SCHOLASTIC PROBLEMS

"The task of the University for the immediate future," says President Lowell, summing up his annual report, "should be the perfecting of its existing departments rather than branching out into new fields of work."

This attitude, expressive of the position to which Harvard has advanced, comes as a call for sober consideration of developments deeply affecting the life of the University. Scholastic problems, the improvement of instruction, the common attitude towards the scholar, the position of the unclassified student, have assumed an importance which cannot be denied. Upon the successful solution of these problems will depend, in great measure, the well-being of the University.

Not least in importance among the matters discussed by the president is the position of the scholar. The amount of respect with which high rank in college is regarded, he maintains, is not yet satisfactory. The attitude of the undergraduate toward scholarship compares unfavorably with the attitude of the Law School man.

The essential difference is easy to explain: in the Law School studying is the main occupation while in the college it is only one phase of undergraduate life. Under this condition it is natural that a man who excels only in his lessons should not receive any great recognition by that taken alone. If, however, he leads both in studies and extra-curriculum activities the respect, which, in the majority of cases he receives, is merited.

It seems very doubtful whether under present circumstances a clean cut recognition of intellectual superiority is possible. Class-room competition between a man who devotes all his time to his studies and a man whose main interest is on Soldiers Field is obviously no test of the mental grasp of either. So long as work on the athletic field and on publications plays the highly important role in undergraduate life that it does today, those who receive the best marks will be those who are unfitted for or undesirous of executive, managerial, or athletic success. If therefore seems perfectly natural that the leader in extra-curriculum activities should be also the leader of the college community and deserve the recognition of alumni and the public: but the man of solely scholastic attainments should at least be rated above the "leader," who gets the benefits of neither the executive, the athletic, nor the scholastic training, which the college offers. Not in failing to recognize the scholar, but in tolerating the loafer, do the undergraduate world and the public make a great mistake.

In commenting on the work of the Committee for the improvement of instruction, President Lowell notes a marked rise in the minimum of work required for a degree; the result having been obtained by stiffening or eliminating the easier courses; by improving the grade of assistants; by rules or the choice of electives: and above all by maintaining a higher standard in the office of the Dean. The CRIMSON feels that the Committee has been successful in all but one of these fields,--the first named being the exception.

There have always been "snap" courses in Harvard and every other college. The elimination of them has been like decapitating the hydra, as soon as one course is lopped off two grow in its place, in spite of the almost Herculean efforts of the committee. The truth remains that it is still possible for the crafty undergraduate to choose his courses so judiciously that he can obtain a degree with much less than the "required" amount of study. The fact however, that some of those courses which require the greatest amount of work are the most popular in the college is an encouraging sign that there is a large proportion of students who desire an education rather than a prolonged vacation at college. But as long as there remains the present number of courses which do not credit the student with more than grammar school intelligence or call upon him for any serious effort, either in or out of the class room, the A.B. degree will not indicate all that it should about the intellectual training of its holder.

A page in the report is devoted to the increase in numbers in the College, especially to the number of unclassified students from other colleges, "why they go to another college first . . . we do not know and we are trying to discover." Some use that method hoping to avoid the entrance examinations, thereby losing more than they gain. For the student who has not lived in the Freshman dormitories is greatly handicapped in the loss of the associations and intimacies which are an integral part of the life of the first-year man. The unclassified student is most welcome at Harvard but he has limited himself in all but scholastic fields: in athletics he is ineligible for a year; in extra-curriculum activities, as far as Harvard is concerned, he has wasted a year. Men who have transferred to Harvard in good faith are unfortunate but users of the "back door" method of entrance are simply reaping what they sow. President Lowell's solution, which is being taken up by the Committee on Admission and the Administrative Board, and which seems the best possible, is to treat the transferred student with one year's college work, as a regular Freshman. Many individuals have tried this plan and under it have found their previous college experience a help.

A further note of optimism is struck by President Lowell in statistics showing that in spite of the much-feared divisional examination more students are concentrating in Economics than in any field except English. This shows without doubt that men are here really to be educated, and with a thought to after-college life.

Although the report is addressed to the Board of Overseers the undergraduate body being the subject of the problems discussed above, can go far toward bringing them to a solution.