COUNTING THE SHEEP

One of the most striking features of the annual banquet of the Yale Daily News, held in New Haven last week, was the suggestion advanced by Dean Mendell toward remedying the problem of overpopulation. A third, and possibly a fourth, college, to rank with the two existing divisions, lie at the basis of his solution. The additional college would have much the same specialized curriculum as Sheffield, with the emphasis probably placed upon History and Economics.

The problem is not recognized as seriously at Cambridge as it seems to be at New Haven, but the small college plan discussed last year is an indication that the question of unwieldy size is not to be disregarded. There are few people today who would deny that the advantages of large scale production are somewhat dubious in the economics of education.

That the solution lies along the lines suggested by Dean Mendell is debatable. Any distinction based on curricular differences bids fair to promote specialization of the most doubtful value. The lead in educational theory today is rather one toward elimination of such artificial boundaries as those that exist between the several arts and sciences. The division of an English university into "pass' students and "honor" students must recommend itself as more likely to fit the situation. Such a distinction could well be established on a basis like that of the tutorial system as it is found at Harvard. More logical than the division between one kind of sheep and another is the separation of the sheep from the goats.