Some years ago a committee of the Board of Overseers suggested that there were needless courses provided, and the Committee of the Faculty on Instruction examined the whole list, making careful inquiries of the members of the several departments, and reported that with one or two exceptions there were no courses for which good and sufficient reasons could not be given. The result of a similar inquiry would be the same today. There are few, if any, courses that could be seriously considered by anyone as useless or superfluous in themselves. Almost every one of them is intrinsically valuable, and a distinct contribution to the instruction in the subject. Nevertheless, it is a proper subject for consideration whether the policy of offering courses of instruction covering every part of every subject is wise. No European university attempts to do so. No single student can take them all in any large field and his powers would be deadened by a surfeit of instruction if he did. For the undergraduates a comparatively small array of staple courses on the most important portions of the subject, with a limited number of others on more highly specialized aspects thereof, is sufficient. For the graduate students who remain only a year to take the degree of Master of Arts, and who are doing much the same work as the more advanced Seniors, the same list of courses would be enough; and for those graduates who intend to become professors in universities and productive scholars it would probably be better,-beyond these typical specialized courses, which would suffice to show the method of approaching the subject-to give all the advanced instruction by means of seminars where the students work together on related, but not identical paths, with the aid of mutual criticism and under the guidance of the professors. Fewer courses, more thoroughly given, would free instructors for a larger amount of personal supervision of the students, would be better for the pupils; and would make it possible for the University to allow those members of the staff who are capable of original work of a high order more time for productive scholarship. Many a professor at the present day, under the pressure of preparing a new course, cannot find time to work up the discoveries he has made, or to publish a work throwing a new light on existing knowledge.

In making these suggestions there is no intention of urging a reduction of our existing schedule. But it is time to discuss the assumption, now apparently prevalent in all American universities, that an indefinite increase in the number of courses provided is to be aimed at in higher education. The question is whether that policy is not defective in principle, and whether we are not following it to excess, thereby sacrificing to it other objects equally, if not more, important.

Comprehensive Examinations Tried Out.

Courses are merely a means to an end, and that end is the education of the student. One method of placing courses in their true light as a means of education is the provision of comprehensive examinations for graduation, covering the general field of the student's principal work beyond the precise limits of the courses he has taken. This has long been done in the case of the doctorate of philosophy; and in the year covered by this report it was applied for the first time to undergraduates concentrating in the Division of History, Government and Economics. Only 24 students of the Class of 1917, who finished their work in three years and concentrated in this field, came under its operation; but they were numerous enough to give a definite indication of the working of the plan. To that extent the results were satisfactory. The examination papers were well designed for measuring the knowledge and grasp of the subject, with a large enough range of options to include the various portions of the field covered by the different candidates; and the examiners themselves were satisfied with the plan as a fair means of testing the qualification of the students. During the coming year a much larger number of men will come up for this comprehensive examination, which promises to mark a new departure in American college methods.

The Widener Memorial Library has been in use for a year and has abundantly justified the expectations based upon its plan. Students have used the reading rooms, and taken out books to a distinctly greater extent than they did in old Gore Hall, and the professors' rooms in the stacks have proved, not only a great convenience, but a very distinct assistance in productive work.

The principles on which a university library should be arranged have undergone a gradual revolution. Until a comparatively recent period, the essential difference between the functions of a public library and a university library were not well understood. In former times both were conducted in the same manner. The prime object was protection of the collections, and hence everyone was kept away from the stacks, books being given out only at the delivery desk. Public libraries now strive to encourage in every way the use of their volumes, but they cannot usually admit any considerable part of the public to the shelves. Universities, on the other hand, have learned that not only professors but all advanced students ought to be given as much access as possible to all books not rare or irreplaceable. The experiment has been tried of classifying the books according to the departments of the University, and connecting each group with the seminar rooms of the department to which it is related. This is very well for men working within the limits of a definite stereotyped field, but a wise man has remarked that every new thinker seeks to cut a fresh diagonal through human knowledge, and when a man needs to consult a book outside the limits of his own department, he finds his work seriously embarrassed by the division of the library into departmental groups. In short, while the system made easy the use of books classified together, it placed well nigh greater obstacles than before on the use of books classified elsewhere.

By the munificence of the gift of the new library, with its space for rooms and stalls in the stack, we have been enabled to adopt a better plan, that of treating the library as one whole collection. The books on different subjects are shelved of course in different places, but not separated so as to hinder their free use by anyone who has access to the shelves; while rooms and stalls are provided for the professors and all advanced students in the body of the stack. The plan by which this was accomplished was adapted from that of our own Law Library where the same thing had already been done on a smaller scale. The report of the Director of the University Library describes how it has worked after a year of trial.

In the last report the growing affiliation of the Divinity School with other neighboring Schools of Theology was described, and during the past year an agreement has been made with the Newton Theological Institution similar to that with the Theological School of Boston University. The report of Dean Fenn contains a statement of the relations thus created. The affiliation now comprises the Divinity School, Andover Theological Seminary, the Episcopal Theological School, the Theological School of Boston University and the Newton Theological Institution, and although some of the agreements were made for a limited period no one would think of terminating them. The first three institutions named now consult together about appointments to their instructing staffs, so as to avoid needless duplication and furnish the largest opportunities to their students. The chief need of the Divinity School and of the associated institutions at present is a more systematic provision for training in pastoral work, and instruction in the social problems with which ministers are called upon to deal. This must be based upon a knowledge of modern economic conditions and principles, but it requires also a knowledge of their application to the questions a clergyman meets in his professional work. This matter is now under serious consideration.

