WRAPT ATTENDANCE

Not long ago there appeared at Harvard evidences of a change in educational methods which allowed the undergraduate greater freedom in pursuing his scholastic career. It has been thought that Harvard men have now reached a stage where their interest in scholarship need no longer be obnoxiously analyzed by attendance at classes or in annoying check up examinations. This attitude was adopted by the University with the idea that it would set a precedent which the instructors would follow. But hour exams are still given and in some courses attendances are still annoyingly taken.

In English 22, however, by agreement with the Dean of the Faculty and the instructor in charge of the course the number of cuts has recently been limited to five per term. This ostensibly has been effected due to the lack of interest of students in attending the lectures. During the years prior to the institution of this rule the attendance had become annoyingly small. With characteristic shortsightedness the feeling has been that the only way to secure an adequate audience was the enforcement of attendance by the check method, allowing only a certain number of absences. In face of the growing tendency toward liberal feeling in the matter of attendance this policy seems indeed outdated and a relic of a regime which has long since left Harvard. The reason for its adoption was obvious, the lectures were not of sufficient interest to attract the undergraduate.

Granting that this reason is correct, is the method used to remedy it the logical one? According to the most recent educational ideas it probably is not, Present day, feeling in regard to this sort of thing is that if the lectures are not sufficiently attractive to the student, let them be made so. This might well be apropos if this course contained lectures which were on the whole boring and more drudgery. But it is admitted that they are not, and that the real reason for the lack of attendance is that they are not intimately connected with the receiving of a good grade. Such requirements are obviously out of line with the new ideas and freedom of education at Harvard. Men are now thought to be sufficiently responsible to make their own schedules. If, in a course like English 22, it can be found that they can receive an honor grade without attending the meetings, why should they he forced to go?

Writing courses do not necessitate lectures, they can be carried on without them. Requirements of this sort are outdated methods of an old Harvard. If men can receive honor grades in the course without going to the lectures, it does not seem wise to force them to listen for an hour which they feel could be spent to better advantage elsewhere.