WHAT IS WRONG WITH PHI BETA KAPPA.

Early in the spring the CRIMSON considered at some length the question of encouraging sentiment for scholarship at Harvard. Among its recommendations at the time was one that Phi Beta Kappa elect men entirely according to their records at the College Office.

Phi Beta Kappa is the organization which above all others in the University stands for the furtherance of scholarship, and as such it is responsible to a great measure for the place of scholarship in undergraduate opinion. At present it is not fulfilling its responsibility as it should.

In the first place, as was pointed out in the editorial of March 21, the impression is prevalent that it elects on a flexible basis of personality and general achievement from among the high-stand men of the class; whereas, except in proven cases of dishonesty, it seldom deviates from the ordered ranking of men according to their marks or the distinction of their degrees. Naturally it suffers. No one can think highly of the judgment of a society which, appearing to elect men somewhat according to personality, elects them almost entirely on the basis of official records. The announcements of the society itself are largely responsible for this misconception. Place the responsibility where you will, however, the duty rests with Phi Beta Kappa to make its position plain.

What that position should be is open to argument. We believe that its real position at present is the right one. It should elect men on a competitive standard of scholarship, official records--faulty as they are--being in the long run the best tests of scholarship. The thirty-five highest-stand men of a class, say, should be automatically elected with possibly five more after the announcement of prizes and degrees at the end of the Senior year. If the eight to thirty-five men to whom the responsibility of perpetuating Phi Beta Kappa is yearly entrusted were omniscient, such a standard would be foolishly narrow; but they are not omniscient, and the consideration of personality is all too liable to oreep insidiously in, and displace the primary and higher consideration -- for their purpose--of scholarship.

It is not a question of whether Phi Beta Kappa is a valuable organization at present. It is a question of whether Phi Beta Kappa may not be more valuable--a question for the members present and past who are dealing not with their own likes and dislikes but with the possibility of ultimate service to the cause of scholarship, to consider. On this day, set apart distinctly for Phi Beta Kappa, it deserves praise for what it has done, rather than criticism and a suggestion of what it might do. Perhaps, however, as John Milton said of the Long Parliament in his "Areopagitica" the highest praise is the praise that this suggestion confers--a belief in the sincerity and excellence of the aims of the organization to which it is addressed.