes for this test. Distribute your time as evenly as possible over the questions.

DO NOT TURN THE PAGE UNTIL TOLD TO DO SO. 1. A vacuum is impossible, for if there is nothing between two bodies they must touch. ()

All mammals are vertebrates: the whale is a mammal:

therefore the whale is a vertebrate.

()

3. Everyone desires happiness: virtue is happiness: therefore everyone desires virtue. (Aristotle.)

()

4. All that glitters is not gold: tinsel glitters, therefore it is not gold.

5. All the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles: ABC is an angle of a triangle: therefore ABC is equal to two right angles. (no)

6. No planets are fixed stars: some round bodies are planets: therefore some round bodies are not fixed stars. () 7. We can see through a glass because it is transparent.

() 8. A man who was accused of being a "somnambulist" defended himself of the gentle accusation by saying: "I am not a somnambulist: I am a barber."

()

9. Many things are more difficult than to do nothing. Nothing is more difficult to do than to walk on one's head. Therefore many things are more difficult than to walk on one's head.

() 10. All material substances gravitate: all metals are material substances: therefore some metals gravitate.

() 11. An Athenian mother (according to Aristotle) said to her son, "Do not enter into public business, for if you say what is just men will hate you, and if you say what is unjust the gods will hate you." How may this argument be retorted? ( )

12. All vsible bodies shine by their own or by reflected light. The moon does not shine by its own, therefore it must shine by reflected light.

()

This man

13. If a man is not against me he is for me. has shown no sign of hostility, therefore I shall treat him as a friend.

()

14. A vessel will float if the specific gravity of the material of which it is constructed is less than that of water. The specific gravity of wood is less than that of water, therefore a wooden vessel will float. But the specific gravity of iron is greater than that of water: therefore an iron vessel will sink. ( )

15. Because the poor who have cows are the most industrious the way to make them industrious is to give them cows. (Malthus.) ( )

16. All stars are self-luminous: all planets are not selfluminous: therefore no planets are stars. ()

17. If the study of logic furnished the mind with useful facts it would deserve cultivation, but it does not furnish the mind with useful facts, therefore it does not deserve cultivation.

18. A singular proposition is a universal one, for it applies to the whole of its subject. ()

19.

Only a genius could have performed this task: this man has performed it, therefore he is a genius.

()

DWIGHT REASONING TEST

FORM B.

(DEFECTIVE ARGUMENTS)

(A Test Suitable for College Freshmen who have never
studied Formal Logic.)

CHARLES A. S. DWIGHT, PH. D., KEUKA COLLEGE.

A. Write your last name here

B. Write your first name here

C. What is your age?

D. Where did you prepare for college?

E. How many years have you attended school?

This is a test in reasoning, involving a criticism of arguments. The argumentation of all people occasionally, and of some persons quite commonly, is faulty-either defective in terms, contradictory in statement, or elusive in meaning. In life and literature, from the days of the Greeks, fallacies, "sophisms" (which have been defined as "intentional fallacies"), and what the Schoolmen called quiddities, have abounded. On the next page will be found certain statements of this general character. Analyze these paragraphs, and, in your own words, point out briefly in what respects each one is defective, inconclusive, or evasive. The last five arguments (which come down from the Greeks) are in the nature of catches-show, if you can, the way out.