PASS-FAIL

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Princeton introduced its pass-fail option to insulate undergraduates from bureaucratic pressures for grade-grubbing. It reduced by one the number of courses that are graded, so that a student could experiment with an unfamiliar subject within his normal program.

But Harvard plans to use the device to add to the pressures. Its undergraduates will have the "privilege" of taking a fifth course on a pass-fail basis, in addition to the normal four-course load. This is supposed to give them an incentive to broaden themselves.

What advantages does this device have over auditing a course? Answer: it introduces a new element of compulsion. Once a student has decided to take a fifth course, which he thinks is good for him, he will have the university administration to stop him from backing out. No student, says Mr. Edward Wilcox, will be allowed to drop a pass-fail course late in the term. Otherwise he would lack the incentive to broaden himself.

What kind of undergraduate will voluntarily contract into this kind of bullying? An immature, compulsive fellow who prefers an enforced, bureaucratic discipline to an intellectual one of his own making.

Should the College encourage this kind of undergraduate? It already gives him sufficient encouragement by admitting him. According to the Harvard Policy Committee's poll, 74 percent of Harvard undergraduates would take a fifth course on a pass-fail option. Seventy-four percent, then, need to be reeducated out of their high school habits. Harvard already has sufficient devices to impede this reeducation. Why add another? Josiah Lee Auspitz, 2G