"AND THE HOURS INTERMINABLE"

With the smoke of the recent hour examinations still lingering in the sky, and the threatening clouds of the April sessions rapidly looming up in the horizon, the present breathing space is sufficient for but a few pants before another gloomy period of reckoning and questioning arrives. Mid-Years being scarcely in the past, this formidable array of examinations lends an air of faculty surveillance that is not far removed from the preparatory school. In view of the theoretical independence of collegiate education, it requires a considerable stretch of the imagination to see in what way this practice is either expedient or consistent with the professed Harvard' tactics of allowing individual development.

In the case of Juniors and Seniors this situation is particularly unfortunate in consideration of the theses and other additional work required of them in the second half of the year. To add to this already capacity load can do nothing more than force neglect in some field for the sake of checking up on routine assignments. In addition to this considerable grievance, hour examinations at the end of March divide the semester into two parts thus hindering the unification and sequence of the half year's work.

Nor does the faculty relish this task. They are forced to expend considerable time and energy simply to give the dean's office a rather uncertain scale of the quality: of their students.

November Hours are justifiable on the grounds that they afford the student an opportunity to see what is expected of him and also they permit the instructor to form some basis of judgment as to the ability of those in his course. Two sets of hour examinations during a time when studying is much more intent are justifiable on neither one of these accounts. The bulk of this unnecessary tedium is still in a very imminent future, but there is yet time to discard these abuses and to arrive at some more efficient and equitable arrangement of the second semester.