In 1897, the ISU adopted a schedule of 41 school figures, each of increasing difficulty, which were proposed by the British. They remained the standard compulsory figures used throughout the world in proficiency testing and competitions until 1990, and U.S. Figure Skating continued to use them as a separate discipline in the 1990s. After World War II, more countries were sending skaters to international competitions, so the ISU cut the numbers of figures to a maximum of six due to the extended time it took to judge them all.