THE PROBLEM OF TRANSITION

One of the most difficult problems of modern education was given consideration in the meeting of high school and preparatory school principals in Eliot House last Saturday. The need for correlating the work of preparatory schools and colleges was reemphasized. That twenty-five per cent of college freshmen have to leave college because of academic deficiency is sufficient proof of the maladjustment which has resulted from inadequate means of selecting candidates for admission to college.

But while educators have given a great deal of attention to finding proper ways for selecting university freshmen, it appears that two other problems, those of correlating curriculum and social life, have not been given deserved consideration. The necessity of offering introductory language, composition, and science courses in college has frequently been recognized as unfortunate. Because students are not given courses of sufficiently advanced calibre in preparatory school, in order to satisfy their distribution requirements in college, they must take courses of an elementary sort.

The new housing plans at Harvard and Yale have brought to the fore the problem of the social adjustment of the freshman to his college environment. Difficulty of transition from a preparatory school dormitory to the new college units may become greater as the Houses develop characteristics peculiar to themselves. At Harvard the method of inducting freshmen into the plan has been selected as much in accordance with the exigencies of building as with the considered needs of first year men. Exeter, by initiating a new system of housing, has made the necessary adjustment; other preparatory schools should make similar provisions. Revision of college entrance examinations is necessary, but preparatory schools and colleges will first have to cooperate in the arrangement of curricula and housing systems if men are to derive the most from all phases of college life.