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A GREATER GETTYSBURG most Gettysburg students of the twentieth century experienced was a product of that century, and it came into existence in response to developments which were nationwide in scope and which affected secondary, college, and university education. In an earlier day, when secondary education was almost entirely in private hands, when virtually every college in the country was local or possibly regional in character, and when most had their own preparatory departments, each college established its own standards for admission, which determined to a large extent the level of instruction which it offered and the standards which it set for awarding degrees. Members of its faculty examined individually each candidate for admission, asking questions in fields of their own choosing and exercising wide latitude in determining the adequacy of the answers. Whether he happened to be from an academy in the neighborhood or the college's own preparatory department, its teachers knew from experience how to rate the candidate before them. There was no agency to encourage, let alone enforce, a reasonable degree of uniformity. In an effort to attract and retain students, many colleges offered courses which more resembled those of preparatory schools than of the better collegiate institutions in the country. There was general agreement that these schools were, in fact, colleges in name only. Toward the close of the nineteenth century, as already indicated, the rapid growth of the public high school and the development of the university forced institutions calling themselves colleges to determine how they were going to fit themselves into the emerging scheme of things. Many high schools soon began offering for their college-bound students an academic program which compared favorably with those of the better or best preparatory schools and academies. At the same time, the universities established admission requirements which could be met only by students whose undergraduate programs were sound and demanding. In most cases, the pressure which colleges felt first came from the high schools, many of which now had the difficult task of preparing students for consideration by several colleges, each with its own set of entrance requirements and its own way of administering them. Leaders in both levels of institutions saw the need to establish closer relations with each other, so that at least a minimum of uniformity could be introduced into the procedures of college admissions. This was the major reason why, beginning in 1885, colleges and secondary schools in New England, the Middle Atlantic states, and other parts of the country joined in founding the organizations which eventually became the regional accrediting agencies. It explains why the National Education Association and the Middle States Association joined in 1900 to establish the College Entrance Examination Board. 53