
Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf] - Looveh
https://www.peterkrantz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/harvard-admission-1899.pdf
======
cge
While the point behind posting these entrance exams is often to make a
commentary on a decline in education standards, I'd suggest that it really
shows nothing of the sort. The exam is, in fact, rather easy and simplistic,
and only seems difficult because of different priorities.

The grasp of Latin and Greek required for the language portions is minimal.
This is particularly the case because, for the translation portions, all
vocabulary is provided, including words that should be instinctively known by
anyone with any grasp of the languages (esse in the first question!? καἰ?).
Any foreign language test today would be significantly more difficult.

The mathematics section looks intimidating only because it involves dealing
with difficult numbers by hand. There are specific techniques that would have
been taught to work through such problems efficiently, but teaching them now
isn't particularly useful. Conversely, the more conceptual and abstract
questions are very simple: asking what a prime number is? Asking why exponents
are added under multiplication?

The history and geography section, meanwhile, is mainly concerned with
regurgitation of facts covering very narrow sections of the subject. Perhaps
the question asking for the difference between Athens and Sparta could allow
some deeper discussion, but most do not.

Overall, the test is focused on questions about specific topics requiring
memorization rather than questions testing deeper insight and understanding.
It's not something that should be looked back on as some product of a better
age.

~~~
L_Rahman
I personally found the mathematical section to be a little too easy if
possible. Any of the students from the top 10% of my 8th grade class would see
those questions and start knocking them off.

To be fair to Harvard, it's never prided itself of being an institution
dedicated to the practical application of mathematics or engineering. I
suppose it's why I turned down their offer to attend.

~~~
mathetic
I never quite understood why people take pride in what they reject unless it
is turning down bribery, refusing to relapse, etc.

It's a shame really, you rejected Harvard but did not go too far away from the
place with the attitude.

~~~
L_Rahman
It's something that I find myself wondering about as well, and the fact that I
bring it up suggests that I haven't quite moved past it.

In the undergraduate program that I actually attended, the schools we had
turned down was a bit of a badge of honor. A testament if you will, to how
much respect we had for the program we were attending - my peers and I turned
down some pretty big names to do what we did.

In retrospect however, it reflects our insecurity with that choice. Outside of
our selected niche, those names still garner the most prestige, get the best
job offers, are in the news most often, etc.

------
mathattack
Remember what the purpose of the exam was... They weren't testing your
knowledge, they were testing your social class. At the time Harvard was a
school for the white upper crust private school elite of the Northeast. This
test ensured that they could fill their classes with just those people.

It isn't a perfect meritocracy today, but they've come a long way in being
more inclusive.

~~~
rab_oof
It's childish to downvote something unwritten that needs saying as important
as historical discrimination. Even though the context of society at large was
also extremely discriminatory, yet the loss of and failure of not capitalizing
on bright minds and talent for any attribute was and is a disgrace. It's
unpleasant to say or think about, but it's necessary to be broadly and deeply
educated in reality. Also, one could argue SAT, ACT and similar standard tests
often reinforces subtle biases along the lines of IQ tests.

Otherwise, the test itself is curious and reasonable for an entrance
examination.

(Personal note: My parents refused to take me to interview to private primary
schools that required pictures (We couldn't be more WASP) because they were
firmly against supporting the inculcated exclusivity of attributes ahead of
merit.)

~~~
mathattack
SATs, ACTs, alumni preference and other current admissions policies reinforce
biases too, but any admissions standard will. (If it helps to get one into
college, wealthy parents will find a way to optimize their kids around it)
It's a matter of degree, and in the past, top schools were much worse.

------
cryptoz
The link isn't loading for me, so here's HN's discussion on a Harvard entrance
exam from 1869:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3312240](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3312240)

~~~
apetresc
It's probably the same one; the one linked here is stamped "1899" because
that's the year it was entered into the Harvard library, but the date "July,
1869" is clearly visible on the bottom of every single page. The original
poster wasn't paying attention.

~~~
dang
Thanks. We added that to the title.

------
nashashmi
I learned Latin in high school, and I learned from an old moving picture and
from some old CEO who was one of the few who went to college in his time where
he picked to major in Latin and math, that Latin had a far more mainstream
role in academia, such that it could propel one to a CEO position of a really
big company and that it could be used as one of the basis of a college
entrance exam.

Latin gave me the ability to form a third brain and be able to dissect the
English language and multiple other languages quite mathematically and
systematically. I think it might be the key to unlocking the comprehension
part of artificial intelligence.

I also think that because Latin has become so distant now from mainstream
academia has in an essence made our language too simple and rough, lacking
poetry and love, and even intelligence. The dialogues from old movies seem
alien to us.

If we were to reintroduce Latin, I think society's language skills would
improve and thereby communication would improve.

~~~
arnsholt
Latin is not magical. While your idea is old enough to be mostly quaint and
charming, the fact of the matter is that it's completely unrealistic. Not only
that; it's already been tried, although using Sanskrit, not Latin. You've
basically rediscovered a bad idea from the 80ies

~~~
ghaff
I suspect that a lot of the "Latin helps you with English" meme comes from the
coming together of a couple of things:

1\. Some schools wanting to teach Latin at least in part simply because it was
part of a classical Western curriculum

but 2. Wanting to justify that inclusion based on more modern practical
concerns than it just being something properly educated people learn.

Nothing against Latin or classical Western liberal arts. But the idea that
Latin uniquely helps with English is sort of silly.

