Will It Hold?

Harvard University has ventured on the thin ice of experimentation in introducing a European teaching method by which lectures and tutoring will be definitely suspended for two periods of the academic year. Drastic as the plan appears upon surface examination, careful perusal of the details is quite convincing not only of its enforceability but of its likelihood to achieve the result which it is aiming to accomplish.

As outlined, the method provides for a cessation of classroom activity for two and a half week prior to mid year examinations and a discontinuance of pedagogical work during a three and a half week period preceding finals in June. Neither students nor instructors may leave the campus during these periods without permission.

By freeing the student from minute supervision of their studies and by relieving the teacher of an eleventh hour burden of semester reviewing, it is expected that the final results shown in examinations will represent and earnest effort on the part of the student, who may apportion the time to his own best advantage without the irritating necessity of preparing last minute reports and attending detailed reviews in subjects on which he is already well informed. Assignments of reading pertaining to each course will constitute the sole mechanical requirement of the plan but these will not be of so strenuous a nature as to preclude the possibility of undertaking them according to their relative importance to the individual. The examinations succeeding will show beyond any doubt whether the student has made constructive use of his time or whether he has accepted it merely as a delightfully refreshing period of rest imposed by a benignant faculty.

To provide for cases in which the idea could not be effectively operated, the "reading plan" has been made optional with the various Harvard University departments and may be suspended in the case of certain classes at the discretion of the administration. The placing of increased responsibility you the student is one of the chief features upon which European and American educational systems have hitherto differed. The Minnesota Daily accredits this particular plan with English derivation.

Colleges all over the country are watching the new experiment with interest. Minnesota doubts whether the idea would work "superimposed on an educational system such as ours which has previously been somewhat paternalistic." The Brown Daily Herald and The Cornell Sun edutorially refuse to predict the outcome of Harvard's plan but they are agreed upon its possibilities and hopeful for its success. There is apparently no reason why the precarious brittleness of experimental ice upon which Harvard is treading should not harden into a solider basis strong enough to support the infinite number of educational institutions which are now viewing the Cambridge adventure with awed and admiring eyes. --The Syracuse Daily Orange.