EXAMINATIONS AND INTELLECTUAL REFORM.

In a few days the feverish rush of work that always precedes the semi-annual examinations will commence; with many men it is already under way. The disturbance that examinations make in the routine of life of the majority of undergraduates is a measure of the scholastic apathy that intervenes; a quietness barely broken by hour examinations, tests, and theses. Interests athletic and social pursued to the exclusion of the purely intellectual are responsible for the unpopularity of examinations, and for the sentiment, often felt if not expressed, that "C is a gentleman's grade."

We have heard much recently of sanity in athletics, of growing respect for the scholar, and of contempt for the loafer. It is impossible to measure exactly the growth of such public opinion, if it exists. We are still some way from the time when the "H" of a major team and a Phi Beta Kappa key will be esteemed of equal value. But the very indifference which attends the ending of the free elective system is evidence that such an opinion is being formed. In the good old days when Harvard was but a College, all men of necessity were students and some of choice were scholars; then came the freedom of a more liberal era and athletics took the foremost place. We are still in that era, but the way out appears ahead.

As long as semi-annual examinations are the most important tests of intellectual requirements, cramming periods will continue to be the most valuable parts of the College year, and examinations will remain as long as they are needed to remind delinquents of the real aim of College life. And the moral is, to make the most of the cramming period.