"Eager to Learn"

The University of Chicago, under the leadership of its original-minded President Butchins, set up last fall a virtual educational Utopia for its entering class. Eager students and interested instructors were to cooperate in an earnest and, on the part of the former, practically independent quest for knowledge. No examinations, no grades were to hamper the work until, at length, the individual student felt himself ready to take a series of comprehensive examinations which would graduate him to the senior section of the university. What is to happen then is still a little vague since no one has as yet taken these examinations and the university authorities appear to be crossing no bridges until they come to them. However, the first part of the scheme appears, so far, to be fairly practical and Chicago is about to take another startling step. If plans to abolish entrance examinations.

This announcement should be welcome news to the laboring thousands in American secondary schools. College Boards will cease to terrify the prospective Chicago undergraduate. All he need do is indicate that he is "eager to learn" and bring, with him a recommendation from his school in structures. It is a well known fact that the standards of secondary school vary greatly and these recommendations will vary accordingly. In other words, there will be no way of knowing accurately just what preliminary training a prospective entrant has had. The Chicago plan, by its very freedom, must depend for success on the soundness of training which a man has acquired before he undertakes to educate him self. The best standard by which this training can be gauged it some system of entrance examination, and it is this very standard which the university has seen fit to abolish. Daily Pricetenian