EDUCATION AND PATE-STUFFING

The trend of education at the more progressive colleges--and particularly at Harvard--negates the conception that the task of a secondary school is merely to provide its graduates with a supply of facts. Although this situation is well understood, the college authorities continue in their entrance requirements to encourage superficiality.

The whole program of study in the preparatory school is arranged with the goal of College Board Examinations in view. The blighting influence of this goal atrophies all attempts to introduce training beyond the strict limits of requirements. When the competence of a teacher is judged by his pupils' success in the examinations, he can hardly afford to squander time on material not included in the College Board syllabus. Thus, instead of education, the whole apparatus of cramming flourishes. Instructors find outlines of the questions in their subject for the past ten, fifteen, or twenty-five years more useful than treatises on the subject itself.

The so-called New Plan was designed to alleviate this emphasis on the examination. Its failure in this respect is evident. The fact that in most courses there are a few preparing for examinations in June is sufficient to neutralize its beneficial tendencies. Nevertheless, one feature of the New Plan does offer a valuable suggestion for a reorganization of the entrance requirements. The comprehensive examination in English, which all applicants under this scheme are compelled to take, has proved, according to recent research, to be the most reliable indication of success at College.

The success of this comprehensive examination is obviously due to the fact that in order to pass it a factual knowledge is not sufficient. In preparing for it the discretion of the teacher is allowed the widest possible freedom. The examination, itself, therefore, is not concerned with details, but emphasizes critical power and literary background. Stress is laid upon education, not cramming.

If a similar broad examination were to be given in every subject, the entrance system would be adjusted as nearly as possible to the methods of teaching at Harvard. Since this is apparently impossible at present, a very satisfactory substitute is available. The scholastic aptitude test, as a criterion of native ability, and the comprehensive English examination, as a criterion of preparation, should be required of every applicant. In conjunction with these the present demand for a transcript of the school record should, of course, be continued. An oral examination of the candidate for admission would also be a valuable method of ascertaining his aptitude for college work. In this way the sterility of secondary education, for which the colleges are largely responsible, would be combatted at its source.