PLATTSBURG CAMPS AND A COLLEGE DEGREE.

The faculties of Dartmouth and Bowdoin have recently taken action in regard to the summer camps at Plattsburg. Their plan is to allow a man to count his summer spent at one of the camps towards his degree. Bowdoin has qualified this slightly, and will require certain military courses given by the college before the training gained at Plattsburg can count towards a college degree.

In a university as large as Harvard certain difficulties would arise before a similar plan could be worked out. Since military drill has already been instituted at Harvard there would be a question whether the winter drill as well as the summer training should count towards a degree. Surely neither ought to count except as a practical supplement to the theoretical courses on military science which will be given under the direction of the University. If a man wished to take such military courses, the required drill, gained either in the summer or in the regiment, would then be counted towards his degree. The danger of a man learning little in the drill period on account of laziness could be easily obviated by the University requiring an official report or diploma stating the man's progress before any credit was given him.

A criticism of such a plan is that a college lowers its true, academic standard, when the time spent in physical drill is considered equivalent to the same number of hours consumed in translating French prose. Anyone who knows the amount and character of the work required at the Plattsburg Camps realizes that five weeks' drill regarded as a practical supplement to specified courses ought to count towards a student's college degree.