THE QUESTIONNAIRE

Among the suggestions that came in on the questionnaire blanks which appeared in last week's Crimson, there was one that appeared so often in the 137 replies that some improvement must be necessary.

Harvard is known throughout the country for the excellence of the professors, and the authorities on the faculty. It is a recognized fact that during the regular college year, men often enroll in courses not because of their interet in a subject, but because of the instructor's personality. Capable teachers are indispensable to interest in learning. Too often a summer school faculty consists of instructors who wish to make a little extra money or visiting professors from other universities who are not nearly as familiar with their subject as the regular men. Other summer schools make a decided effort to keep teachers with reputations during the summer; state colleges are enabled to do it because they can offer them substantial salaries. There is no possible inducement to remain in Cambridge during the summer unless there is research work to be done with the result that there are few full professors on the faculty. Again it is a question in finance, but it is also a question in scholarship. Men who have mastered their subject are able to inspire in their students some measure of desire to know the subject as well as they do. In courses conducted by the more well known professors there is seldom any relaxation in standards, but during the summer because of the fact that study must be intensive and any syperfious material glossed over more that ever it requires a mind that can transmit its own message to the students.