THE NEW MARKING REGULATIONS.

THE whole body of the undergraduates heartily join with the Advocate in regretting the action of the Faculty in requiring Seniors to get fifty per cent in every examination, and it has occurred to me that it is a subject worthy of notice in the Crimson also. I understand that this requisition is put upon Seniors to offset the privilege of voluntary attendance at recitations. The Faculty recognize the liability of a student's loafing through the first half of the year, failing on the Semi, and making it up at the Annual. This mode of procedure they intend to prevent by making fifty per cent the requisite mark in every examination. In this way of looking at it the change may result in some good, but however great this good may be, it seems to me to be more than outweighed by the disadvantages which will attend the system. According to this regulation, each and every examination may be called, if not the cause, at least the condition of getting a degree. Is it fair that the work of a single three hours should have such importance? Even good scholars, owing to indisposition, mistakes, or misunderstanding, often do poorly on some one examination. Indeed, I can remember men who rank in the first twenty of their class being warned on an examination in which they had been unfortunate. It is not too much to venture the statement that there are few men in College who have not at some period or another during the course received below fifty per cent on an examination. Low marks resulting from circumstances outside the real knowledge of the subject are of course not as likely to come in the Senior year as in any other; still, they may then come, and one mark of below fifty on either examination of the year, no matter what the marks are, in recitations or on the other examination, the result to a Senior is fatal. To make the degree depend upon one trial, I always supposed to be contrary to the policy of the College, and any action of our Faculty tending to that end must be generally deprecated.

The result of the working of this new system it is easy to foresee. Seniors, as was last week pointed out, will take pains - and often at the sacrifice of their personal preferences - to elect soft courses. Already there are reports of Juniors who are about to change their "well-considered plans," and give up studies for which they have a taste for those which will insure them their A. B.'s. I know of one man who has made a specialty of English and Saxon studies, who had elected English 4 for next year. He has taken all the other courses in the English department, and was anxious to take this one, but felt it imprudent to risk his degree on one examination in a course so traditionally hard, and he has therefore been obliged to give it up. His case is not exceptional; others might be mentioned, but one is enough to illustrate the evil working of the system, and to show that it is altogether hostile to true scholarship.

Another little matter may be of interest in this connection. A report has received wide circulation through College, and has found its way into some of the Boston papers, that the average mark required for securing a degree had been raised from fifty per cent to sixty per cent. I am authoritatively informed that this rule has not passed. It was proposed by one of our Professors, but was voted down by the Faculty.