A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.

A correspondent of the Alumni Bulletin vigorously attacks the University's system of entrance examinations, charging that they are not dependable tests and that they keep out of Harvard many good men. Undoubtedly the examinations are not infallible, and it is also true that their very existence discourages men from attempting them who could pass them if they made the effort. But the proposal to adopt a system of certification is very radical. It might mean a marked lowering of standards, or else the flooding of the College with students who would have to be sent home after their first mid-year examinations. Moreover, the fact that a man has had the initiative and ambition to take and pass these tests raises a presumption that he really wants to go to Harvard and that he has the stamina to orient himself in the vigorous atmosphere of a large man's college. And mere numbers should never be a chief end in higher education.

But the national character of the University is important; and the Bulletin's correspondent pertinently calls attention to the failure of the College to grow in national representation. The Harvard ideal,-as expressed by President Eliot in an address in the Union two years ago,-is that of a "National University." The activities of Harvard clubs throughout the country and of the sometime territorial clubs are directed to this end, but they have been singularly barren of results. More than half the undergraduates are from Massachusetts alone; and the representation from the West is not increasing. The Graduate Schools are national, but the College cannot with truth make the same boast.

What can be done to make the College more representative? Undoubtedly the entrance examinations discourage western men, who are accustomed to a different system. Certification might be adopted in a limited degree, applying only to schools of proved high quality and only to the better students in those schools. At least, the administration of the new plan could be entrusted to the College Entrance Examination Board, as has already been done by Yale and Princeton. This would put them in the reach of more men. And perhaps the Territorial Clubs could be resuscitated.

Certainly no problem is of greater importance to the University. For a national character means greater influence upon the nation's thought and affairs as well as a broader atmosphere in the College itself. And the raised tuition fee has added to the difficulties to be solved.