TO THE BOARD OF OVERSEERS:
The President of the University has the honor to submit the following report for the year 1915-16:
Although this report is supposed to cover only the academic year that has passed, all friends of the University will desire to know the effect of the increase in the tuition fee upon the attendance of students. The change applies to new students, entering the Departments affected, in the autumn of 1916. It does not apply to the Medical School, where the fee was already $200; or to the Divinity School, which had made agreements about fees with other Schools of Theology; or to the Law School. The students in question are, therefore, those entering the College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Schools of Architecture, the Bussey Institution, and the School of Business Administration. For these Departments the fee was increased from $150 to $200, certain small additional charges, for the Stillman Infirmary, for the laboratories, and for graduation, being abolished. The number of new students paying the full tuition fee at the increased rate in each of these Departments, compared with the number of new students at the corresponding time last year, is as follows: It will be observed that in the College there is a falling off of twenty-two in the number of unclassified students, that is those coming with advanced standing from other colleges, and this is probably due in the main to raising the tuition fee. Among the Freshmen there is practically no falling off; but the Chairman of the Committee on Admission is of opinion that had it not been for the change in the fee, there would have been a considerable increase in the number this year. In the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences there has been a decrease of thirty in the new men; but in this case, as in that of the College, it has been less than one might reasonably have expected at the outset. In the Schools of Architecture there has been a reduction in about the same proportion. This is probably due mainly to other causes, as it is entirely in architecture, landscape architecture showing a slight increase. In the Bussey Institution the increase of fees has obviously had no effect, while in the School of Business Administration there has been a very marked gain in the number of students. Taken all together, it seems clear that the increase in the tuition fee-which was the result of dire necessity-has not deprived us of a very large number of students. It is well to remember that it does not affect the best scholars among the men of small means, because the scholarships and fellowships have been raised by an amount equal to the increase in the fee. The report of the Chairman of the Committee on Admission contains interesting facts bearing upon the number of men admitted to Harvard College. It seems that owing to the discouragement of applications from men inadequately trained, more applicants were deterred from taking the examinations than the year before, and those who took them were a better selected group. This has naturally resulted in reducing slightly the percentage of rejections from 25.6 to 22.8; or if we take into account the candidates in June who did not appear in September to complete their examinations the percentage of candidates admitted rose from 68.9 in 1915 to 71.2 in 1916. If this change is due to a more careful selection of applicants, it is not out of accord with the recent tendency to diminish the proportion of candidates admitted, for a reference to the figures given in my last report shows that, in spite of the more careful selection, the percentage admitted this year exceeds that of only two years out of the last ten. No doubt the effect is a better average of students, more capable of doing creditable college work, by the elimination of the weaker scholars and especially of those who in addition to an inferior equipment are burdened by entrance conditions. This result is promoted by the growing proportion of candidates applying under the new plan and therefore entering college clear if admitted at all. This autumn almost exactly three-quarters of the Freshmen have no conditions to remove-a decided help in maintaing the general standard of work in the first college year. For the first time Harvard has ceased to give separate entrance examinations, and has adopted the College Entrance Examination Board papers for both the old and new plans, the latter being practically conducted by the joint action of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. This has the advantage that examinations for Harvard can be held in all the places in which examinations are held by the Board, nearly four times as many as we could alone provide. The books under the old plan, requiring an examination upon every subject offered for admission, have for the first time been read and graded wholly by the examiners of the Board; and this has led to a comparison of the severity of marking by the Board and by our own former methods. In most subjects a mark of sixty per cent, by the Board has come very close to our passing grade, as judged by the proportion of failures. But-although there has been a difference of opinion about the fairness of an examination in Algebra-it would appear that in English, in History, and especially in Mathematics, our standards have hitherto been more lenient than we had supposed, and in order not to increase the percentage of failures suddenly we have this year accepted a grading lower in these than in other subjects. Resignation of Dean Hurlbut. At the close of the college year Dean Hurlbut resigned. He had filled the office of Dean for fourteen years, a period longer than any of his predecessors, and one of peculiar difficulty. The Committee on Improving Instruction, appointed by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1902, with Dean Briggs as Chairman, reported after careful examination that the average amount of study by undergraduates was discreditably small. This was true in a greater or less degree of all colleges, and books and articles of the time were filled with criticisms of the American College on that score. Dean Hurlbut, who had just entered upon his duties was confronted with the ungrateful task of raising the standard of scholarship for the less diligent portion of the students. That the minimum work required and done for a degree is greater now than it was when he took office, and that the ordinary undergraduate takes his studies more seriously, no one familiar with the College will deny. That this is largely due to Dean Hurlbut, every one who knows the inner working of the College office is aware. Henry Aaron Yeomans, the new Dean, has been four years Assistant Professor of Government and Assistant Dean in special charge of the Freshmen. With his appointment a reorganization of the office has been made. The plan of having one Assistant Dean, who has the oversight of students in their Freshman year and then gives up his close connection with them almost as soon as he has come to know them well, has obvious disadvantages. Moreover, with the increasing personal contact between college officers and undergraduates, the amount of work thrown upon the Dean was such as to make it unfortunately difficult for him to do any teaching or keep up his scholarly activity. Two Assistant Deans have, therefore, been appointed: Clarence Cook Little, Research Fellow in Genetics of the Cancer Commission, and Lawrence Shaw Mayo, Assistant in History; both of them graduates of Harvard College in the Class of 1910. Each of these men is to have immediate charge of two classes, one taking the Freshmen and Juniors, the other the Sophomores and Seniors, the latter taking the Freshmen and Juniors in the following year. Each Assistant