"The Extirpation of Culture."

(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Under this title an article in the current number of the "Atlantic Monthly" voices a strong protest against the elective system which is now so familiar to us. "Universities were invented," says the author of this article, "for the sake of bringing their fortunate students into contact with the precious lore of the world, there garnered and kept pure." Nowadays, "if a boy does not feel a pre-established harmony between his soul and the humanities, then give him an academic degree on something with which his soul will be in pre-established harmony. And if there is no pre-established harmony between his soul and any form of learning, then create institutions that will give him a degree with no learning to speak of at all."

These sentiments are by no means confined to a few scattered grumblers; indeed, anyone who has watched carefully the practical working out of the elective system must have been similarly impressed, and here in our own university such prominent thinkers on educational topics as Dean Briggs (in his "College Life") and Professor Muensterberg (in his excellent essay, "School Reform," and elsewhere) have written against allowing education to proceed "along the lines of least resistance."

Of course, the utter suppression of individual choice which characterizes the German educational system is not to be transplanted to American shores. But it may legitimately be asked whether more compulsion in our educational bill-of-fare is not justifiable.  BERNARD J. SNYDER '17.