To the Grader

Breakfast-table education, every now and then, turns into breakfast-table poppycock and drivel. Recently, for instance, this newspaper printed a story about a student who wrote a C-plus hour examination in a Social Relations course in which he was not enrolled, had done no reading, and had been to no lectures. This accomplishment has brought on, along with the jokes, a lot of serious talk. But very little of this talk has come anywhere near the point brought out by the case.

One fraction that had missed the point can be called the Anti-Social Relations Set. This group has adopted the C-plus saga as a proof that all Social Relations courses are ludicrously obvious in their content and ridiculously easy to pass. To this group one need only say, flatly, "Gentlemen, you are wrong;" to argue the value of courses in fields such as sociology and psychology would be more to patronize the Social Relations Department than to defend it.

But to a second group there is more to say. Its members have insisted that the C-plus case is a fluke and has no meaning at all. Too many manage to do just about what the C-plus man did, term after term in course after course, for this case to be thrown off as a fluke. Although these people are enrolled in the course at hand, and ordinarily have performed some token act of preparation for the examination, there are no basic differences between the stories they tell and the story of the student who got the C-plus. They, too, get grades completely out of proportion to their knowledge or understanding of a course's material. They, too, get away with "shooting the bull."

Little can be done about this. So long as Harvard keeps its present examination system, the ability to whip off a coherent essay on almost any subject whatsoever will often count for more than knowledge of the material covered in a course.

But what little can be done should be done; and here enters the grader. This man has a horrid job. He must read, by the dozens, illegible essays written on tedious subjects in vile English. And when he has finished each essay, he must somehow decide if it deserves, say, an 89 for a B-plus or a 90 for an A-minus. But miserable as the job is, it must always be done more carefully and conscientiously than it is done now in many cases. For although there is a lively cynicism at Harvard concerning the significance of grades, their importance is often very real. To the scholarship student, to the applicant to graduate school, and often to the job-hunter, the grade's the thing.

So let the graders of this great college be resolute. Let them at least read examinations carefully, and let them carefully try to figure out what grade the student deserves. Conscientiousness will never eliminate all injustices; it might not even insure against such grotesqueries as the recent C--plus case. But it will at least cut down injustices. And it will cut down the percentage of those who successfully slide through Harvard on the assumption that the pen is mightier than the book.