FACULTY DICTATION

St. Stephen's College, a division of Columbia University, has thrown its hat into the educational ring by announcing that henceforth St. Stephen's will fit a separate curriculum to each individual student. While Harvard and Yale are wrangling over the social side of student life, St. Stephen's and Chicago University are going to bring out a new model of college curriculum. This college in Columbia is casting aside both the old theory of "curriculum for the average student" and the plan of permitting the student to choose his own courses of study. The faculty will have complete control.

The weakness in the Columbia plan lies in the method by which they propose to determine each student's individual needs. The idea of a faculty conference with each student to fashion the student's curriculum after considering his ability, cultural background, and intelligence as determined by psychological tests, assumes that the student has formulated some very definite conceptions as to his professional objective. In this age of complicated professional life with its multitude of different fields of endeavor, it is extremely hard for a young college undergraduate after one year of residence to single out definitely one field toward which he wishes to move. It is also doubtful whether any professor can justifiably make the choice for him. The Freshman year does not bring out a student's true ability and reveal his potentialities. It marks a great period of transition in his life; surely the consequent confusion will not be aided in the end by having his mind made up for him, rather than by him.