For the sake of the U.S. Department of Education, if only it were still this easy.

As lawmakers, college presidents, and interest groups bicker over a proposed federal college-ratings system, a fossilized version has popped up on Twitter. From 1911.

This is thanks to Robert Kelchen, an assistant professor of higher-education at Seton Hall University, who tweeted that he discovered the 1911 ratings years ago, while writing a paper.

As Vox’s Libby Nelson notes in a chronicle of the 1911 ratings, the Association of American Universities actually asked the government to devise them...