MASS PRODUCTION

"This year's Harvard registration" actolding to an editorial in the Alumni Bulletin, "implies...that there is a growing demand for higher education in general, or that there is a growing demand for the particular educational advantages that Harvard has to offer." "No Harvard man at least," continues the editorial, "will be dismayed by either alternative."

The editorial in question implies, if it does not directly state, that the increase in the number of those admitted to Harvard is cause for nothing but congratulation. And this in fact is the opinion of perhaps a majority of graduates and undergraduates who have ever before them the Harvard tradition of enrollment restricted only by scholarship tests.

Such an attitude assumes that education is a matter of mass production with capacity limited only by the size of plant and the amount of capital and labor (in the form of teachers) available. But Harvard has not been founded on such a concept and cannot now adopt it if she is to held her position.

Whether higher education is too widespread or not and, if not, how it can be applied to ever increasing numbers, are problems not for Harvard but for the state universities. It is not that their task is less important than that of Harvard; in extent, at least, it is more important. But there is certainly room for a few institutions whose ideals of education are not those of mass production. If Harvard hopes to maintain her position among these institutions, the growth of classes must be stopped.