~~~
plorkyeran
Personally Latin helped me with English mostly because my Latin classes were
the only place I ever got any formal instruction in English grammar.

~~~
rab_oof
English might be German, French, etc. influenced, but it's nowhere as
straightforward as German. Also, it is no surprise that it's about as
difficult to learn as a foreign language as Xhosa.

------
adrianbordinc
Cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Bu8vLoK...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Bu8vLoKlMKQJ:https://www.peterkrantz.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/02/harvard-admission-1899.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=dk)

EDIT: more readable version on the web-archive:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20121119004827/http://www.peterkr...](http://web.archive.org/web/20121119004827/http://www.peterkrantz.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/02/harvard-admission-1899.pdf)

~~~
jgmmo
That second link is much better. Thanks

Ah, ha! finally a question I can answer. History #8, compare Athens and Sparta

~~~
igravious
That one's Athens and this ... is ... oh wrong forum

------
shin_lao
It is interesting to see that much has happened in Mathematics since 1869. All
questions are extremely easy. No real functional analysis. Trivial algebra.
Some fairly easy calculus.

The Latin/Greek section is also very easy as everything is provided. When I
was a teenager my Latin exams were much more demanding.

The historical section is interesting as it focuses a lot on antic times. It
is difficult to judge the difficulty of the question without knowing what was
expected.

If anything, this test shows that today standards are much much higher than
1869 standards and I'm not surprised.

~~~
mathattack
Historical trends have shown that abstract and critical reasoning (what could
be termed IQ) has improved over time. [0] Also, remember the context. This
exam was for a very small portion of the wealthiest and highest educated
elite. That small subset could learn the historical antiquity if they wanted.
(And perhaps they still do at Boston Latin) What's amazing is how far the
exam's math has been surpassed by broad subsets of today's society.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)

------
rab_oof
The test goes into classics and is succinct, whereas today the hazing rituals
are pedantic.

People forget the importance of the unwritten history of academia's cultural
separation until modern times: how exclusive and unreachable universities once
were, and that one's primary qualifications were less academic (hence
photographs and interviews) and would be viewed today as enormously
discriminatory (and today, illegal). It's important to recount this unpleasant
fact to not fall into those traps or adopt new or subtle shades of them if
unostensible diversity is a primary virtue.

------
heyadayo
Faster/working download of what I think is the same document.

[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvarde...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf)

------
ebauch
reposted on openrev.org - let's see if we can answer all the questions

[http://www.openrev.org/paper/harvard-university-entrance-
exa...](http://www.openrev.org/paper/harvard-university-entrance-exam-1870)

~~~
razster
Looks like I'm community college material after all.

Honestly though, we never touched Latin during my high school days, such a
shame.

------
danielweber
Math question 7, what are the sub-units of pounds? Is it something like pence?

~~~
gwern
Just another example of things we have mercifully forgotten. See Isaac
Asimov's "Forget It" essay
[http://www.kkbooks.net/ScienceFiction/Asimov37/27283.html](http://www.kkbooks.net/ScienceFiction/Asimov37/27283.html)
(on a similarly antiquated math textbook).

~~~
ashark
I think it's interesting that one of his major examples of useless,
forgettable knowledge is essentially arithmetic with bases other than 10,
which is back in style for grades as early as elementary school and often
advanced on this very site as an important skill for children to learn (for
some reason—I don't really get why).

~~~
ghaff
For one thing, there's simply the utility of other bases in programming
although I imagine this utility is less widespread than when a greater
percentage of programmers were working at lower levels.

More broadly, I gather we're having another iteration of attempting to teach
mathematical principles rather than rote calculation. Or, to put it cynically
in the words of Tom Lehrer speaking about New Math: "The important thing is to
understand what you're doing, not to get the right answer." Personally, I'm
somewhat torn and it definitely depends on the individual.

------
JasonFruit
What I see here is this: In 1869, as for centuries before, we valued learning
that expresses and enables a grasp of over 2000 years of Western culture. In
2015, we barely value the culture of two _hundred_ years ago. I'm innately
conservative, I think, and that serious a change in our values worries me.

~~~
ajkjk
Why does such a change in our values worry you? I don't follow what
'conservative' means here. Unless there's something tangibly better about
learning this stuff than what we're learning today, I don't see why it should
be in our curriculum.

It's not like we don't teach people about ancient history, right? If anything
it seems more healthy that we do not wastefully teach relatively useless
languages to all our students. It feels to me like Latin was emphasized in the
1800s by historical accident, and that it is _progress_ that it has faded out
of the curriculum.

More generally you use phrases like "as for centuries before" as if that's a
positive quality, which doesn't seem like a substantial argument to me.

~~~
JasonFruit
Conservative, in this case, means what it means in every case where it has a
meaning: preferring not to change without a good reason. A practice having
survived for centuries is not necessarily a good thing, but it at least
indicates that many generations of people found it valuable, and suggests to
the conservative that it might be better preserved than abandoned. I think an
understanding of this difference in our outlook would probably answer the rest
of your questions.

