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8 Takeaways From Harvard’s Task Force Reports

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The Columbia students appear not to have outgrown the school-boy complex of considering their teachers the authors of all evil. They apparently feel that the successful student is the one who can put one over on the professor. Accordingly, the Spectator, undergraduate daily, has welcomed the news that the test drawn up by Thomas Beer and published in the last issue of Scribners' has proved a sticker to several "supposedly" learned members of the faculty. It states with glee that the highest mark received by any of these men was 55 and that one of the students was able to amass a total only nine points lower. Most pleasing, however, to the editors of the paper is the fact that several of their taskmasters would fain avoid answering the questions put to them and attempted to pass the buck to a colleague.

It would be absurd to hold up this failure as proof of disability in the faculty. The test was general and was in this case given to men who have spent their lives specializing in some particular subject, the study of which has naturally made it impossible for them to obtain a more than average general-knowledge. The mere fact that a college student was capable of equaling many of the professors proves little or nothing. It is true that some of the instructors laid themselves open to attack in trying to evade answering the test, but this is only a reflection on their moral courage or lack of a sense of humor, and not on their ability as professors.

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