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Take a look at this entrance exam to Harvard from 1869: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package

Take a look at this entrance exam to Harvard from 1869: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvarde... Good luck finding high school students today who could get a good score on this test. There's vastly more emphasis on classical knowledge: Greek, Latin, ancient history, mathematical proofs...

wbl 3y ago
If Greek or Latin we're still requirements for Harvard high school students would become fluent.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  They sure would enjoy the salutatory speeches delivered at commencement: https://youtu.be/LYewkFKPPhs?si=egbRqSO2lMVxIMzz https://youtu.be/LYewkFKPPhs?si=egbRqSO2lMVxIMzz
bhaney 3y ago
I can't even figure out what some of these are asking. Question 5 of the History and Geography section is just "Leonidas, Pausanias, Lysander." Am I supposed to write about what they have in common? Who they each were? When and where they ruled? Other questions seem to include some form of instruction while being equally short ("Compare Athens with Sparta") but that one and a couple others are just a topic with seemingly no direction at all.
- LarsDu88 3y ago
  Heh, obvious a cultured man of knowledge (or anyone who watched the movie 300 and read wikipedia) would know that these are major leaders of Sparta Grant, Sherman, Meade Churchill, Roosevelt, De Gaulle It's to filter the cultured elite from the unread plebes.
plorkyeran 3y ago
I would expect most Harvard-bound high school seniors to be able to breeze through the math section. Geometry was a ninth grade subject for me so I probably would have forgotten some bits if I took this unprepared as a senior, but it wouldn't have taken much studying ro refresh on that. There may be some trick question I'm not noticing, but the Latin section seems extremely simple. Ancient Greek has certainly vanished from HS curriculums, but if Harvard was testing on it two years of Latin and two years of Greek would suffice to pass those sections. I think overall a Harvard-bound student today would do better on this test than a Harvard student from 1869 would do on the SAT, but I'm not sure if that even means anything.
cafard 3y ago
The examination reflects the curriculum, and the preparatory schools taught to the examination. Henry Adams on the Harvard of his day (he entered in 1854): "disappointment apart, Harvard College was probably less hurtful than any other university then in existence. It taught little, and that little ill, but it left the mind open, free from bias, ignorant of facts, but docile. The graduate had few strong prejudices. He knew little, but his mind remained supple, ready to receive knowledge." "In the one branch he most needed--mathematics--barring the few first scholars, failure was so nearly universal that no attempt at grading could have had value, and whether he stood fortieth or ninetieth must have been an accident or the personal favor of the professor. Here his education failed lamentably. At best he could never have been a mathematician; at worst he would never have cared to be one; but he needed to read mathematics, like any other universal language, and he never reached the alphabet." But a) perhaps the mathematical curriculum had improved over the fifteen years between his entrance and that exam, and b) a large proportion of those who write about their schooling speak so poorly of it that one ends by suspecting exaggeration. [Edit: in the spirit of "show your work": https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2044/pg2044-images.html https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2044/pg2044-images.html]
JasonFruit 3y ago
That's an amazing test, if what you want to evaluate is the candidate's immersion in the wellspring of Western culture (and some math). I'm struck by how little fluency the Greek test requires, though: it looks to me (with my "small Latine and lesse Greeke") like it's mostly grammar work, since the difficult words are all supplied. I would have loved living among people whose elites valued Western culture so highly.
- LarsDu88 3y ago
  You still can. You just need to play online matches of Rome Total War, which is where I learned the vast majority of my classical historical knowledge, lol

wbl 3y ago

If Greek or Latin we're still requirements for Harvard high school students would become fluent.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
They sure would enjoy the salutatory speeches delivered at commencement: https://youtu.be/LYewkFKPPhs?si=egbRqSO2lMVxIMzz https://youtu.be/LYewkFKPPhs?si=egbRqSO2lMVxIMzz

bhaney 3y ago

I can't even figure out what some of these are asking. Question 5 of the History and Geography section is just "Leonidas, Pausanias, Lysander." Am I supposed to write about what they have in common? Who they each were? When and where they ruled? Other questions seem to include some form of instruction while being equally short ("Compare Athens with Sparta") but that one and a couple others are just a topic with seemingly no direction at all.

LarsDu88 3y ago
Heh, obvious a cultured man of knowledge (or anyone who watched the movie 300 and read wikipedia) would know that these are major leaders of Sparta Grant, Sherman, Meade Churchill, Roosevelt, De Gaulle It's to filter the cultured elite from the unread plebes.

plorkyeran 3y ago

I would expect most Harvard-bound high school seniors to be able to breeze through the math section. Geometry was a ninth grade subject for me so I probably would have forgotten some bits if I took this unprepared as a senior, but it wouldn't have taken much studying ro refresh on that. There may be some trick question I'm not noticing, but the Latin section seems extremely simple. Ancient Greek has certainly vanished from HS curriculums, but if Harvard was testing on it two years of Latin and two years of Greek would suffice to pass those sections. I think overall a Harvard-bound student today would do better on this test than a Harvard student from 1869 would do on the SAT, but I'm not sure if that even means anything.

cafard 3y ago

The examination reflects the curriculum, and the preparatory schools taught to the examination. Henry Adams on the Harvard of his day (he entered in 1854): "disappointment apart, Harvard College was probably less hurtful than any other university then in existence. It taught little, and that little ill, but it left the mind open, free from bias, ignorant of facts, but docile. The graduate had few strong prejudices. He knew little, but his mind remained supple, ready to receive knowledge." "In the one branch he most needed--mathematics--barring the few first scholars, failure was so nearly universal that no attempt at grading could have had value, and whether he stood fortieth or ninetieth must have been an accident or the personal favor of the professor. Here his education failed lamentably. At best he could never have been a mathematician; at worst he would never have cared to be one; but he needed to read mathematics, like any other universal language, and he never reached the alphabet." But a) perhaps the mathematical curriculum had improved over the fifteen years between his entrance and that exam, and b) a large proportion of those who write about their schooling speak so poorly of it that one ends by suspecting exaggeration. [Edit: in the spirit of "show your work": https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2044/pg2044-images.html https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2044/pg2044-images.html]

JasonFruit 3y ago

That's an amazing test, if what you want to evaluate is the candidate's immersion in the wellspring of Western culture (and some math). I'm struck by how little fluency the Greek test requires, though: it looks to me (with my "small Latine and lesse Greeke") like it's mostly grammar work, since the difficult words are all supplied. I would have loved living among people whose elites valued Western culture so highly.

LarsDu88 3y ago
You still can. You just need to play online matches of Rome Total War, which is where I learned the vast majority of my classical historical knowledge, lol