Word: superficialist
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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...resulting from your article of February 8 upon "Our Ranking System" has not already proceeded far enough to be wearisome to your readers, I should like to explain to your correspondent of February 13, the use I made, in your issue of February 11, of the words specialist and superficialist. Your correspondent questions my right to use the words as I did, in raising the remarkable question whether "a man who is not a specialist must be a superficialist." I certainly did not intend to say that a man who does not devote his attention to one subject only...
...following statement: "This reformer would destroy the advantages of the elective system by placing a premium upon a superficial education, such as is to be obtained in the prescribed course which most American colleges require. Under the reform which is suggested, the specialist is triumphed over by the superficialist, which is exactly contrary to the tendency of modern progress." May I ask, through your columns, by whom and when this final decision that a man who is not a specialist must be a "superficialist," was arrived...
...specialist who loves his study may devote all possible time and energy to a course, and pass perfect examinations, and yet his work count less than that of this favored superficialist, who has spent less time on the course, but receives the higher mark because he has taken no other course in the same branch...
...which most. American colleges require. It certainly would seem an injustice toward those who come to Harvard for thorough study in some particular branch of knowledge, that those courses which are included in their specialty should only count for them a fraction of their standard value-simply that some superficialist may have the possibility, thus denied to the specialist, of attaining a high rank...
Under the "reform" which is suggested, the specialist is triumphed over by the superficialist, which is exactly contrary to the tendency of modern progress...
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