GRADUATE ASSISTANTS

Anyone registered in an elementary course, especially in the science departments, can attest to the uninteresting and often inefficient manner in which classes or laboratories are conducted. The reason lies very often, not in the nature of the subject, but in the absence of necessary qualifications in the instructor.

Frequently graduate students are assigned to direct section meetings or conduct laboratories, and the result in most cases is disastrous for the student. It is a necessity that a man be able to teach well and to conduct classes efficiently. Many of these instructors, because of their unfamiliarity with Harvard methods or pure lack of native ability, fail miserably in this most important part of college education. The solution lies in selecting men who can devote full time to their work, giving them a fair salary and opportunity for advancement. An instructor who knows he is only teaching temporarily with a mediocre salary naturally lacks the initiative that is necessary.

Students are attending college for an education and not merely to amass facts that eminent research men can unearth in the dusty stacks of Widener. There is a place in Harvard for both the research man and the teacher. No college which pretends to aspire to being an educational institution can exist without both.