5

much stronger objection in the fact that few if any
men of science & letters will consent to hold office
on such terms.

(3). I question very much the value of the system prescribed in the
7th section of Part III, so far as it relates to the preserving a
numerical record as an exact {illegible} of the absolute &
relative proficiency of the students. At a special written
examination in which the same questions are propounded to
every member of the class {illegible: its? the?} numerical value may be assigned
to the questions & a fair numerical estimate of the merit of the
answers may be given. But in the daily oral recitations the
Professors consciously or unconsciously graduates the difficulty
of his questions to the capacity of the pupils. As a means of
instruction this is admissible and even desirable but would
be precluded by your system. A much more serious objection
rests upon the tendency of this system to discourage all but the
few who being near the top may reasonably hope to attain the
very highest rank. To these few the stimulus is very strong.
To all others, constituting the immense majority, the influences
will, I think, prove to be of rather a repressive tendency.
A system of numerical notation may be useful & indeed necessary
as a memoria{underlined} technica{underlined} but the significance of it as used by
different professors will be different. I would, therefore & for the
reasons already stated, have each Professor make his regular
{illegible} touching the proficiency of his pupils in {illegible struckthrough} {illegible struckthrough}
descriptive phrases admitting a nearer approximation
to a representation of nice shades of distinction than
can be conveyed through the {illegible} of numerical symbols.
This system was once tried by us for three or four successive
years, at the instance of the late Professor Courtenay, but
by universal consent, including his own, it was
abandoned subsequently. I still {illegible: persue?} the plan of {illegible struckthrough}
{illegible struckthrough} of putting on record my estimate of the
value of the students' anwers in the daily recitation &
of using numerical symbols, but long before the close of the
session I am able to express a much reliable opinion
of the absolute & relative merits of the members of my class
from my general impressions than could be inferred from