The announcement of a new and "independent" college to be organized by Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn is obviously unauthorized and premature. Such details as have appeared, furthermore, are obviously inaccurate. One newspaper account derives a fanciful picture of the new institution from the presumed antipathy of its founder to semester examinations. The "precise issue" upon which Dr. Meiklejohn resigned from Amherst, it says, was the mid-year examination and the separation of "junior and senior colleges." This is a new theory of the liberal college. Neither the triviality nor the palpable irresponsibility of such descriptions of the new college have deterred editorial comment, however. The New York Times has solemnly frowned upon the mid-yearless innovation. In Abelard's time, to be sure, "there were no Carnegie units of admission; there was no college examination board." But we have travelled a long way upon the road of progress since those days. Our colleges have "evolved into stable institutions with trustees and bursars, with endowments of tradition and funds, with buildings upon which ivy has grown and around which affection has gathered, with 'counts' for admission and semester hours for graduation. All this progress (this progress from Abelard to ivy) Dr. Meiklejohn proposes to abandon.

All of which is solemn nonsense whether or not Dr. Meiklejohn is actually about to organize a new college. It is also evidence that he had better. We seem to need something to show us. If Dr. Meiklejohn will undertake the job he will find plenty to do. The New Republic