Own Course of Education

This would culminate in a university where each student would follow his own course of education, guided by his teachers within a broad disciplinary framework of his own choosing, but free of the stultifying pressure of narrowly fixed curricula and final examinations.

Graduation certificates would be granted to all those who had made the growth possible for them within a given period of time, with the degree of development achieved indicated on the certificate.

Certificates of professional qualification — for example, in medicine, law, or engineering — would be issued to those who chose to meet the requirements for practice.

Granted that such a system — called by Marris the "spontaneous university" — would have drawbacks for personnel selection, the allocation of scholarships, and even for the arrangement of programmes of instruction. But would they really be much worse than those of the present system, with, its spurious quantitative standardisation and its blatant disregard for individual differences in aptitudes and interests?