Exchange Students Visiting 'Cliffe Criticize College Lecture System

Radcliffe and Harvard students are unable to defend the Harvard system of education because the possibility of its being attacked has "never occurred to them," Barbara Collins, Sarah Lawrence '62, declared yesterday.

Miss Collins is one of eight students from Sarah Lawrence, Swarthmore, and the University of Massachusetts, who are visiting Radcliffe this week as part of a simultaneous exchange program among the four colleges.

The exchange is designed to stimulate comparison of different educational systems. Sarah Lawrence emphasizes small seminars and has few or no exams, while the University of Massachusetts and Swarthmore represent compromises between the seminar and lecture systems.

All of the visiting students were initially impressed with the size of the Harvard community. They found lectures and sections far larger than the comparable groups to which they were accustomed.

Sylvia Fines, University of Massachusetts '59, pointed out that small discussion groups and individual seminars are generally characteristic of the other schools participating in the exchange, while at Radcliffe they are available only in tutorial.

Sarah Lawrence girls in particular questioned the value of having many "great scholars" on the teaching faculty. "It is not always the great scholar who makes the great teacher," Miss Deborah L. Day, Sarah Lawrence '59, observed.