In Practice

The undergraduate is becoming more and more emancipated. Restrictions and limitations in force two years ago are a thing of the past; requirements for a degree are not as confining as heretofore. In the future his educational opportunities will be more than ever one of personal selection, and the success which he makes of them dependent to a greater extent upon his own initiative. By increasing the burden, it is expected he will meet his added responsibilities. The new curriculum announces that the time for this greater responsibility and freedom is at hand. If the student fails to take advantage of the education offered and neglects his work, an axe, self-administered, will without ceremony cut short his college career.

But along with this intellectual emancipation, a highly desirable factor in progressive institution, is placed side by side the incongruous system of compulsory class attendance. It is the ever-present life-buoy thrown out by the suicide, who generally does not avail himself of it.

In the cut system we have an institution not compatible with our other educational advances. It is a debatable question whether a student should be forced to attend a class from which he receives no knowledge or inspiration. In this many an instructor concurs. So, like Harvard, Yale should liberalize her rules in favor of complete freedom or failing this, greater exemptions. A student with an eighty or eighty-five per cent average in a course has manifested his interest and knowledge in that course. Surely he should be allowed to make the decision for himself whether a particular class in which he has excelled is as beneficial to him as one in which he has a low rating. --Yale News.