Could You Pass Harvard's Entrance Exam From 1869?

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday April 10, 2011 @02:13PM from the learning-for-learning's-sake dept.

erfnet writes "The New York Times remembers back to when 'college was a buyer's bazaar' and digs up 19th-century classified ads from Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and others. In competitive efforts to attract students from the limited pool of qualified candidates, applications were taken as late as September for an October freshman class. Vassar offered lush room accommodations. The expectations were high: Latin, Greek, Virgil, Caesar's Commentaries; Harvard's entrance exam from 1869 is posted (PDF). Could any of us pass the exam today?"

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Re:Nope by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2011-04-10 17:49 · Score: 1, Flamebait

They learn that Heather has two mommies, that Islam is a religion of peace, hurt feelings run the world, and how to throw all of that into a inspirational powerpoint presentation.
Congratulations, you've just graduated summa cum laude from Fox Academy!
It's really amusing to note how much people complaining about how modern schools indoctrinate kids ... all sound exactly alike.

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The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.