Cutting Before Vacation.

The circumstance that the Christmas recess began this year on the afternoon of a Tuesday, proved very tempting to a number of men who, from some reason or other, wanted to skip Monday and Tuesday, and go home on Saturday if not earlier. It would have made very little difference, except in principle, if only a very few men had gone home early, but this year the exodus was so general as to cause a good deal of interference in the teaching of some of the courses. This, of course, was hurtful to the college. The authorities must see that a certain amount of instruction is given, and anything that interrupts or interferes with the course of this instruction cannot be allowed to go on without an investigation and an attempt at remedy by the authorities.

Then, too, there is the principle. The regulations say in black and white that a man shall not break his residence in Cambridge without sufficient reason. When, therefore, with such a resolution on the books, men are allowed to leave college before the recess without giving any explanation whatsoever there is evidently an inconsistency somewhere.

The question of remedying this inconsistency is one which the Administrative Board has under consideration. Every man who left college early at the Christmas recess, without leave, was required to fill out a blank stating the reasons of his early departure. The cases of all these men were taken under consideration and a number of them were found to have reasonable excuses. As a rule excuse was granted to men who lived at a great distance, men coming from the West or South, provided they did not leave unreasonably early. A large number of cases, however, showed that the men had gone off merely to add a few more days to their vacation. In dealing with these men the authorities went on the supposition that it might be the parents who did not understand the regulations, and they sent letters to the parents stating what the regulations were, and how they had been broken. In some instances these letters included also admonitions, the student himself having previously received admonition from the Office. Matters of this sort generally resulted from a man's having been previously warned that he was near the probation line, or sometimes from the fact that a man had gone home early in spite of the fact tha this petition to leave early had been refused. In most cases, however, where a student whose home was at a great distance, petitioned to leave a few days before the recess began, the petition was granted.

The Administrative Board still has the whole matter under consideration.