GRADUATED STANDARDS

As a result of his investigations, Dr. Jones, the director of admissions at Columbia, has advocated in his annual report that more rigid restrictions be placed on admissions to graduate schools. It is his opinion that too many colleges have relaxed their standards, and that many men are not sufficiently advanced for graduate work.

To a great extent this charge is true. In some cases men are able to select three quarters of their courses from those open to freshmen and sophomores. In colleges that do not have a system of concentration that requires divisional or senior examinations for a degree, this is easily possible. The lowering of college standards is due to the pressure of secondary schools, who have always insisted that restrictions have been too high, but this relaxation has worked out badly for those students who wish to continue with graduate work.

The difficulty seems to lie more with the colleges than with the graduate schools. Many men who are intent on an eventual course of graduate study work hard while in college, but find themselves insufficiently prepared to carry on advanced research. The standards of the best graduate schools are high enough at present to ascertain that if a man can fulfill them, he should be able to make his way. It is evident that the laxity of the lower schools must be corrected first. Raising the requirements of the graduate schools would be only a vain attempt to rectify errors caused by faulty college curricula.