A WORD FOR THE PRIVATE SCHOOL

Why do public school graduates stand higher scholastically at Harvard than private school men? That the former are head and shoulders above the latter in acquiring academic honors is indisputably shown by statistics published in the December Graduates' Magazine. But the statistician went no further. He merely shrugged his shoulders, said "Judge for yourself," and left the private schools to rest on their laurels. Whereupon Professor Dallas Lore Sharp and the editorial columns of numerous papers proceeded to pass sentence of death upon our endowed secondary institutions.

Other statistics throw a different light on the controversy. They merely serve to indicate the way in which private school men spend the time which public school men put in study. Of the thirty-six players on the football squad five were from public high schools; of the thirty-five members of the Lampoon Board two prepared at public schools; of the seventeen members of the Advocate Board four prepared at public schools; while free education has only five representatives out of a total of thirty on the Student Council, of whom three hold office by reason of membership in the Phi Beta Kappa. Almost the same percentages hold throughout all the extra-curriculum activities.

The public schools' seventeen per cent, lead in scholarship is offset by the larger representation of private school graduates in undergraduate affairs. The boy from the endowed school shows at least that he is a good citizen of the college, and that he is concerned in maintaining its standing on a high scale as regards its publications, athletics, administration, music, and dramatics. Without honor men the college could not acquire a scholastic standing; on the other hand, without its extra-curriculum activities Harvard would not be able to function on the same basis as other American colleges. The one is as essential as the other. Blanket condemnation of private schools, based on the scholastic standing of their alumni in the colleges, is foolish and absurd.