单选题Passage Six To produce
the upheaval in the United States that changed and modernized the domain of
higher education from the mid-1860's to the mid-1880's, three primary causes
interacted. The emergence of a half-dozen leaders in education provided the
personal force that was needed. Moreover, an outcry for a fresher, more
practical, and more advanced kind of instruction arose among the alumni and
friends of nearly all of the old colleges and grew into a movement that overrode
all conservative opposition. The aggressive "Young Yale" movement appeared,
demanding partial alumni control, a more liberal spirit, and a broader course of
study. The graduates of Harvard College simultaneously rallied to relieve the
college's poverty and demand new enterprise. Education was pushing toward higher
standards in the East by throwing off church leadership everywhere, and in the
West by finding a wider range of studies and a new sense of public
duty. The old-style classical education received its most
crushing blow in the citadel of Harvard College, where Dr. Charles Eliot, a
young captain thirty-five, son of a former treasurer of Harvard, led the
progressive forces. Five revolutionary advances were made during the first years
of Dr. Eliot's administration. They were the elevation and amplification of
entrance requirements, the enlargement of the curriculum and the development of
the elective system, the recognition of graduate study in the liberal arts, the
raising of professional training in law, medicine, and engineering to a
postgraduate level, and the fostering of greater maturity in student life.
Standards of admission were sharply advanced in 1872-1873 and 1876-1877. By the
appointment of a dean to take charge of student affairs, and a wise handling of
discipline, the undergraduates were led to regard themselves more as young
gentlemen and less as young animals. One new course of study after another was
opened up science, music, the history of the fine arts, advanced Spanish,
political economy, physic, classical philology, and international law.
单选题
Which of the following is the author's main purpose in the passage
______.
A. To explain the history of Harvard College
B. To criticize the conditions of United States universities in the
nineteenth century
C. To describe innovations in United States higher education in the later
1800's
D. To compare Harvard with Yale before the turn of the century