ADOPTS NEW PLAN FOR AWARDING SCHOLARSHIPS

A new policy of awarding scholarships at the Theological School has been adopted by the faculty of the school and will be discussed at the "Visitation Week" to be held early in April, with a view to its being put into effective practice next year.

The new policy is, first, to reduce the number of scholarships and increase the amount of the stipends, so that they may become honorable academic prizes, to be awarded by scholarly competition in the open field; and second, to appeal to the churches of greater Boston to enter into a co-operative arrangement, whereby students in the school may do "compensated church work" during their first and second years, and for this work receive a stated stipend of from $500 to $600, thus earning their way by practical parish work under supervision.

"Double System of Scholarships"

This plan is described by Dean Sperry as "a double system of scholarships and self-help which throws the burden of initiative and responsibility on the student". In a faculty letter sent to graduates of the Divinity School and the Andover Theological Seminary, which affiliated last spring to form the new Theological School, he states that hitherto it has been the custom of the Divinity School and of Andover Seminary to award scholarships of from $250 to $400 to any student who has an average grade of at least B. The bulk of the students in both schools have been in the past recipients of such scholarship help.

Theological Schools have the reputation of distributing scholarships rather more freely and generously than any other graduate schools. This practice, says Dean Sperry, "has been criticized as the beginning of the pauperization of the ministry, and as at variance with the whole trend of the modern church, which is trying to set the ministry upon solid ground of economic independence and self-respect. It is further felt", he says, "that the more generous and indiscriminate the scholarship awards, the less resourceful and desirable the type of man who responds to such an appeal". By awarding fewer and larger scholarships, he says, the school proposes to make them "goals toward which all men in residence shall be working". For those who do not win such scholarships, and for first-year men not yet eligible for them, the compensated church work will offer a chance for self-support combined with practical training.