(The CRIMSON invites all men in the University to submit algaed communiontions of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude any whose publications would be palpably inappropriate.)

Divisional Discrepancies

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

In Thursday's issue of your paper you lifted a skeptical editorial eyeborw at the system of Divisional Examinations, with special reference to the field of Modern Languages. Your criticism, however, might very well be set aside as coming from persons too immediately concerned to look impartially at the question; and I wish, therefore, as one who has had opportunity to study the Divisional problem from "both sides of the fence", to say that I agree with you.

As an undergraduate, I found the Divisionals simply a final official hurdle which, by sheer blind luck in the choosing of my courses, I managed to leap; as an adviser, I have, for the last two years, found the Divisionals simply a stumbling-block, to pass which is of more importance than the acquisition of a certain amount of education. Of course, if Divisionals be considered synonymous with Education, my objection falls flat. But I doubt if even the most sanguine of us believes that the true essence of a man's education can be poured into three hours of blue-book writing-if indeed it is of so tangible a nature that it can be written in black and white at all.

The imposition of one system on the top of another-English. If you will, upon American-has been commented on before. So, too, has the fact of human nature that there are many men to whom the trick of writing a good examination must-always remain a mystery. There, of course, lies the first unfairness. Give me for a few hours a man who has a certain natural wit; and I can teach him enough blue-book "fricks" to guarantee him as pass over the man who knows his work thoroughly, can speak it and ever use it to advantage, but cannot write it as the correctors of blue-books would have it written. And I have written and corrected too many blue-books myself not to know that this is true. Yet a man's four years' degree now depends upon three hours and the ability to-frankly, to write neatly and cleverly.

The second chief objection lies in the fact that men go through college with their eyes upon the Divisionals, rather than upon intellectual interests. Tais is of course more true of the Modern Language than of the other Departments, where as in History, courses are more inclined to interweave with one another, and where consequently, so many courses are not needed. The general cry of my advises this year has been, "I cannot take Fine Arts or Latin, or Economics; I must have Marvell and Beddoes for my Divisionals." In my our case, I had had when I graduated twenty courses, of which twelve had been in English, and at least two in closely related fields-not the broadest of possible educations. That may have been my own fault; but, like the rest, I wanted my degree, and was taking no chances. The problem of the Bible reading which you mentioned is another good case in point. If, as you say, the examintaion this year necesaiated the taking of a Bible course, then the examination has defeated its own purpose. The class of 1922 was distinctly informed that it was not the object of the college to make a course, as such, in the Bible a general requirement.

To raise the academic standards of the college is a wise and necessary procedure; but the lifting pressure should be exerted at the bottom-during the first year-not at the topic. Then too, to use George Ade, "in uplifting, get underneath:" The manner in which the Divisional examinations are made out, and the alrenuousness with which they are marked are, after all, only the most external of reforms. What needs changing is not the student's scholarship, but his way of looking at scholarship. And that change can be brought about only by the lectures and adhereats of scholarship themselves. "Intellectual curiosity" is far from being dead- but the superimposed Divisionals allow little room for that curiosity. They stimulate at present study merely; where, if they were to accomplie, their best purpose they should stimulate thought. Barke Boyce '22.