A Criticism of Harvard.

As Mr. Chauncey Depew lately said in one of his witty speeches after a college Alumni dinner, with such an array of studies as Harvard offers the students the elective system becomes a necessity unless the students are to be worked 438 hours a week. The only absolute prescription is, in the freshman year, rhetoric and English composition, German or French, the other being required for admission, and attendance once a week upon lectures in chemistry and physics, and in the remainder of the college course English composition in the form of "themes" and "forensics" only. In addition to these prescribed exercises each freshman must take three full courses of study, and each student of the other classes four. Thus out of the 220 courses offered, the student may do his whole four years' work in about twenty, and cannot profitably extend it over many more than that number. So while election becomes a necessity, choice becomes a matter of very great importance. The restrictions laid down for the direction of the student are few and the suggestions for his guidance still fewer. He is limited in making his choice to "those studies which his previous training qualifies him to pursue," but it does not appear that any systematic method is employed to ascertain the qualification. It seems to remain largely in the discretion of the teachers. There are certain courses that can be taken only with the consent of the instructor, and certain courses which can be taken only after others have been pursued that are preparatory for them. The elective courses open to freshmen are specified, but those qualified to pursue higher courses in the same departments may obtain leave to do so. This restriction in regard to first year students is very important.

Aside from the restrictions laid down, the general advice is given to students "to make their choice with the utmost care, under the best advice, and in such a manner that their studies from the first to last may form a rationally connected whole." This is excellent advice, but it is to be feared that not all students are in a state of mind to profit by it. Special advice is given to those intending to study engineering, medicine, or law as to the courses most advisable for them to pursue in college, but the purposes of most students are indefinite or unformed, and those of others are liable to change. In spite of all restrictions, suggestions, and advice, one is impressed with the great liability of students to misdirect their efforts, or from a lack of earnest purpose to drift through college without any special aim taking things that are easy to them, or that they fancy to be adapted to their tastes or their uses. Nothing could be worse or further from real education than a dilettante picking at this and that, or gathering fragments of knowledge in a dozen different fields. There seems to be something needed in this elective system to direct more effectively the choice of students in the bewildering variety presented to them.

There are of course many incidental aids Boys whose parents are qualified to direct them will have the benefit of the best of all assistance. Those who have prepared for college in good schools will as a rule have the advice of their teachers, who are likely to be specially competent to direct them from the knowledge they have acquired of their mental characteristics. What with the power of self-direction that the older and more earnest-minded students will have, the guidance of parents and teachers, the restrictions and suggestions of the college authorities, and the presumed readiness of college instructors to give personal advice in the matter, it may seem as though the chance of going astray were pretty well limited to the heedless, the capricious, and the wrong-headed, who can hardly be induced by any means to go right. But really there are many well meaning fellows of sixteen to twenty-four who, with the best of purposes and wishes, are not competent to judge of the lines of study best for them, or to form opinions in which they feel confident, and advice directed by the best intentions is not always sound. Under so liberal a system of elective studies as that which has been adopted at Harvard one of the greatest needs must be the development and perfection of some systematic method of guiding and helping the students in their choice of studies in accordance with sound principles. The object, no doubt, should be to reach the choice in each case that the student himself would make, supposing him to be endowed with the knowledge and judgment of his own case which the elective system presupposes. - N. Y. Times.