THREE-YEAR GRADUATIONS.

Of the many problems which will confront President Lowell, one of the most important from an undergraduate point of view is the question of three-year graduation. The number of men who take their degrees in three years has increased with every graduating class, until now it has become a matter deserving of most serious consideration.

At the beginning of a man's college career he is faced with a situation of great difficulty. If he wishes to take things with comparative ease,--and in most cases he does,--he decides on the regular four years' course and gets his degree in the approved fashion. If he is a good athlete he nearly always takes this course, chiefly through compulsion, because under the present objectionable rule he will not be allowed to play on the University teams if he is registered in one of the graduate departments. The other alternative open to the undergraduate is to go through in three years. This is really no very difficult task and it is often done by men who are unable to stay four years for financial reasons or who prefer to get some business training in their fourth year. A man who goes into business immediately loses all the pleasures of the Senior year, usually the most enjoyable of the four, and one who stays in one of the graduate schools finds himself in a decidedly unpleasant situation. He is usually interested in some branch of College activity and his studies are more difficult than in College. As a result of this, he pays less attention to his work than he should, and his other interest suffer in a like proportion. Before he is through, he is usually decidedly sorry that he did not remain an undergraduate for four years, but in spite of his example there are more three-year graduates than ever in the next class.

It would seem distinctly undesirable to destroy the privilege of early graduation altogether, but we believe that it should be made considerably more difficult to get a degree in less than the ordinary time. If men were not allowed to anticipate courses or if the requirements for a three-year degree were increased, the unity of Harvard College would be decidedly strengthened.