FEET OF CLAY

Ramming nonsense down the throats of unwilling undergraduates must be a dull business for instructors, particularly in the lower reaches of the academic world. One of the rare pleasures which relieve the tedium for them is to bustle importantly into an examination, strip the wrapping from the examination papers, and view for the first time in print those mighty cerebral efforts which are to be the nemesis of the class. Then suddenly half way through the test it will be discovered that question 2a is all wrong; a correction will be announced and question 2a will be rewritten with muted curses.

Unfortunately, the hardship worked upon the students by this practice far outweighs the joy derived therefrom by their instructors. That this is no idle and disgruntled complaint is evinced by the way in the examinations in Chemistry 44 and Physics D were handled last year. Another case was presented by the Bible and Shakespeare examinations last spring in the field of History and Literature, when a large portion of the questions were not concerned in any way with the required reading. Apparently, whoever was in charge had neglected even to glance at the papers until the test had actually started, when it was too late to rectify the error.

That it is distinctly a misfortune to require the unhappy instructors to forego their feeble pleasures is not to be denied; in the interests of their helpless victims, however, they should be required to omit this dim joy and give their examinations at least a cursory glance before they are unveiled.