Dean thus takes immediate charge of a class at entrance and remains in contact with it throughout its college course. This has the advantage of enabling him to know and deal with the same body of students continuously; while the Dean is left more free to treat the graver cases, direct the general policy and consider the larger problems of college life and education. The tendency of the College is, and should be, to have as few regulations as is consistent with good order and sound education, but to give to the students as much guidance and counsel as possible by contact with mature men. This has been done not only by the Dean and his two Assistants, but also by the Faculty advisers; by Professor Charles P. Parker, the Secretary of the Committee on the Choice of Electives; by Edward D. Brandegee, the Regent; and Dr. Roger I. Lee, the Professor of Hygiene. Since these words were written Professor Parker has died after a brief illness. As the Secretary of the Committee on the Choice of Electives he inspected the choice of courses by all students, seeing that they conformed to the regulations of the Faculty, advised great numbers of men, conferring with those who desired exceptional treatment, and recommending to the Committee, or granting, exceptions from the rules where justified by the circumstances. This involved a great deal of labor, but it was labor well spent, the value of which can hardly be overestimated. It will be very difficult to find anyone who can fill the place so well. The Regent selects and supervises the proctors, and has oversight of all clubs,-functions which bring him into personal contact with a large number of students, not as a disciplinary officer, but as one who makes strongly felt his influence for good order within the College and for its creditable standing in the world. The Professor of Hygiene enjoys, if possible, an even more confidential relation with the undergraduates; conducts a physical examination of each of them at entrance and is constantly consulted by them on matters that run beyond material health. The Secretary of the Committee on the Choice of Electives, the Regent and the Professor of Hygiene are not disciplinary officers; and although discipline can never wholly be avoided on the part of the Deans, an effort is made in their case to render it as little prominent as possible, and to lay the emphasis on their friendly relations with the students and on the guidance and assistance they can give. For this purpose the Student Council and other undergraduate bodies have been of great value. In order to cultivate a relationship with the students where personal contact and influence are substituted for authority a close community life is highly important, and it would be of the very greatest benefit to Harvard College if it possessed sufficient funds to house all its undergraduates, by the purchase of private dormitories or by building new ones. During the course of the year College House, old, dingy, and hardly fit for students' rooms, was exchanged for Randolph Hall, the best of the private dormitories. If we could look on this as the beginning of a larger movement we should have the deepest reasons for being grateful. Military Training Received Notice. In the last annual report the subject of military training was discussed, with the contributions that universities could make thereto. Since that time the matter has received more public attention. On June 3d, 1916, Congress passed an act for making further and more effectual provision for the national defense, and provided in Section 42 for the establishment of units of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps in colleges that agreed to maintain a two years' elective or compulsory course in military training, "which course when entered upon by any student shall ... as regards such student be a prerequisite for graduation." The Secretary of War was authorized to prescribe the course of training for these men and on September 20th General Order 49 was issued for that purpose. This was based upon the course of training hitherto pursued in the State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. It provides for the first two college years three hours of work a week, whereof two-thirds is to be practical, largely drill, and one-third theoretical, but of a very elementary character. The work of these first two years is by no means sufficient to qualify a man for an officer's commission, but, it is further provided that those students who wish to obtain a reserve officer's commission may proceed during the last two years of college to take five hours of work a week, of which three are to be practical and two theoretical. This plan, it will be observed, comprises a very large proportion of drill, which must be done in term-time and cannot be taken instead at Plattsburg or other military training camps. It requires work, not great indeed at any one time, but pursued continuously for all four years of college, in order that a man may be qualified for a reserve officer's commission. Such a system, with its wearisome amount of drill and its small amount of theoretical instruction in the duties of an officer, is not perhaps, ill fitted to the Land Grant Colleges, where military training, being compulsory, is an addition to the curriculum and replaces no other study. But it is difficult to apply under the conditions of an endowed university, where drill cannot at present be made compulsory or counted as an elective equivalent to some acaedmic subject. Clearly it would be more in accordance with our conditions, and result better, to have the drill done mainly at summer military camps, with a far larger proportion of Army officers to the number of men in the ranks, and to devote the work in term-time to the principles of military science and art. so taught as to make them appropriate subjects for academic credit. With this in view, a meeting of college presidents was held in Washington early in October and unanimously requested the War Department to authorize a more elastic curriculum, to permit changes therein subject to the approval of the Department, and to allow the drill to be taken in whole or in part at the summer military camps. The Department was unwilling during the experimental stage to change the curriculum prescribed for the Land Grant Colleges, or indeed for any units of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps; but declared that under Section 56 of the Act of June 3, 1916, it would detail officers and provide equipment to any college desiring to train officers, and permit the drill in whole or in part at the summer military camps. This provides an opportunity to give military instruction in a way well suited to our conditions; but under Section 56 the number of Army officers detailed would be smaller, and students not forming part of a Reserve Officers' Training Corps would be at a very serious disadvantage. At present, therefore, an attempt is being made to work out with the approval of the War Department such an application of General Order 49 as will provide an appropriate elective course, giving a larger amount of theoretical military instruction than the Order requires. That the military knowledge prescribed by the Order is as much as a reserve officer under modern conditions ought to possess, no one would be inclined to maintain. That a part of the ordinary instruction in our colleges could, by careful adaptation and in connection with strictly military teaching, be made useful for reserve officers, is not improbable. The problem is a new one, to be worked out with the aid of the officers detailed here from the War Department-Captain Alfred W. Bjornstad and Captain Constant Cordier. Investigation in Economics Department. Read more in News
