"HONORS MEN INCREASE"

One of the most important of the annual reports emanating from official University sources is that of the Committee on the Choice Of Electives. It consists of tabulated results concerning the number of men concentrating in the various fields along with the number of candidates for distinction and honors in each. As such it is at once the most sensitive and most accurate instrument for registering the progress of Harvard's educational system. The figures compiled for this year and printed elsewhere in the columns of the CRIMSON today indicate several marked trends.

The most significant and encouraging of these is the increase in candidates for distinction and honors. This gain is in fact the goal of the Harvard system. It is also the most material sign of the times. Because such an increase has been steadily reported since the plan was inculcated, it has come to be expected and its significance minimized by the casual observer to whom the words, "Figures show increase in candidates for Distinction", become an annual chant. Before last year when it was necessary to limit Senior candidates for distinction to those men who had attained a Group Four or better standing by the end of their Junior year the percentage had risen to nearly one half of the College. Last year it dropped to a little over twenty-eight per cent. This year it has jumped to nearly thirty two per cent. It is possible to draw two conclusions, neither of which is exclusive. First, that more men are electing to go out for honors and distinction. Second, that more Seniors have attained the group standing necessary for candidacy. It is possible that the second conclusion is not valid, since the figures are not given. At all events the increase is encouraging, more so if the result of both tendencies.

The second outstanding development is the rise of Economics to a position where it threatens the long standing numerical superiority of the English field. For five years English has held undisputed sway. Before that the Economics department held the lead in several isolated years. The reasons for this shifting popularity may be either external or internal. However, the fact that Economics has ascended the throne more than once in the past seems to show that the movement is a variable one. The most direct solution of this unstable welter of statistics would be found in an analysis of the influences which determine the vagaries of the undergraduate mind at that delicate period which follows the Freshman and precedes the Sophomore year.