GRADUATE SCHOOL DEMANDS.

The relation of the College to the professional school is a vexed subject, which, in a University with as many graduate departments as Harvard has, is of interest to many men in the College who intend to continue their education by three or more years in a professional school. Whether the undergraduate course of study is to be distinctly preparatory to that in the graduate school as some of the Medical School authorities would have it, or whether it is to be independent of graduate work, as it usually is in the case of those preparing for training in the law, is a question whose solution has not yet been reached.

Scientific training as pursued in graduate departments of American universities has shown a general tendency to absorb a part of the student's time in college by dictating certain courses which must be passed before the more advanced work of the professional schools can be taken up. Undoubtedly students whose college life is thus narrowed by early specialization lose some of the broadening influence which it is the function of the college to impart. Carried to its extreme this demand by scientific schools for students who are at entrance already well grounded in their special subjects might defeat altogether the object of college training.

Under the new administration the adjustment of entrance requirements for the graduate schools is likely to become an issue of moment. The article printed in another column this morning is an interesting presentation of the views of two of the instructors of the Medical School in regard to the situation in that department.