". . . FROM THE INSTITUTE"

The department of History and Literature has for some time held meetings of its faculty and students for the purpose of organizing and coordinating more closely its work and its workers. History and Literature, however, is a limited field; all its members are studying for honors, and they are comparatively few in number. It is, therefore, of interest to note that the department of Biology, an unlimited field of the usual type, has announced a general meeting for its members, to take place in the New Biological Institute. The purpose of this gathering is to enable the teachers and students to become acquainted, and to allow the undergraduates to inspect some of the research now in progress. The step is admittedly experimental, but its example may be of considerable importance in influencing others to follow.

There are, of course, obstacles to the success of a general "get-together" of the members of a large field. Perhaps most cogent is the truism that concentrators are primarily interested in the subject, not in their co-workers. Any attempt to bring them together may fail simply because of this lack of mutual interest, and because the men are often personally incongenial. Such a difficulty may be overcome, however, if men can be shown the definite advantages which such periodic meetings offer them. By conversation with colleagues a student can be brought into contact with many branches of his subject that he would otherwise overlook. As different phases of a subject are brought out in such meetings, so should be displayed various methods of approach to those phases. The whole effect of even a superficial collaboration of this kind should be a unifying one, simultaneously adding to and coordinating one's fields of thought.

In many departments, smaller group meetings are doubtless preferable, and the House and Tutorial systems have already provided the inspiration and the focal points for their organization. But large or small, these groups have many demonstrable advantages. As a method of facilitating closer relations between student and faculty, and of proving, the field of concentration to have some meaning save as a name, the step should command attention.