READING, STUDYING MORE POPULAR NOW

Football interest, from the undergraduate standpoint, has not decreased since the days when I was in college, nor has it increased particularly. The immense growth of stadia during the last few years is due, rather, to excited alumni and a football-crazy public," said the Reverend Frederick May Eliot '11, of Saint Paul, Minnesota, preacher this week at Appleton Chapel, when asked to compare his impressions of Harvard at the present time with those received in the first decade of the century.

Undergraduates Study More

"Since I attended Harvard, undergraduates have changed a great deal. They seem to spend much more time in their studies, their reading; and yet on the whole they have not lost their former eagerness for outside activities. Instead of using up so much time loafing, or wasting time generally, they have come to Harvard with a definite purpose, which is to learn something, and to grasp what the college has to offer.

"This improvement can be attributed in great part, if not entirely, to the introduction of the tutorial system. I was a tutor in the year 1913-1914, and I know that this system has had much to do with the breaking down of the old attitude of enmity between student and instructor. It has enriched the contacts made, and induced students to show much more interest in their studies, especially in outside reading, which may or may not be suggested by the tutor.

Less "Collegiatism" at Harvard

"In this way, Harvard can be considered different from some of our western Universities. In them the attitude of "collegiatism" seems, if anything, to have increased; whereas at Harvard, and also other colleges which have adopted the tutorial system, fewer and fewer are coming to the college just because it is the "thing to do." A far greater proportion of men go with a critical attitude. They weigh what they see and hear, and draw therefrom their own conclusions. The college itself is to be thanked for the growing prevalence of this attitude, and is to be respected accordingly.

"The greatest need of many college students is an idea of how to apportion their time. This knowledge should be taught in all schools, but is not. For that reason it would be a wise idea for colleges to devote some of their time to individual instruction for incoming students, in order that they may get the best from their work with the least effort expended."