HURDLING

In many of the large reading courses two and even three hour examinations now precede the Reading Period. And the newly imposed necessity of riding post through these stages has a number of unhappy results. The pastures that promised unchecked grazing are reached only by wriggling through too many fences. Professors who complain that they can not cover their subjects adequately in the shortened semester are further limited by necessary but irrelevant attention to mechanical detail. The November hours belie their name with a premature October appearance that is particularly unwelcome to Seniors who have taken divisional a week or two before. And the student who is taking more than one of these courses must forego any hope of systematic digestion, to move in jumps in a depressing game of scholastic parchesi.

For two factual check-ups in advanced courses, habitual procrastination offers perhaps, some excuse. An hour examination coming seasonably in the middle of November is valuable if it suggests to its victim preferable methods of preparing the subject at hand. An examination late in December is a thinly disguised but supposedly necessary turnstile to force men to supply themselves with credentials before they enter the Reading Period. Those who have been there before, and know the amount of required or suggested study that fetters the period should be little inclined to let course work overlap. But if in the light of human nature this examination is inescapable; and if in the light of educational tradition its November predecessor is desirable: such allowable conservatism still does not make the presence of a third hour examination in such reading courses as English 32, anything but an inexcusable and cluttering imposition.