BIBLE-SHAKESPEARE EXAMS

The manner in which the Bible and Shakespeare examinations have been conducted this year has been, from a student point of view, very faulty. Seniors were greeted a few days after their return last September with the sudden announcement that these examinations would be held at a time about a week earlier than was the case last year. The Juniors in History and Literature, as has been stated before in this column, will be obliged to take their Bible-Shakespeare examinations only ten days after the end of the mid-year period, at a time impractical both for its closeness to the year's hardest study session, and for its presence during the early days of the second half-year, when an energetic start in course work is desirable. Thus far no change in this date has been announced.

For work on which so much stress is supposedly laid in the apportionment of honors, the administration of this group of examinations is remarkably lax. The present year offers two particularly apt examples of this, with no assurance that the efficiency will be any greater next year. The plan of holding these examinations for Seniors in the fall instead of the spring was an improvement, but unfortunately the benefit to be derived from it is much diminished by the veil of mystery that hangs over the examinations. On the one side, Seniors should be notified early in September of the exact time of examination, so the souls made a bit callous to academic minutial by a summer of freedom may be properly filled with dread before the week of the required tests: and the time at which these are held, both in October and, for History and Literature, in February, might-well be postponed for one or two weeks beyond the dates appointed at present.