DARTMOUTH'S NEW REQUIREMENTS

In emphasizing quality, rather than a system of red tape, in its new admission requirements, Dartmouth has taken a step indicative of the new trend in college education. As President Hopkins points out in his statement, the student with a good record in high school generally keeps up work of a similar grade in college. We are not primarily interested in getting men to college who have performed certain special curriculum gymnastics, we want men with sufficient educational background not to be lost when they enter, but our primary concern is that they should be in a position to give and get the most out of the university after they have arrived.

The importance of an effective secondary education must not be minimized. Dartmouth's new requirements do not aim to minimize it. Applicants for admission must still have had four years of secondary work and certain English and mathematics. But for the rest, it is left for the accredited preparatory schools to fix their own requirements. This is important. Secondary schools should be more distinctive; less purely subservient to the colleges. For a headmaster of high calibre knows what is the best training for young boys, and it is undesirable for him to be hampered. If he is not, the chances are that more men of ability will turn to teaching in secondary schools as offering a better field for their creative impulses. And the chief need of secondary schools today is teachers, not curriculum.