IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

The improvement in the Freshman Advisory system announced in yesterday's CRIMSON is indicative of a change in attitude toward the treatment of first year students. Formerly it had been the practice to give the least attention to this class on the grounds that the elementary quality of those subjects open to them did not warrant any more attention. For obvious reasons, the result was disastrous. After being thrust into an entirely different mode of education, and then being left to the by-no-means capable hands of the average Freshman instructor, it is small wonder that there was considerable trouble.

Under the new plan and its subsequent developments, an effort is to be made to provide adequate instruction for the Freshman class. The immediate change, the development of the advisory system, is the smallest and least important item of this development. It is quite possible, however, that a greater and more expert personal interest in individual first year men will help to avoid many of the usual scholastic pitfalls that threaten at the beginning of the college career. But to accomplish any substantial reform, the entire system of instruction of the first year must be improved. When this is done, many of the glaring difficulties of the preparatory-college transition will be removed.