A MATTER OF PREFERENCE

In this morning's CRIMSON Professor Samuel E. Morison, of the History Department, describes the characteristic features of the college system at Oxford, laying particular emphasis on the differences between the situation there and current conditions at Harvard.

Professor Morison points to the disciplinary duties of the small college within Oxford as its most prominent function. Discipline is a word uncongenial to Harvard ears; surely no plan of subdivision here whatever might be its direction could be intended toward the extension of discipline. If discipline be taken to mean guidance as well as coercion, however, this assumption becomes much less sure. The new Harvard plan of House residence with its provision for constant and close contact between tutor and student can scarcely fall to produce the type of discipline which Professor Morison describes as characteristic of Oxford: "His (the student's) individuality is respected, but he is gently guided along the path of self-development and well being. Here it is sink or swim, with only an overworked 'baby dean' as a straw to the drowning man. I, for one, prefer this robust if sometimes un-salutary neglect."

Not only in contact between tutor and student but also between student and student does the House plan promise to lead away from the present condition of complete self-determination toward the Oxford idea of gentle guidance. The student will be led, through the very structure of the college, into contacts which the college deems good for him, instead of being allowed complete freedom to establish or repudiate those contacts in accordance with his own desires.

The choice between the two plans is largely a matter of personal preference. Many parents would undoubtedly prefer to send their sons to an institution where gentle guidance of the proper kind is provided for them. There are, indeed, already many colleges designed to suit this taste. Harvard almost alone has placed its full reliance on the undirected initiative and judgment of the individual student. Because it believes that therein has lain Harvard's unique glory, the CRIMSON joins Professor Morison in preferring the present system of robust neglect to any alternative plan of gentle guidance.