DEGREES OF DIFFERENCE

Once again many Seniors in the College, constrained by an illogical statute, file declarations of intention to complete in June requirements for degrees to which they have no just claim. Numerous candidates who are concentrating in the Arts will be awarded degrees in the Sciences because they did not present for admission the prescribed experience in Ancient Languages. Whether or not a graduate of the College is granted an A.B. or S.B. degree now depends on the number of units in the Ancient Languages he offers as an entering Freshman.

Under the existing system what is really an accident occurring during his secondary school preparation determines which degree a student in Harvard College will receive. For rarely do boys in preparatory schools give consideration to the problem of college degrees when they outline their course of study. Yet their certificate of admission to Harvard informs them that they have settled the question. If degrees from the College are to represent anything more than the satisfaction of the Faculty that recipients have fulfilled graduation requirements, the differentiation between the A.B. and S.B. degrees should be based on fundamental differences in courses of college study.

Development of the fields of undergraduate concentration makes timely a change from the present method of determination based on a technicality to a system in which the nature of the courses pursued in the College is the deciding factor. A line of demarcation between subjects of the Arts and subjects of the Sciences can be drawn and the degrees granted accordingly.

If the Faculty does not wish to give character to the degrees it would be in order for it to grant only an A.B. degree from the College. Adoption of either policy would be a happy step away from the illogical situation now existing.