Communications

(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Now that the vigorous campaign of the Student Council against the abuses of the oral examinations in French and German has been quashed by the Faculty, it is only fair to the students at large that they should know the facts in the case. Even though this year's efforts have failed to bring about any reform of the system, a frank disclosure of the issues is worth making in order to arouse sentiment for a renewed agitation next year.

This is the first time that the complaints have been seriously considered by the Faculty. Since the Student Council, ostensibly the mediator between students and Faculty, is not allowed to plead directly before the Faculty but must content itself with sending to it a written petition, there is always considerable difficulty in obtaining a hearing for a complaint. The oral exams. have been overhauled by previous Student Councils, but their recommendations have been shelved or blocked in some department before they ever reached the Faculty. By the time that the class of 1915, after being in the toils for three years, became Seniors, the orals had grown so odious and unfair that the recent movement to reform them was unusually aggresive.

Last January the Student Council declared unanimously against probation for failure to pass the orals, and a committee was authorized to send a petition to the Faculty. This was followed by conferences with President Lowell, in order to prevent a repetition of past experiences and to make sure that the students' cause received careful attention at the Faculty meeting instead of being summarily dismissed. As the negotiations proceeded, it soon became evident that the solutions proposed in the Student Council petition and in an article in the "Illustrated" offered little promise of winning approval. Both these solutions, despite minor differences, amounted to the substitution of a system of half-courses in French or German (not counting towards a degree) for probation as the penalty for flunking the orals. The representatives of the Student Council hereupon requested of President Lowell that, inasmuch as some modification of the penalty system was critically urgent, he should suggest some modification that would be more acceptable to the Faculty than that emanating from the Council. The interviews and correspondence which followed must be passed over, but suffice it to say that at length two definite innovations in the oral exam. system were commended by President Lowell, endorsed by the Student Council, and in the belief of the negotiators at least, approved by the French and German Departments.

I quote from the final form in which these two measures were confirmed by the Student Council:

"First, men not having passed off the orals by the beginning of the second semester of the Sophomore year shall be obliged to do reading in French or German during the rest of the Sophomore year, under the supervision of a tutor provided by the College. This work shall not count towards a degree. It shall be of such a nature as professedly to prepare for the examination in French or German.

"Secondly, men not having passed the orals at the end of Sophomore year shall be allowed the option of a written examination in French or German at the beginning of the Junior year--that is, before they really go on probation. And, furthermore, that a written examination shall be optional subsequently so long as the student is on probation. The passage set for the examination shall be of the same grade of difficulty as the oral, but different from it in consisting of an extensive, well-rounded chapter or episode, which need not be translated with verbal accuracy, but only paraphrased and rendered into equivalent English sense."

These changes were only a small beginning of what needed to be done. To the best of our knowledge they are eminently moderate, practicable and desirable. And yet the Faculty declined to enact them. No one could complain of too cursory and inadequate consideration of the subject, for it has been before the Faculty during a whole month. The students have a natural wish to be shown the faults in these two proposals. Why did the Faculty reject them?  C. H. SMITH '15.