SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONFIDENTIAL GUIDE

In this issue of the CRIMSON are published criticisms by CRIMSON editors of some of the larger courses offered in Harvard College. Each opinion printed is the honest reaction of an individual or normal intelligence to a particular subject and its manner of presentation in Harvard classrooms. They pretend to nothing more. They do pretend, to that, and as such may be taken for what they are worth to guide other students in their choice of studies for the coming year.

Their allusions to specific courses aside, these criticisms taken as a whole have a broad significance. They throw certain light upon the general problem of education, revealing a few important truths about students, professors, and the nature of the relation between the two. Most of the critical reviews show evidence of sincerity on the part of the students in the task they set for themselves in coming to college. In every course they sought a certain object. Where they found it most abundantly, they lavished their praise; where they gleaned in vain, they confessed disappointment. The object so tirelessly sought was stimulation--the awakening of the principle of growth within themselves. Their interest did not bud spontaneously. Be the course what it might, they required more than bare facts to move them. Details which seemed to be given purely for their own sake were irksome.

It will be argued that this is a defect in the student, that he lacks the power to interest himself. True! Only the exceptional student possesses this power. But it is not the exceptional student who makes the life of the educator hard. For the majority, the spark must come from without, and the duty of supplying it falls squarely upon professors and instructors.

The raw materials of education are facts, ideas, and ideals. Its tools are two minds: one superior, the other inferior, one to impress, the other to be impressed; one to stimulate, the other to respond. This response is education. Given all the rest, if the response be not forthcoming, then scholarly research, elaborate equipment, and the best system in the world are meaningless. There is no education. The one fault which in a professor constitutes an unpardonable sin is failure to interest the rank and file of sincere but uninspired students.

If, therefore, the charge of "failure to interest", so often repeated in today's printed criticisms, be echoed by any large number of students, it is evident that much of what passes for education at Harvard, is mere juggling of dead facts; and that both professors and students who year after year go through the farce of repeating the performance might better employ their time in peddling shoe laces.

It is worthy of further note that most of the courses which fail so signally to arouse a student's interest are more or less elementary. In such courses, though the student may not take the defiant position of the Freshman President Lowell likes to quote: "Educate me if you can", at least he may assume the attitude. "Interest me if you can." It is essential to distinguish between this problem and the quite different one of the advanced student who is more ready to accept the subject for its own sake as worthy of his time and study.

Professors may not like to give elementary courses. But it is certain that, more than on any other one influence, the advancement of education at Harvard depends upon having professors and instructors particularly in such courses realize, as many of them already do, that their power to stimulate and teach is just as important as the profundity of their scholarship.