"--IT MAY NAT AVANCE--"

It is absurd to claim that research by the University scholars and a subsequent publishing of their findings is not an integral part of Harvard education. The professor enlarges and ramifies the province of knowledge. Also, if he is to prove a sustained and driving force for the men in his courses he must have a recurrent stimulus for himself.

There is justification, however, in the argument that the present regime tends to overemphasize the value of these printed works when considering the Who's who for Promotion. The rising young pedagogue who hopes to negotiate one more rung on the educational ladder is quite aware that, in some form or another, be it a rehashed obscurantism or a highly specialized bit of laboratory research, a book bearing his name on the title-page and the Harvard University Press imprimatur on the fly-leaf is a necessary footstool. Naturally, under such conditions it is unfair to criticize the youthful Ph.D. who lets his lecture notes and tutorial work slide in favor of individual research.

By the etymology of the word, "professor" means "teacher." It implies a gift of character, the ability to project to the student definite thought, supposedly provoking more definite thought. Lack of research admittedly results in mental impotence for the individual. The other extreme, a lack of intelligent, well prepared and constantly revised instruction can result only in mental sterility of the undergraduate body. Until promotions and appointments are based as much, and preferably a little more, on what the teacher has to offer his pupils, as on his imposing bibliography at the Harvard Coop, the first purpose of Harvard University is candidly ignored.