The Speed-up

A number of colleges are reacting to the quickening pace of mobilization with a speed-up. Yesterday, Williams announced that the school was accelerating its program to the three-term-a-year basis it used during the war. Princeton is reported thinking about a similar switch, and so are other schools. It looks as if they have acted with more speed than decision.

An accelerated program can hit hard at what a college teaches and how well it teaches. A three full terms per year schedule means that basic courses have to be repeated over and over again, that instructors will find themselves giving the same course three times in a row, and quite probably that the number of courses offered will have to go down. Harvard is going to try to pull itself through the fretful days of mobilization without accelerating--President Conant's recent report indicates that any quickening of a student's program will come through the present machinery of two term. It means that a student can pack in more studies. It sounds like a far more sensible idea.