Students are proverbial grumblers. They may be rated dull by their companions, or they may startle the college world by their brilliancy, but all have a recognized ability to find fault. It is not this spirit of mere growling, however, that is at the root of the present dissatisfaction with our marking system. There are evils in that department that justify a more earnest and rational remonstrance than that of the college grumbler.

These evils, however, are rarely pointed out. It is taken for granted that everyone realizes them. All students to a certain extent recognize the unfairness of marks, especially when they are made the basis of honors and scholarships. No two instructors give marks on the same standard. A mark in one course of ninety represents the same knowledge of the subject for which another instructor would give seventy-five. Again, a mark of sixty in one course represents work that would receive eighty-five or ninety in another course. Marks, in the third place, represent, at Harvard, work done only in the examination room. A student who has crammed and tutored will unload himself in a blue book and before the returns are in, forgets his knowledge of the whole subject, and yet he receives a mark of eighty, while the steady going student who works from day to day, and whose knowledge is lasting, is rated by the instructor as inferior to the student described above. A student's standing is subject, therefore, to these three accidents; the disposition of his instructor, the selection of his courses, and his physical endurance before the examinations. These evils are inherent, perhaps, in any marking system, but in Harvard's system they are especially prominent.

This subject of marking is one of great interest; we would gladly receive and publish communications in regard to it from students or instructors.