BEAR-BAITING

In the announcement that the History and Literature Department has decided to open the Oral Divisional Examinations of the Juniors and Seniors to the public, we see another vain yearning of the Harvard educator towards Oxford mediaevalism, towards sanctification by tradition at the expense of the student. There is absolutely no question that the burden of publicity is an unnecessary trial to the cultural neophyte. To pass such an oral examination with success would require not only a proper knowledge of the field, but considerable skill in facing an audience with composure. If the candidate is expected to think during his examination, that is, put more into his answers than parroted memory work, he must have the training of a soap-box orator to withstand professorial heckling in the face of amused hoi poloi.

As a piece of showmanship it smacks of the bull-ring or the bear-pit. One can imagine the ferocious sadism of the crowd as they follow the intellectual downfall of the student under examination before the rapid-fire of this depraved department. Indeed, one might believe that this extraordinary innovation is an attempt on the part of the new regime to bolster the shrinking violets among the faculty. Such petty inferiority complexes must be replaced with true professorial pomposity: therefore exercises in exhibitionism, platform methods, lecture room ballyhoo.

As an educational trend, it is only another queasy kow-tow to the Oxford-Cambridge reliquary of worm-holed 16th century poppycock. Some judgment should be employed even in boot-licking. It is to be hoped that President Conant will curb the P. T. Barnum tendencies of the Department before any New York vaudeville engagements are made.