A Third Term

Dartmouth's recently announced change to a threeterm system should prove conclusive to providing fuller education for Dartmouth undergraduates. This system has proved successful at Stanford and other American Universities. Any plan decreasing the number of simultaneous courses and therefore furthering more concentrated study is highly desirable.

In addition to the reduced, more intensive, course load, an immediately appealing advantage of the three term system is the separation of the terms by the summer, Christmas, and spring vacations. This plan removes unheeded pressure from the latter two vacations and leaves them free to be the periods of independent study they should be as well as lending a greater sense of continuity and meaning to the coursework.

The three-term system also gives a greater degree of freedom for independent study during the term. Shortening the term should make mid-term examinations inadvisable, and so exam cramming is confined to two weeks at the end of each period, making six weeks of cramming a year necessary instead of the present ten or twelve.

Another advantage resulting is greater flexibility in course scheduling, both during the academic year and in the summer session. The three-term plan permits easy incorporation of the summer as an equal academic period, a probable necessity considering the great numerical increase of college students in the next decade.

Although Harvard is more advanced towards the goal of independent study than Dartmouth, the three-term system is worthy of consideration as further aid to facilitate independent study as well as providing a more satisfactory work distribution during the academic year.