LIMITING THE FIELD

The limiting of membership in the Department of History and Literature will make it possible for the field to maintain the peculiar advantages which it has long had. The personal relationship between faculty and students, and the close acquaintance among concentrators themselves, which have become a tradition in the department, have been possible only because the field has not grown large and unwieldy.

Since tutors in History and Literature have duties also to their respective divisions of History or of Modern Languages, it is especially advisable that the number of students per tutor be kept small. This is doubly necessary in view of the fact that in History and Literature tutorial work has a larger task of correlation than in other fields. Because candidates for honors have their last written divisional in the junior year and because the department encourages course-reduction, the value of the last year for these men depends mainly on tutorial work. Men in the field must be willing to spend more time in their sophomore and junior years in preparation for early general examinations, and it is right that membership in the department should be given only to students capable of beginning at a rapid rate early in their college careers.

The History and Literature Department has been progressive in almost all of its changes. And although the present move may exclude some men genuinely interested in the field, it is preferable that the advantages of the department should be given to a few than that, by admitting a larger number, these singular advantages should be lost.