EDUCATIONAL EVOLUTION

Recent reports from the Board of Admissions of Dartmouth emphasizes the fact that this year the freshman class was formed by what the Board terms the Selective Process. It is felt that this system was justified, since it accomplished a geographical distribution that included for the first time a freshman from Mississippi. An institution where groups of men from different districts are brought together is obviously better and more broadening than a college composed of men entirely from a limited locality. It is easy to avoid the provincialism of some of the Western colleges by any process that is based on a modified quota system. But such a method is not making for progress in college standards.

With a quota set for each district, it is clear that in order to make up the required number, unfit men often must be admitted else the group will be incomplete. In either case this is unfair to a man of ability who may be excluded because the men from his locality have been chosen. A more progressive plan has been adopted at Harvard where men from districts that ordinarily do not prepare for Harvard are admitted if they rank in the first seventh of their class, and other requirements are satisfied. Here is an unqualified selective process, not one that uses quotas but one that stresses competition. Darwin has shown conclusively that the struggle for existence is the cause of natural selection. Such should be the case in the colleges; for were only the most fit men accepted, it would not preclude the admission of men from many and varied localities. Natural selection contributes to the progress of education as well as to the improvement of the natural universe.