UNREAD COLLEGE MEN.

Along with the broadness and the play of individual faculties which the varied interests and activities of a large University such as Harvard affords, there come some drawbacks; and perhaps there is none more serious than the limited amount of reading which most men do. At a smaller institution where the distractions are fewer and the atmosphere more quiet, the student is more likely to spend many hours in his rooms reading; the temptation to spend most of his time, after actually dissipating it, in an endless round of temporary interests is less; there is often a tendency among students, as President Wilson has said, to substitute the side-shows for the main tent. We would not lose "Harvard University," which is the definitive reply to the taunt of "Harvard indifference"; but it must be recognized that too little reading is done by most men. And without doubt a solid foundation of good reading is the best thing one can carry away from his four years at College.

In literature courses most men do not read literature; they read about literature. They take their general point of view from the instructor's lecture; and before the examinations they devour histories of literature, and learn the general nature of the work they are supposed to have read. In many cases, too, the examinations are such that this sort of information will enable one to obtain a good mark. Thus it is not a definite and personal knowledge and appreciation of literature which is the rule, but a vague and second-hand idea of its nature.

This situation could and should be remedied. Short weekly tests on reading, such as are given in elementary courses, could be devised to insure that the reading is actually done. They should be detailed, in order to require that it be done with some care: theses and examinations give ample opportunity to discover the student's grasp of the larger phases. Such tests are given with success in some courses,--even in some of those "primarily for graduates";--they need occupy no more than ten minutes of the lecture hour. And, if more generally adopted, they would add substance to more than one "college education."