THE EARLIEST BENEFIT

The time for an intellectual liquidation of the assets and liabilities of the Reading Period is still remote. If, however, its assets are arranged in the chronological order of their appearance, the benefit to the professors, tutors, instructors, and assistants of the University will, like the name of Abou Ben Adhem, lead all the rest. For it is already clear that the respite from lectures, conferences, and section meetings has given the faculty an invaluable opportunity to do its own research work.

Hitherto the time in which a tutor, for instance, could carry on personal investigation in his own field, has been reduced to lowest terms, in some cases even eliminated. Thus the proximity of unparalleled faculties for original research work, the utilization of which should be one of the privileges of university residence, has done no more for many a faculty member than to place him in the dilemma of the Ancient Mariner. He has been obliged to use the Christmas and April vacations to accomplish what was impossible during either term.

The advent of an educational experiment has removed an unsound, unhealthy arrangement. Freedom from tutorial conferences has forced the student to enter the mid-year exams as an uncoached amateur, but it has permitted the tutor, who would ordinarily be, if not stormed, at least beset by pleas for assistance, to give undivided attention to his own work. The definite knowledge that many of the faculty are turning the period to purposes that will later have a published reality, may be not unjustly interpreted as evidence that the majority are doing so. Books yet unborn will stand as testimony for at least one excellent by product of the Reading Period.