STUDENT INSURGENCY AT WILLIAMS.

The faculty at Williams College has recently adopted a system by which the courses of study are divided into three groups: namely, the languages, history and philosophy, and sciences. This move on the part of the administration has been the cause of a great deal of unfavorable criticism by the student body and has resulted in the presentation to the faculty of a petition signed by 98 per cent. of the undergraduates, requesting a modification of the system.

The "prerequisite" is seemingly the cause of the greatest student opposition. Reduced to its lowest terms, this is the policy of keeping students out of certain advanced courses unless they have passed a certain series of other courses. In some cases its use is absolutely imperative. A man cannot study advanced chemistry or biology without a knowledge of the elements of the two subjects. But at Williams, the system of prerequisites makes it necessary for a man to take the elementary course in a group in order to be allowed to take any of the allied subjects branching from that group. For example, a student cannot take introductory Economics or United States Government without a knowledge of European History.

When the group system was inaugurated at Harvard practically no opposition was raised. The reason for this is clear. None of the criticisms offered by the Williams student body apply to our system. In choosing his courses at Harvard, a man must devote a considerable part of his attention to one group, but at the same time he is obliged to distribute the remainder of his work over other fields. Moreover, our system includes the element of continuity of subjects without making it necessary to confine one's course of study to a single line of progress. The group system is invaluable in that it promotes concentration to a certain degree, but an added asset of out system is that it also domands a considerable degree of distribution of study.

The "insurgent" movement at Williams is interesting to us as showing that Harvard probably has evolved the best possible system of elective study.