THE PRESS

Two thousand years hence ethnologists delving into college-midderns, will dig out such artifacts of Homo Universitas as the cram. The cram is a dull, boring weapon used to bar sleep from the study den. It is used to pound, stamp, and otherwise insert into the Universitas head enough assorted facts to pass exams.

This cram, psychologists tell us, does aid students to pass a factual examination. But most of the facts are soon forgotten. Long-time retention suffers. The cram, too, helps little in courses in which a student must interpret theories. The moral, professors say, is "Be prepared"--all through the quarter.

In this boy-scoutish fashion college students are politely rapped on the knuckles and told that if they would have planned their work from the beginning of the quarter they would not have had to cram.

The trouble is that classwork is not education. A conscientious student, interested in satisfying the academic world's criterion of success good grades--while getting an education is in a dilemma. He drives himself through uninteresting courses hunting prerequisites, foregoes outside-of-class activities, and interprets or thinks little because thinking wastes college time.

Harvard university gives its students a period of freedom before each siege of examinations. There collegians have a few weeks to interpret factual knowledge, catch up on recommended reading, tack unrelated courses together. A pre-examination study period allows time for study when a student is mentally set for learning. Minnesota Daily, Friday, March 13, 1936