The Harvard Utopla

Another new move in education comes from Harvard, an institution which has had a reputation for progressiveness since President Eliot assumed office in the late sixties. This progressive spirit has been expressed in the establishment of extensive graduate schools, such as the business school, established early in the history of education for commerce's and administration, in the gradual granting of more and more freedom to the undergraduate, which has resulted in the "Dean's List" permitting unlimited cutting of classes to the scholastically successful, and in the study of educational methods made ten or twelve years ago when the Graduates School of Education inquired into the features of the college work which were thought most profitable by the students. This investigation started a movement at Harvard towards the shifting of emphasis from lectures to personal research and outside reading.

Harvard's latest step forward is the recent establishment of the pre-examination "reading periods," of two or three weeks, during which formal lectures and tutoring will be suspended. Both students and instructors will be required to remain in residence and it is expected that an assignment in reading and the prospect of the examinations in the immediate future will be sufficient stimulus to keep the undergraduates working. The various departments of the University are to decide for themselves whether the suggestion will be put into effect and the provision is also made that the recess will not apply to freshman courses.

The respite is hoped to afford as much relief to the instructors as the students since at the present time the fortnight just previous to the final examinations is crowded with thesis reading and details incident to closing up a college semester. It will also cut down the length of time taken up by formal teaching and permit the members of the Faculty to study write and to research work.

The advantages of the plan to the undergraduates are great. The mechanical routine of classroom work just before the examinations will be done away with while allowing the student time for writing theses and for reviewing courses, which, under the present schedule, are slighted. More responsibility is thrown on the individual which makes for self education and after all, the more a student can learn for himself the better will be his preparation for life. --The Dartmouth.