Grade

“ Grades assigned to college students have some meaning, though just what this is remains to be determined. Dr. Wissler [1] has shown that there is a decided correlation in the standing in different subjects. A man who receives a high grade in Latin is likely to receive a high grade in Greek, and almost as likely to receive a high grade in mathematics or gymnastics. This seems to indicate that the grades are assigned for moral traits, or for the general impression made by the man, as much as for ability and performance in a given subject. ”

“ The simplest method of assigning grades is to arrange a hundred papers as nearly as may be in the order of merit and to give the poorest paper the grade 1, the next poorest the grade 2, and so on, until the best paper receives the grade 100. ”

“ The Commissioner of Education of New York State writes of the schools,— [1] “A child is worse off in a graded school than in an ungraded one, if the work of a grade is not capable of some specific valuation, and if each added grade does not provide some added power. The first two grades run much to entertainment and amusement. The third and fourth grades repeat the work supposed to have been done in the first two. Too many unimportant and unrelated facts are taught. ”

“ There has been of late an increasing recognition of the justice of giving pupils different degrees of credit for work which they do in one and the same course. The student who carries a course in algebra with a high grade undoubtedly learns more than the student who does low-grade work in the same class. ”

“ In the student body of every institution of learning we find the high-grade men, the moderate successes, from the standpoint of college education, and the rear guard. A question of no little importance, and one with which the present paper deals is this: Is the high-grade man of his college days high-grade still when put to the severer tests of active life? ”

“ A grade of one hundred per cent would mean that the individual so graded would belong among the highest one per cent of all the scientific men in the country, in the trait so marked. When these records were compiled it was seen that in the case of certain traits, such as energy, perseverance, efficiency, the twelve judges differed much less among themselves than when judging other traits, such as cheerfulness, kindliness, unselfishness. ”

“ D is the minimum standard for a passing grade. D students compose approximately the lowest twenty-five per cent of every class. D work is that work which is not up to average, and yet is clearly above failure. ”

“ Review lists in each grade, worked out on an entirely original plan, aid greatly in economizing both the teacher's and the pupil's time and energy.
The interest of the child is stimulated by the selections, which are particularly well adapted to the grades in which they are used. ”

“ There are too many academies calling themselves 'college' or even 'university,' with high grade curriculum and low grade requirements, with long lists of pupils in preparatory classes of one sort or another and very short lists of students in so-called college classes. ”

“ After the boy's admission into a class, he advances thenceforward, either with the whole class, at the general and solemn promotion every year, or, if he excels, as the reports and the Master will determine, he is not to be detained in that grade, but may ascend, at any time of the year, after a fitting examination. ”

“ In some of the larger schools in England and the United States, certain scholars who have developed and manifested the ability to control themselves and their actions are placed on the roll of a grade called the "Self-governed grade." ”

“ A defensible definition of grades should be adopted by each faculty and its members should be required to adhere closely to it, in the long run, at least in all courses primarily for undergraduates, until we can supplant the method of grading by relative position by scales made up of equal units. ”

“ The passing grade in the one would necessarily be lower than in the other. An examination is justified only when it is so devised that it reveals not only the students' stock of socially useful knowledge but also their growth in mental power. ”

“ If we're acceptable, Cragin, we're established in one grade or another—and will be constantly under the supervision of creatures of the next highest grade—that's the way it's been working so far, with the exception of the little excursion we're taking now. ”

“ It is so in the school of Christ; there is the primary, and the higher grades of instruction. The primary grade consists in what we learn from the schools, books, and papers. The higher grade is confined to the teaching of the Holy Ghost. Too many are satisfied with the primary grade, and treat insultingly the Holy Ghost. ”

“ First comes the unclassified grade of common laborers, men of all work, to which all recruits during their first three years belong. This grade is a sort of school, and a very strict one, in which the young men are taught habits of obedience, subordination, and devotion to duty. ”

“ For purposes of the following explanation, each quality will be distributed into three grades, determined not by value, but by class place—namely, the highest third, the medium third, and the lowest third. In respect to ability, these classes will be called A, B, and C. In respect to environment, the grades will refer to its helpfulness towards the particular success achieved, and the classes will be called E, F, G. It must be clearly understood that the differences between the grades do not profess to be equal, merely that A is higher than B, and B than C ”

“ EARLIER articles in the Popular Science Monthly and in Science have shown that grades in college courses have no exact meaning. 1 Yet college honors are everywhere awarded on the naïve assumption that grades in college courses are distributed on a scientific basic. For many important administrative purposes we assume that an A in one course is equivalent to an A in another course; that the 80 per cent, of one instructor indicates an achievement equal to the 80 per cent, of another instructor. ”

“ The variation within a single class for which a single teacher has to provide is great. Even when teaching is departmental and promotion is by subjects, and when also the school is a large one and classification within a grade is by ability—there may be a wide range for any given special component ability. ”

“ Another advantage their schools possess over ours is, that they are what, in American school-phraseology, is called ‘graded.’ This, unlike what I have just been mentioning, may be transplanted to our side of the water. I need not now explain what grading means, because I have spoken more than once of this method of arranging and teaching schools. It ensures much more careful teaching than our method, and that the whole of the school-time shall be devoted to study. ”

