GENERAL HONORS

With the development of the system of concentration and tutorial work, the necessity for awarding a cum laude in several subjects has become less and less. A vestige of the time when a man was merely required to take sixteen courses no matter what their relationship, it is only based on an accumulation of B grades in nine courses. There is therefore, strong feeling that it should be abolished.

It is true that general distinction has advantages. It has the salutary effect of discouraging too great an emphasis on specialization, a tendency that Harvard has need to avoid. It offers some reward for good scholarship in general, for which the student really deserves recognition.

But on the whole it has become useless and even harmful. At present distinction in general subjects represents only a part of the student's work. It takes no consideration of that done for his tutor or for his divisional examinations. And when the general course reduction goes into effect next year, it will be even less representative. Requiring no thesis, it does not show sufficient extra work over that of the pass man to justify honors. Further it gives too easy an opportunity for the brilliant man to become lazy and avoid the labor an honors thesis requires. Perhaps the strongest argument, however, against general honors is that it marks an end in themselves, an attitude that the University is trying to get away from by means of the tutorial system.

If the requirements for departmental honors could be made more flexible so as to take care of exceptional cases of men not able to write theses, general honors could be completely abolished with a great deal of benefit.