A STITCH IN TIME

There are two statements in President Conant's annual report which are of the greatest importance, and which should be carefully considered by everyone interested in the problems of education. They are, "At the boundary between school and college the risk of over-emphasizing the particular type of ability which leads to high grades in all subjects is ever present," and "The immediate task before us is the intensification of our effort, rather than an extension of our enrollment."

At the present time too many students are admitted to college merely on their ability to obtain high grades at school, and to pass the comparatively simple requirements of the college boards. Little attention is paid to a student's ability to adjust himself to a new scholastic standard, to a new intellectual, social and moral environment. Too many men who lack sufficient moral and mental stability, arrive at college, and because they are unprepared to cope with entirely different conditions, they often are ruthlessly "flunked out." Many of these unfortunates are thus led to believe that they are complete failures, and the stigma that being "flunked out" puts upon them often develops an inferiority complex that they are not justified in feeling. Some of these individuals would have done much better at a trade school, or in a nonacademic career, and neither their time and money nor the college's would have been wasted.

The average questionnaire sent to college applicants in secondary schools is entirely inadequate. Very few Universities obtain detailed reports from a young man's school, from his family, or from outside individuals who know him well. Personal interviews, the best guide of all, are almost never required. Little attempt is made to obtain data on a student's background, his adjustability, his ability to get along with his contemporaries or his emotional make-up, and as a result many young men are "misfits" in college. The problems of a University like Harvard are vastly different from those of family and school in Tulsa. The capacity to receive high grades in the latter place is not necessarily proof of the ability to meet the different requirements of the former.

Too many of thse "borderline cases" come to college because of family pressure, or because it is "the thing to do." Once in, a small percentage manage to meet the relatively easy three C and a D requirement of the University: often by extensive use of the tutoring schools. This group of individuals, either because it is too lazy to use its own brains, or because it lacks the ability to cope with college problems, does not belong in an institute of higher learning. Many of these men possess fine ability along other lines, and should be prevented from wasting this ability in work for which they are not suited.

If our Universities were to raise their entrance standards there would be less need to tighten up on the scholastic requirements to stay in college; thus the problem would be attacked at its very roots, and many men would be spared the unnecessary pain of being "flunked out." It is unfair to handicap a man by admitting him to a college curriculum which he cannot met, and then send him home again with a feeling of inferiority.