NORMAL CHANGE

The success of the "baby dean" system, inaugurated by Dean Greenough several years ago rests largely on the degree of personal contact established between the dean and the members of his class. True, the juvenile administrative officer must be dignified if possible and even scholarly after a fashion, but above all he must possess the qualifications which will enable him to look at scholastic pitfalls through the eyes of the undergraduate whom he serves. Under ordinary-circumstances this ideal can only be served by constant renewal and change in the personnel of University 4. Thus, it is with mixed feelings of general approbation and specific regret that the CRIMSON watches the order change.

The wholesale turnover in the department of the Dean of Harvard College starting with the resignation of Dean Greenough and the appointment of Dean Hanford of the Summer School, is in no way mysterious nor does it presage any disruption of falling off in the administration of the College. It is the natural and commendatory execution of an excellent order of things in the Dean's office.. It is to be hoped that new blood will increase the efficiency of the body which has functioned so ably in the past. That is often the case and quite normally so. The "ordinary circumstances" which seem to make brevity of tenure desirable in the office of assistant dean are not mathematically definable. The extraordinary has been clearly discernible in the work of Mr. Mayo, dean of the Sophomore class, and of Mr. Bacon, dean of the Junior and Senior classes. But as a working principle it is as reasonably sure of success as a long-term system. Assistant deans may not become estranged from the view point of the undergraduate in three or five years. Many of them grow, perhaps, in understanding of the student, but the appointment of younger graduates obviates any possibility of the Faculty dominating undergraduates in the connecting link between the two.

Next year will see only one familiar face-Dean Bacon's,-in the office of the Dean. To him the CRIMSON wishes a continuance of the success which has attended his work and that of his outgoing colleagues. To the succeeding assistant deans,-terms of office, not necessarily long but as happy as those of their predecessors.