The Mail LAW SCHOOL GRADES

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I suppose your readers are ignorant of the always fascinating and valuable history of grade "reform" at the Harvard Law School, and will not appreciate the full humor of the suggestions reported in your paper on February 4, that there is some unfairness in requiring a B+ average for graduation Cum Laude from the Harvard Law School. A very few years ago the faculty voted to designate as B-all grades 65-68 Previously this was a C grade. This was done on the strength of the argument that the Law School is a graduate school, and it is well known in graduate school that B-is a rock bottom grade and C is tantamount to failure. The Harvard Law School 65 is not really as bad as all that. Now the suggestion is made that since in undergraduate schools a B-is sufficient for graduating Cum Laude, the same should hold true at the Law School. The practical effect of this suggestion would be that almost everybody would graduate with some kind of distinetion. This may well be a result in accord with "the changed mood of last year," but it is at war with the dictionary.