SPRING IN NEW HAVEN

Our contemporary, the Yale News, apparently sorely aware of approaching final examinations has taken up the cudgels for the admission of notes and outlines to final examinations. It is the result, no doubt, of the lassitude impregnant in the spring air, or, perhaps, a premonition of impending doom. But pity must not be made kin to approbation.

It is said that "after all, success in later life depends not on a vast amount of accumulated facts but upon the ability to organize these facts..." This has been the refrain of phlegmatics ever since the idea had its inception in certain courses. The popularity of Eible study at Harvard is not unrelated to permitting the use of the text in examinations in that course. It is altogether conceivable that in that instance, and, perhaps in certain others, the practice is justifiable. But advocacy of wide extension of the scheme is a different matter.

Under the guise of progressive education, shirking of time proved tasks of the student can go too far. Passing by the pertinent query of whether there is time in an examination for the perusal of notes, the question of what is an education is met head on. Perhaps the question is not capable of final definition but certainly cultural training implies more of a knowledge of facts than the advocates of this perennial rationalization contemplate. A retentive memory is as much a product of training as of natural gift, and is at least as important a quality of the full man as is ability to organize material.

Intellectual eugenics should prevent wish from being father to thought and proved stock should not be too freely bred with fancy strains.