In voting to extend the general examination plan now used in the Division of History, Government, and Economics to other departments, the Faculty has taken an important step which, if properly carried out, should increase the interest in scholarship at Harvard. The general examination is a much more adequate gauge of a man's knowledge of his subject than a series of tests at the end of each course. The latter are specific and detailed; a student may cram his head full of facts and pass them, but promptly forget all he has learned. College does not aim to inculcate a mass of detail which may be applied per se in after life--this is left for the technical school. The object of college is to teach a man to think; to give him a general well-rounded intellectual development which he may use in any field of human life. It should teach not facts, but how to find facts when they are needed. Yet the ordinary test in college from its very nature is limited to facts; the general examination need not be. It is to be hoped that the various chairmen of departments will see the value of the new plan and adopt it.
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1922 Nine Meets Andover Today