“ In some, the people, or their commissioners appointed to superintend the schools, are content with a single grade or tier, in which are taught merely the necessary sorts of knowledge, from Arithmetic downwards. ”

“ The determination of the validity of the grades given to college students and their standardization appear to me to be important because I regard it as desirable that students should be credited for the work they do rather than for the number of hours that they attend courses. By our present method a student who fails gets no credit at all, while a student who is nearly as bad (and perhaps worse) gets as much credit towards his degree as the best student in the class. ”

“ Those youths who wished to pass up from the lower to the high-school had to undergo an examination. The student, when he had passed it, could choose a master from among the learned of the higher grades, who undertook to be his philosophical guide, and to whom he remained attached all his life through, as a client to his patron. ”

“ The larger the proportion of men attracted to his courses from the upper half of the student body in general scholarship, the larger the plus rating of the instructor. For purposes of comparison, Column II. gives each instructor his position with respect to the proportion of high grades and low grades assigned to him. Thus, for example, instructor number 4 has the high rating of 41 in the quality of his students and the low rating of -23 in the assignment of grades. ”

“ After the definition of grades is adopted, a table should be sent to each instructor, as often as grades are required at the college office, showing the distribution of grades in each course in the college and emphasizing those that depart far in either direction from the adopted mean. Every instructor should be requested to justify his eccentricities, at least in a series of years. ”

“ The discussion suggests, what is undoubtedly the fact, that the so-called academies, high schools, graded schools, even colleges of that time, took in practically everybody who offered. There was no such system of grading as we now look upon as a matter of course. ”

“ In some form the graded teaching is an absolutely essential requisite of the graded school. Most schools, when once thoroughly graded, will realize the need of the next step in the evolution of the institution—lessons graded in subjects as well as in methods for the several departments. ”

“ Our universities and colleges vary so little in this phase of the administration of the curriculum that the detailed distribution of the grades of a few institutions for a few years will fairly represent the practise, except in two or three universities, throughout the country. The grades A, B, C, D usually represent degrees of excellence between 100 per cent, and 60 per cent, of some undefined thing and are all pass marks. ”

“ In addition to specific exercises and devices which ensure accuracy in special points, we should observe certain general rules which will be described and treated under the heading of gradation.
10. Gradation
Gradation means passing from the known to the unknown by easy stages, each of which serves as a prepara [23] tion for the next. If a course or a lesson is insufficiently graded, or graded on a wrong basis, the student’s work will be marked by an excessive degree of inaccuracy. If a course is well graded, the student’s rate of progress will increase in proportion as he advances. ”

“ All through the series, there is a definite, logical progression, so that in schools where these ideas are put into practice, there should be no ground for the complaint that the work of the intermediate and grammar grades falls below the work of the primary grades, in general excellence. ”

“ Among the middle classes, the gradations and varieties of social position are more numerous, less distinctly marked, and therefore fenced round with a world of form and ceremony. And as we descend, and enter the lower ranks, and approach the lowest, the distinctions and grades multiply. ”

“ While in some ways better suited to the middle grades of the elementary schools, selection may be made from the lessons here outlined which will give excellent training to the upper grades in those schools where the curriculum does not include shop-work, cooking, or sewing. ”

“ It is a growing conviction that there must be laid, in the earlier grades, a strong foundation on which to build a practical education in the later grades whether directed toward industrial, commercial or professional life. ”

“ Grades are usually assigned on a scale of 100, some institutions, as Harvard and Columbia, reporting only the five groups into which the men are divided. The starting point in all grades is the fact that the written papers or the results of the term's work can be arranged more or less accurately in the order of merit. [9] The assignment of quantitative grades to a qualitative series or its division into groups is usually done in an arbitrary manner, and, so far as I am aware, no attempt has hitherto been made to assign probable errors. It is obvious that our grades should be standardized. ”

“ In an earlier chapter it was shown that the seventh and eighth grades came from Europe during the decade 1840-1850. Every line of evidence which is taken up points to the desirability of a complete reorganization of the work of these grades. ”

“ A man degrading for any other reason cannot go out afterwards in honors."—Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 98.
I could choose the year below without formally degrading.—Ibid., p. 157.
DEGREE. A mark of distinction conferred on students, as a testimony of their proficiency in arts and sciences; giving them a kind of rank, and entitling them to certain privileges. This is usually evidenced by a diploma. Degrees are conferred pro meritis on the alumni of a college; or they are honorary tokens of respect, conferred on strangers of distinguished reputation. ”

“ The classes are arranged into a number of sections, according to their class rank, as determined at the previous annual examination, or according to rank in some particular study—for instance, for instruction in engineering the first class is arranged according to merit in philosophy, and not according to general merit or class rank. ”

“ The lower degree is meant to mark a certain measure of proficiency in the studies of the faculty; the higher degree is meant to mark a higher [Pg 28] measure of proficiency, that measure which qualifies a man to become, if he thinks good, a teacher in that faculty. ”

“ The [Pg 29] immediate business is to make the master's degree a real thing, an honest thing, to make it the sign of a higher standard than the bachelor's degree, whether the bachelor's standard be fixed high or low. Let there be some kind of standard, some kind of test. Its particular shape, whether an examination, or a disputation, or the writing of a thesis, or anything else, need not now be discussed. I ask only that there should be a test of proficiency of some kind, and that there should be the widest possible range of subjects in which proficiency may be tested. ”