COMMENT

Several of the elementary courses in Harvard College are bigger this year than they have even been, says the Harvard Alumni Bulletin. In part this is accounted for by the increased size of the freshman class, but it is also due in some measure to the working of the new rules relating to the choice of elective studies. These rules now provide that every undergraduate, in order to obtain the bachelor's degree, must take at least one course in each of four designated fields or subjects. There has been a very marked influx into some of these courses; in one case the enrollment is nearly 700.

From the standpoint of effective education it is not at all certain that this development can be viewed with satisfaction, says the article. There are many who believe that the large lecture course has been a weak feature of American university education. It precludes all chance of personal contact between the professor and his students; it means that much of the follow-up work must devolve upon assistants, says the bulletin, and adds.

"It is quite true that even in courses of moderate size a certain amount of responsibility must be lodged with these younger members of the teaching staff; but there seems to be no getting away from the fact that every increase in the enrollment removes the students a notch further away from the professor who is in charge of the course.

"Some years ago the division of education made an exhaustive study of the teaching methods used by one of the largest and best organized departments in Harvard College. The result of this study indicated that a vulnerable point in our whole scheme of instruction is the necessity of relying to a considerable degree upon the competence and judgement of immature assistants whenever courses grow beyond a certain certain size.

"When the University of California announced an enrollment of 1,000 students in a single course at that institution a year ago, a good many educators stood aghast. 'How can effective teaching be done on such a scale?" they asked, We are not far from the stage at which the same question can be appropriately raised within our own precincts. Somewhere or other there must be a point at which the law of diminishing returns begins to make its influence felt in the college classroom." New York Times.