"Without the tutorial system general examinations are but a test of knowledge acquired during a frenzied year . . . of haphazard cramming of a multitude of facts and general conceptions".

"Yet although divisionals are a means to an end, they are . . . an end for which a means is provided."

"For most undergraduates divisionals are but a remote contingency."

"Course grades have always been regarded as an artificial necessity and an unavoidable evil by leaders of educational thought and progress."

"The course system as a method of college instruction masses men into an educational factory."

The above quotations are taken from the essay printed below, which was submitted in the Crimson essay contest by Edward Brooks Ballard '27, under the title "Harvard's Dual Educational System." This essay, which is one of the two contributions winning honorable mention in the contest, will be followed in the near future by the other, submitted by James Harry Smith '25.

In May, 1919, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University adopted general examinations as a requirement for a degree in all undergraduate departments except the divisions of Mathematics, the Natural Sciences, and Education.

What prompted the experiment? What effect has it produced on the educational system at Harvard? What ideal does it endeavor to approach, and is that a worthy ideal? When we have answered these questions, we shall have discussed, in essence, the vital problems of the divisional examination and the tutorial system coexistent with it.

Divisionals Give Definite Goal

What prompted the experiment? Even as modified by the requirements for concentration and distribution, the elective system showed certain defects which the system of general examinations sought to remedy. