LITTLE GRAINS OF SAND

The Student Council will soon announce the subject of its chief report for the coming year. Since the opinions of the Council are of most value when they deal with a problem which primarily concerns the undergraduate body, the choice is not an easy one. There is one field, however, where an intelligent survey would be of value; that is the principles which should govern scholarships.

Since the larger number of recipients receive four hundred dollars or less, many of them need jobs to enable them to stay in College. Not only has the Employment Office found it difficult to place men during the depression but most of those who do get jobs find it impossible to earn more than $300 or $400, if as much. As president Conant has pointed out, the undergraduate at Harvard should primarily partake of educational facilities and should not be shouldered with an unbearable financial burden. As a result, some men are forced to leave college and others must neglect their work and the outside interests which help to make College valuable.

Might it not be wiser to give fewer small scholarships and to see that a group of men are freed from financial responsibility? This would mean of course that some men would be denied an education at Harvard. It might also mean that small scholarships would not be available to men who need a little assistance. In addition, endowment terms might form an insurmountable obstacle.

Undoubtedly, it is a knotty question. But an investigation might show that there was some possibility of extending the underlying principle of the Conant Prize Scholarships to the whole field. It would be worthwhile to learn student opinion on such a proposal and the Student Council is the best equipped body to fulfill such a service.