The Freshman Adviser

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be withheld.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

The Freshman is an exceedingly belaboured creature. His first year here must of necessity be devoted to making numerous blind choices about his remaining three years.

The CRIMSON is one of the outstanding advisers of the belaboured Freshman. What is its proper advisory role? I need not explain to you the origins of my interest in the functions of an undergraduate newspaper in a great University, but by way of general explanation let me add that, successively, as a CRIMSON editor, as the University's secretary for publicity, and new as a tutor in Economics, I have had this as a constant interest.

My object in writing at this moment is to call attention to the series of articles which the CRIMSON, in performance of its functions as a freshman adviser, is publishing upon fields of concentration, and the series just completed upon the seven Houses. The role which the CRIMSON has assumed in these two series is that of an impartial fact-recording body. It seems to me that it has not fulfilled that role.

Both series lend themselves to criticism, but I shall mention only the article which brought this most forcibly to my attention: that published last Friday on the field of Economics. I speak of the article because I have some special competence upon the subject of that field of concentration. And yet I must claim to be free from bias on the subject of Economics a, since I do not instruct in it.

The author of the CRIMSON article editorialized in a most biased manner, and especially about the subject of Economics A. The place for such an opinion about a single course within a field is in the editorial columns of the CRIMSON. and the writer of such an editorial should familiarize himself with the history of the course, whereupon he would learn that its existing system is the result of an evolution from lectures to sections. I object, also, to his use of phrases such as the "unconcealed sense of martyrdom" to describe the manner of the Economics Department when it defends its policy for Economics A. The dramatic style calls in question the writer's good intention and is out of place in an unvarnished account of a field of concentration.

I shall not attempt here any defense of the field of Economics as worthy of consideration by the liveliest students in the college. It seems to me self-evident that if the world is suffering from general ignorance of economic principles, we shall not save ourselves by reclining languorously in artistic backwaters or by sticking our heads into the sands of recondite research in ancient documents. Such subjects as enable one to invite one's soul are deserving of their quota of high priests, but the majority of all undergraduates will live in a work-a-day world, and will better themselves and that world by understanding it. Any further defense than this I leave to those disposed to undertake it; my concern here is with the relation between the CRIMSON, the University and the methods of advising Freshmen.

Should the CRIMSON editorialize outside its editorial columns? This seems to me to be the question raised by the series of articles on concentration. the House series, moreover, raises a second question: "How much care is the CRIMSON, by its special position as the sole undergraduate newspaper, obligated to exercise in the preparation of a series of articles dealing with matters of great import to the successful administration of a college of over 3000 undergraduates?"

In recent years, the CRIMSON has undertaken to assist in this task of liaison between the administration and the student body. But there is present in this role the danger of confusing the acts of the right hand with those of the left: the left passes down from the rostrum the official advice about undergraduate activities; the right ventures to deliver to the rostrum undergraduate criticisms of the conduct of one part of the University or another. Several of the articles in the series on concentration seem ignorant of their proper role. They endeavor to hand on the freshman a representation of the fare which the University has to offer, and at the same time they use the sheaf handed them by the administration to slap one or another department. The CRIMSON'S role in this undertaking needs reorganization.

There are two difficulties in the carrying out of the proposals I am about to make for reorganization: First, the officers whom I am now addressing will, by the rapid overturns which characterize undergraduate generations, not have charge of the CRIMSON next spring when these proposals must be carried out, and it is probably must be carried out, and it is probably optimistic to expect that their successors will remember this particular discussion. Second, the exigencies of college journalism make it almost inevitable that a series of articles upon any subject of outstanding interest shall be written one by one, never supervised, handed in at ten or eleven o'clock of an evening, commented upon by an editorial also written at white heat, and published to the world next morning.

There is a further point of great importance, if the folowing proposals are to be successfully carried out: there must be a more perfect understanding between the administrative officers of the College and the editors of the CRIMSON than I seem to detect from the course of the two series of articles published to date. The devilish difficulty of undergraduate journalism, as viewed from the windows of the college offices, is that to maintain intimate relations is a labor of Sisyphus. Annually the officers roll the stone up to the top of the incline, and the next autumn they must start to roll it uphill all over again. My final proposal contains machinery for putting some of the burden for these intimate relations upon the CRIMSON.

None of the foregoing difficulties is insurmountable. I propose that when the present competition for selecting Assistant managing editors of the CRIMSON is completed, those men, from whose ranks the next President and managing Editor will be chosen, be constituted a standing Committee to consider ways and means of correcting the current system of interpreting the three upper-class years to the Freshman Class. I recommend, also, that two members of the Editorial Board be chosen to collaborate with this committee, in order that the editorial policy toward these matters, which is of necessity separate from the strictly reportorial functions, shall nevertheless be kept informed.

Finally, I urge that this Committee get in touch with all officers of the University who seem in a position to forward the activities of the committee. Indeed, I conceive that the University should perfect its own policy toward the advising of Freshmen; and one of the first moves in this direction might be a meeting between the proper officials and the members of the CRIMSON Committee.

In closing, let me be explicitly understood to place the responsibility for the success of the undertaking upon the CRIMSON. As a former CRIMSON editor I know only too well how unwilling the CRIMSON is to take dictation from University authorities. So long as the CRIMSON performs the role of adviser, it must stand upon its own feet. I am told that the current series of articles was the subject of a conversation between the proper officials in University Hall and the ranking officers of the CRIMSON. I may be asked why this is not a sufficient guarantee of the safeguarding of such a series.

The answer is that this is a very special problem. It needs the establishment of machinery suitable for the purpose in hand. The CRIMSON needs to be reminded that here is a separate problem. It needs to badger the authorities into treating the problem as an annul affair, demanding annual reconsideration and solution. The men chosen by the CRIMSON this spring to serve as Assistant Managing Editors will run the papers throughout the autumn. From their ranks will be chosen the CRIMSON'S two Presidents from their class. Such a series as this should be long in preparation. The functional organization of the CRIMSON makes this Committee of the Assistant Managing editors the logical supervisors of the series. To be sure, the then President and managing Editor of the CRIMSON should supervise the annual Committee; but if the members of the committee are not of sufficient calibre to administer such plans, they will not be adequate material for the jobs to which they aspire. R. K. Lamb '28.