DAMAGING ADMISSIONS

The publication of the new regulations of the Committee on Admissions raises two questions which may definitely affect the future of Harvard College. With the first and third of the new rules few will quarrel. The number of men who have partially failed in their first year at Harvard and the obvious discrepancies of standards in secondary schools are sufficient recommendation for them. There will be little weeping over the final passing of the September examinations, which difficult of administration and unsatisfactory results had made a bugbear to examiners and candidates.

On the other hand, the Committee has thrown over a concrete measurement of scholastic ability in favor of an intangible criterion more flexible in its application, and has further made a broad statement which touches they very theory of education in the abstract.

Article 11 of the law new regulations provides for the admission of all candidates "whose examinations and school records in the judgement of the Committee on Admission, show them to be students of high academic distinction and of good moral character." This standard of judgement has been substituted for the average of seventy-five per cent in entrance tests that has been the mark of academic excellence What this substitution allows the Admissions Committee is a greater latitude in the exercise of a selective process.

The freedom to pick over and weekout candidates for college entrance to advantage, but it can be easily abused. In a liberty of choice guaranteed by such a nebulous phrase as "high academic distinction and good moral character" lies the danger that it may be used to the benefit of a general type of student whose preponderance in the College might appear to insure a balance perhaps acceptable. But the injustice to the candidate is apparent, and the gain of Harvard in the too-liberal employment of selective right is doubtful.

There is a further appeal to the intangible in the clause stating the desired "emphasis on character and fitness, and the promise of the greatest usefulness in the future as a result of a Harvard education." There is no attempt made at definition of this "usefulness." There are many who think of education not as a tool to enable them to be useful. To men who prize a Harvard education, or any education, not for its value to something to be determined later, but for the opportunity which it offers for individual growth free of curbing restraint, the phrase will convey a meaning not in accord with what they have conceived, to be the glory of Harvard.