DESIGN FOR CREDITS

The very serious overloading of laboratory work in the science courses and the absence of credit for this work were discussed in these columns last November and two remedies were suggested. The proposal that laboratory work be reduced to the amount stated in the catalogue has been declared flatly impossible by the science departments who have continued to treat the situation as an unfortunate but unavoidable evil. The second suggestion, that of adjusting course credits so that this extra work would receive due reward is the only remaining solution and merits the immediate attention of the authorities.

A person taking any course in Chemistry, Zoology, or Physiology higher than the elementary stages must spend an average of ten hours per week in the laboratory to complete his work and in most cases the figure is higher. When the time spent in lectures, laboratory conferences, and preparation for quizzes is added, the sum comes to a point between twenty-three and twenty-five hours. The student who aims for honor grades must devote much more time than even this huge amount. In no non-scientific department in the College is twenty-five hours a week the average requirement yet these difficult science courses receive only one credit, the same amount that attends the passage of French A, Anthropology A, or Geography 36. If these credits are to have any relative values some uniform basis must be adopted and the most practical is that obtained by basing credits on required hours per week. The average course requires nine hours a week; thus courses which take twenty hours or more should be assigned two credits. A further equalization could be obtained by reducing course requirements in the scientific fields and the whole matter cleared up by a frank statement in the catalogue of the time really required, not the usual naive "six hours laboratory per week."

The plan of hour-credits has more behind it than mere theoretical logic; its practicability has been proven in colleges all over the country and it is now the accepted system in nistitutions of all sizes. There is nothing in the present makeup of Harvard which would prevent the smooth working of such a system and there is no official objection to it in principle. The existing method of assigning course credits at Harvard is archaic and unjust; the suggested plan is equitable and practical, and only an excess of inertia stands in the way of its adoption.