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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 78.djvu/405

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DISTRIBUTION OF COLLEGE CREDITS
395

have no defined meaning. To reply that a given symbol signifies a certain per cent, of an undefined something is to beg the question. The administration of the curriculum on a percentage basis—giving grade B in Greek, for example, a value of 80 to 90 per cent.—is apparently exact, but in reality far from it.

We have here used the statistics of institutions which do not attempt to grade students in many groups. The usual school method of grading on a one-hundred-per-cent. basis produces confusion. As a matter of fact, teachers can not use more than a dozen grades with discrimination.