TRIAL AND ERROR

The Junior Training Units explained in today's CRIMSON represent one more experiment, in which Harvard is taking an active interest, to coordinate the graduate with his position in the business world. The proposal of several business concerns to employ undergraduates during the vacation between their Junior and Senior years is, of course, in its initial stage well-justified by the theory behind it. The present uncertainty with which the Senior is faced on his entrance into the outside world is an important contributing factor in the demand for a more permanent standard of vocational guidance.

The mechanism of the new plan naturally precludes a large number of students. Besides the men preparing for an academic or professional career, there are others who prefer to use the summer vacation not as an absolute abstension from, but rather as a continuance of their education. The college year proper is rigorous in its demand on the student's time and application, and rarely offers the opportunity for extensive travel or even quantitative reading.

However, the suggestion of acclimating the indecisive undergraduate with the organization in which he believes, sometimes wrongly, he is interested, offers a feasible solution for one type. The student who drifts from one position to another after graduation, merely because of lack of practical experience, is all too common. The new plan, besides being remunerative, offers such experience, in the nature of an apprenticeship which conflates in no way his university career. In its present stage the Junior Training Unit is extremely attractive as a solution of some of the outstanding evils of existing vocational systems. It is an experiment as yet, but as such it deserves an enthusiastic reception rather than a faint indictment.