PROBLEM IN INCREASED DESIRE FOR EDUCATION

"The greatest problem which our educational institutions are being called upon to meet today and which they will have to face until they are settled, is that arising from the amazing growth since the war of a desire for education," said President W. A. Neilson '96 of Smith College, in a recent interview for the CRIMSON on modern education methods in this country. This increasing demand, according to him, is more evident in the West than in the East. The attendance a several of our Western State Universities is advancing at the rate of 2000 students a year. At one of them a single class of 1500 in English literature is held in a open air theater. "You can't teach English literature through a megaphone," President Neilson remarked.

What President Neilson said centered around this fundamental problem. At first he took up certain faults in our present system which are detrimental to the development of education. He closed with a discussion of the tutorial system as an indication of the tendency towards a grater differentiation among students and a more individualized plan of study.

Function of a University

He began by considering the function of a university in regard to the pursuit of truth. He showed that in America, professors are so bound down by teaching and lecturing that they have little time for original research work. He contrasted with the liberal schedule of professors in European of only about three hours, a week a professor's time could be devoted to research; and as a result he might have at the end of the year a book, full of fresh and internist material.

President Nailson went on to deplore the fact that here professors and instruction tend to think of their studies mainly in terms of their own specialized department of field. "If we are to meet the growing demand for education, it is essential that teachers come to feel themselves part of a great educational machine whose aim is to give the greatest possible number of living contacts with the world to each and every student.

"We have fallen into the vicious habit of judging a man's scholastic worth solely by means of marks, and degrees; however, under our present system no other alternative is practicable. This method of academic accounting is inefficient in that it puts the stress upon the obtaining of credits rather than the mastery of subject.

Same method with All Student

"The wastefulness of our present system arises from the fact that we use the same method with all students irrespective of difference in ability," said Professor Neilson. "There is a far greater difference between the brightest and the poorest minds in a class than most people suppose. The teacher has to aim at the middle or even a little below the middle intelligence. In an average class of 75 men, the brightest scholars will do in thirty minutes, a lesson upon which the slowest students will labor for there hours. That is a ratio of one to six. The instructor must assign lessons suited for a two-hour man.

"The waste comes through the lack of guidance to the brighter men in the use of their surplus time. A good many spend it in college activities. A few educate themselves in spite of the system.

"The only way in which this frightful waste can be stopped is by a radial changed in our education methods. What we need is a differentiation between the good minds and the poorer ones. Then we may go ahead with intensive, individual instruction for those men who have proved themselves worthy of it. At one end of the scale we do differentiate. We look after the blind and deaf we put the feeble-minded in special institutions. It is time that we provided special training to utilize to the fullest extent the best mind of the country.

"The tutorial system is too expensive to be applied to everyone in a large college or university. Its advantages students and meanwhile the rest may remain under the lecture and examination system."