LOWELL SCORES SNAP COURSES AS DEMORALIZING

In a speech delivered before the members of the Massachusetts Schoolmasters' Club at its annual meeting in the Hotel Bellevue Saturday afternoon, President Lowell criticised some of the modern trends of education, concentrating his attack upon the "snap" courses that exist at Harvard.

According to President Lowell, the courses realized by students to be easier than average "lower the standard for everything". He gave as examples in this connection, although with no discredit to the men who gave them, the courses in Geology and Fine Arts given by the late Professors Shaeler and Norton, respectively. Speaking of this, President Lowell declared, "Any courses which are regarded by the students as distinctly easier than the others demoralize the whole system. One must be very careful that if one has a course that is more attractive than others, one makes this harder, thereby keeping a certain high standard of endeavor."

In addition, President Lowell said that "the problem of education is to stimulate interest in the mind of the youth and thus lead him to make the proper effort voluntarily and not merely to find for him something he likes, which," he continued, "most often is nothing in particular. All education is self-education, excepting that acquired mechanically, and what one gets out of education depends entirely upon the effort put into the acquisition of it."

Mr. Lowell continued with remarks on the duty of educators, saying in closing, "The question is the attitude with which we send the graduates our and the extent to which we instil into youth respect for the greatness of human thought."