Professor Pound Appointed Law Dean.

The office of Dean of the Law School left vacant by the death of Ezra Ripley Thayer was filled by the appointment of Professor Roscoe Pound; while the position in the teaching staff was taken for the time by Arthur Dehon Hill, LLB., '94, who was at the close of the year appointed Professor of Law. After a faithful and efficient service of 18 years as Professor and Bussey Professor of Law, and an earlier service to the University as instructor for two years in other subjects, Joseph Doddridge Brannan retired and was made Professor Emeritus. His place has been taken for the present by Albert Martin Kales, A.B., '93, LL.B., '99, Professor of Law in Northwestern University, who has been appointed Professor of Law here for the year 1916-17, Zechariah Chafee, Jr., LLB., '13 has been appointed Assistant Professor of Law. The burden of teaching under which the instructing staff labors, the great increase of late years in the proportion of students to teachers described in the last annual report, does not become less; and, in fact, the autumn of 1916 shows the largest number of students, and the largest entering class, that the School has ever known. The endowments are small in comparison with the work to be done, and have not grown with enlargement of the student body, so that the resources, which were at one time ample, are now quite inadequate. Moreover, the School ought to do much more than prepare young men for practice at the bar. Law and legal procedure have not fully kept pace with the material development of the age, with its rapid movement and changing problems. The world, and especially our own country, needs a greater respect for a better law; and those who recall the fact that the treatises of Joseph Story were written for lectures to the students in the Harvard Law School, will appreciate the service to jurisprudence that can be rendered in the professor's chair. The 100th anniversary of the founding of the School, which falls in the current academic year, would seem an appropriate occasion for increasing the endowment, and providing new professorships.

In the Medical School the George Fabyan Professorship of Comparative Pathology, left vacant by the resignation of Dr. Theobold Smith, has been filled by the appointment of Dr. Ernest Edward Tyzzer, who had been for eight years Assistant Professor of Pathology, and was at that time Director of the Cancer Commission and of the Huntington Memorial Hospital for Cancer. Dr. Charles James White has been appointed Edward Wigglesworth Professor of Dermatology; and Dr. Abner Post has resigned as Professor of Syphilis, after a continuous and highly valued service in the Department since 1882. These are the only changes in Professors' chairs during the year; but an important change has occurred in connection with the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. By reason of the rule fixing a limit of age for service, Dr. Councilman has resigned as Pathologist of that hospital, and in concert with the trustees of the hospital Dr. Wolbach has been selected in his place, being appointed at the same time Chairman of the Department of Pathology in the School.

Like every other part of the University that has a large body of students, the Medical School has two distinct functions, teaching and productive research; and it is important to make sure that neither of these is crowded out by the other, for the qualifications required to fill both objects are not always combined in equal measure in the same person. There is need of the capable and inspiring teacher; there is need of the original investigator; and in a school of this size there is room for both, as well as for the rare man who possesses the two qualities in an eminent degree. Owing to the rapid increase of knowledge, and the consequent growth of specialization, the problems of a medical school are peculiarly complex. It is difficult for a professor to keep up with the advance in his own field, work diligently at his own research, and at the same time know what his collegues are doing. To preserve the essential unity of medicine, therefore, in a period of rapid movement, is no simple task.

The organization of our own School, by means of a committee of full professors, an administrative board and an elective faculty council, had become needlessly cumbrous; while the Faculty itself has grown so large that informal discussion is less frequent than in the past. In order to draw the many departments closer together and obtain greater cohesion, the Administrative Board has been given a more representative character, and a position such that it can maintain an oversight of the whole work in the School. The two departments also of Theory and Practice of Medicine and Clinical Medicine are now consolidated into one large department with several professors, no one of whom has a permanent authority over the rest. This is in accordance with the general policy of the University in its other teaching branches, and is believed to give greater elasticity, with better opportunities for progressive work by the younger men. It represents a tendency in the Medical School, and will probably be followed gradually in other departments, where the subjects are closely allied.

Marked Success of Surgical Units.

The surgical unit which supplied the doctors and nurses for Field Hospital No. 22 with the British Expeditionary Force in France, first under Dr. Edward H. Nichols, then under Dr. William E. Faulkner, and later under Dr. David Cheever, has been continued throughout the year. When Dr. Cheever's term of service expired in March, Dr. Faulkner generously consented to take charge of the unit a second time for three months, and at the end of that time Dr. Hurl Cabot went out in charge, followed in September by Dr. Daniel F. Jones. Dr. Kazanjian has remained continuously carrying on his remarkable work on fractured jaws,- for the last year in quarters specially provided for him at General Hospital No. 20. Some of the surgeons and nurses have remained three months, more have stayed six and a few for still longer periods. The appendix to this report gives the names of the surgeons and physicians on duty since the lists printed in the report of last year. By the end of the summer the Harvard unit was the only American surgical unit left with the British Expeditionary Force. The need for it seemed great; it had done excellent work; but the changing of the chief surgeon every three months was inevitably an obstacle to the continuity of administration highly important in a foreign surgical service. It is much to expect that any surgeon shall leave a large private practice for three months, and far more to abandon it for an indefinite period, but Dr. Hugh Cabot has consented to take charge of the unit for the rest of the war. The offer to maintain it until peace has therefore been made, and has been gladly accepted by the Director General of the British Army Medical Service. The work done by the doctors and nurses, and by the Business Manager, Mr. Herbert H. White, has done great credit to the School and to the country.