The coming meeting of the Conference Committee on Wednesday suggests the marking system. The report of the special committee, appointed to correspond with other colleges on marking systems, will be made at this meeting and will embrace information from about twenty colleges. The work of this committee will be accomplished when a concise report containing an abstract of this information shall have been submitted: It then remains for the conference to discuss various plans. Discussion is necessary; no result can be reached without it. We all earnestly hope, however, that discussion on this question will crystallize into some suggestion of destruction or construction. Evils do exist in our marking system, and they can be eradicated, in some degree, by changing the system. A grading of courses, so that marks received in the harder courses will receive their proportionate weight on the average mark; use of numbers instead of names on the examination books; grading of students by general classes instead of by exact numerical values, all of these are possible improvements over the present system. Objections, however, can be raised against all of them. There is no just marking symtem that is suited for Harvard's elective system. The nearest approach to justice would be an abolition of numerical marking no exact grading of students, but a general ranking by classes, such as: those not passed, those conditioned, those passed, - with credit, - with great credit, - with the greatest credit. Honors could be assigned to those standing in the upper classes. The great objection that will be urged against any general ranking system as this, will be the award of scholarships. This difficulty can be obviated by requiring those applying for scholarships to maintain a certain rank in their class work and to do other outside work on which they can be examined on the same basis and by the same instructor.

This system will be deemed almost revolutionary by many, but it has already been adopted by other colleges, and with success, Modern Harvard is devoted to reform. Let her spirit be shown in this one department that still flavors of antiquity.