PRE-FRESHMEN

Dartmouth is trying the experiment of admitting twenty students of unusual promise a full year before they are to begin their freshman year; so that with the assurance of being admitted, they may spend their last year at school more profitably than heretofore. Relieved of the necessity of cramming for college board examinations, they can survey the fields that lie beyond their schoolboy courses, and can learn to think farther ahead towards their mental fulfillment than tomorrow's recitation. Further, they can prepare themselves in language requirements so as to avoid compulsory language courses in their freshman year.

This is a commendable attempt to redeem the freshman year of the aimlessness that too often characterizes it, to make it count as one the four mature college years rather than as a painful period of adaptation. For many men this first year is worse than merely an ineffective time of transition; it represents a false start that is hardly corrected be for the senior year.

If the Dartmouth experiment succeeds, it will be like adding a year to a man's life. But it must be remembered that the success of twenty dean-picked men is no proof that schoolboys at large are not better off with the sobering sword of the board examinations hanging above their heads.