THE ECONOMICS QUESTIONAIRE.

The CRIMSON commends to the attention of other departments an action just taken in co-operation with the Division of Education by the Economics Department. Men enrolled in this department have been provided with a set of questions such as "What is to be your vocation?" "Why did you elect this course?" "What difficulties have you met?" The purpose of these questions is not to discover "what the public wants" in order to make any course more entertaining. Neither will the information they elicit affect instructors' estimates of students' work, for the answers are to be mailed directly to the Division of Education. Their purpose is evidently to enable the department to meet individual needs: a duty easily neglected in large scale education, but none the less important. Foreign experts have criticized American education in that it concerns itself too exclusively with the "average" pupil; Harvard prides itself on ably serving the individual. There is danger in machine-like methods.

It is to be hoped that all the students concerned will comply with the request to answer frankly and seriously. The Department of Economics, recognizing that to help men to self-help is as high an end as the scholarly presentation of a subject, and that men taking a course for distribution are entitled to as good service as are specialists, is starting in the right direction.