HONORS AT YALE

Notable beyond the embrasure of a system of concentration and distribution similar to that at Harvard in the report presented to the Yale faculty yesterday by the student council was the division in the student body that it recommended. After the second year, under the proffered plan, men who choose to elect honors will receive a distinctive degree, and be differentiated in privilege and work from those who prefer to complete their studies in the usual manner. This suggested discrimination is a direct result of the finding that the majority of the undergraduates, gentlemen but not scholars, neither desire, nor are capable of any great scholastic accomplishment, that their study shares their interest with a number of legitimate pursuits, and that it is but just to free the genuine students from retardation by the mass. Both in cause and proposal this declaration by the Yale council parallels the similar plan advocated by the CRIMSON at the conclusion of the first Reading Period.

As awareness of the discrepancy between these well defined groups of students, separated here only by the loose candidature for distinction thus steadily grows, official recognition of the gap cannot be too distant an eventuality. The complete reservation of the Reading Period and the Tutorial System for the students who elect honors and retain their position with honor grades, may or may not be possible and desirable. But with the experiments with the Junior college, with classification of entrants, with such a pronouncement as that of the Yale council, acceptance of the obvious, in short., that freedom is stimulation and opportunity for the capable, and a pitfall for the many, emerges the certainty that the advocated segregation is the next step in progressive education.