HARVARD'S VERSATILE PLAN

Thanks to Mrs. Charles Warren, the wife of the eminent historian of the Supreme Court. Harvard will be able to experiment in the next five years with a simple educational project which has many interesting angles and potentialities. In his tercentenary address last September President Conant suggested that one of the roles of the American university might be to foster a more general understanding and appreciation of our national culture. A few weeks ago, in his annual report, he announced that an opportunity for voluntary study in American history would soon be made available to undergraduates concentrating in other fields. The innovation, Mr. Conant explained, was equally intended to demonstrate to students that self-education is often the most effective and that it can be continued long after one has left school and college.

Now, it appears, the plan is to go even further. Sometime in May the university will publish an extensive reading list in American history, economics, government, literature, and other phases of our national development. These lists of recommended books will be distributed to citizens throughout the country. Individual study will be supplemented next winter when a series of lectures on contemporary American problems and their relations to the past will be given by first-rank authorities from Harvard and other American universities. Both undergraduates and the public will be invited to attend these lectures, and later to measure their progress by taking examinations. Book prizes, the gifts of Mrs. Warren, will be awarded to the most successful.

It is unquestionably good policy on the part of the university. But whatever gains Harvard may make in good-will will be trivial compared with the opportunity to establish a new high standard for popular patriotic teaching in this country. The reading lists and the lectures, it is safe to assume, will have only one object: to tell the story of our country truthfully and completely, without bias for or against any group, institution, or philosophy. The result should tend to engender a wiser and more constructive patriotism. The Boston Herald