PRESIDENT'S REPORT QUESTIONS SOUNDNESS OF SPORT POLICY

A large part of the report is taken up with a discussion of methods of teaching, proceeding from an analysis of the case method of instruction used in the Law and Business Schools at the University to a detailed study of the applicability of similar methods, such as the "project method", in schools and colleges. President Lowell vigorously defends examinations against their detractors. "Teachers," he says, "often feel that examinations are needless because they are aware how much knowledge the pupil possesses, since they know what has been imparted to him. But how much has been poured into a bucket is a poor measure of what it contains if it leaks, and children's minds always leak, one never knows how much.

Examinations Essential Part

"Many teachers regard examinations not only as needless, but as a sort of indictment of the pupil, to be used only in case there is reasonable ground for believing him deficient; whereas examinations not only furnish the teacher with an accurate sense of what the pupil knows and how far he can use his knowledge, but, if properly used, are an essential part of the educational process."

President Lowell reports gifts and legacies received by the University during the year amounting to nearly two and one-half millions, in addition to the payment of subscriptions to the Endowment Fund, the sums paid by the Trustees of the Estate of Gordon McKay, and by the Carnegie Foundation for pensions. "After such a list of benefactions," he continues, "it seems ungracious to speak of further wants; but a friend of the University remarked long ago that an institution of learning which was not in need was not doing all it should. . . . Universities, if successful, must be beggars, and the better work they do the more they must beg." Dr. Lowell also explains the principle on which tuition fees were raised last year to meet a deficit of $338,000.

In his discussion of college athletics, President Lowell reports that the Faculty, anxious about the amount of time consumed in the practice for intercollegiate games, recently appointed a committee to inquire into the matter. "After a very careful investigation it reported that the practice, judged either by the time occupied on by the standing of the players, was not such as to interfere seriously with the academic work of men training for the teams; but that it did interfere with the work of the managers, and still more of the candidates for such positions. The amount of time spent by them in this way was obviously excessive and unnecessary and steps have been taken by the athletic authorities to reduce it in future.

Football Problem More Difficult

"A more difficult question is raised by the nature of the intercollegiate football games. The public interest, which was formerly concentrated on the Yale game in a greater degree than it is now, has extended to those with other colleges; and this year the attendance at the whole series has been larger than ever before. Although the severity of the injuries suffered, and especially the danger to life, have been materially diminished by the changes in the rules made a dozen years ago, football remains a rough and strenuous sport in which injuries are often received that impair the efficiency of the players for a couple of weeks, or more.

"In order, therefore, to keep them in good condition for the two principal games with Princeton and Yale at the close of the season it has been the habit to keep out of the games with other colleges some, or in many cases all of the members of the first eleven, playing in fact a second team. This has been a source of complaint. To arrange a match with another college and then not put on the field our regular team, but an eleven composed of substitutes, has been criticised as unsportsmanly; and yet what else can be done if to play in these games is almost certain to cripple some members of our team before it has reached its maturity of training?

Outside Games Urged

"Criticism has been directed also to our refusal to play games off our own field except with Princeton and Yale. Such a policy has been alleged to be exclusive, if not arrogant. Based upon the same feeling is the demand that Harvard ought to play with more teams from other parts of the country; and at its last meeting the Associated Harvard Clubs passed a vote urging that our eleven should play with one of the great colleges of the Middle West, in alternate years at the Stadium and on the field of that college.

"If, like the professional baseball leagues, the object of the college football teams is to carry on a contest for national championship it is not quite clear how these demands can be proved unreasonable. But the Faculty, assuming that education is the prime object of the college, is of opinion that the members of the team, their substitutes, managers, etc., cannot be absent from Cambridge more than they are now without detriment to their studies."

An appendix to the report illustrates by means of graphs the increasingly national character of the University.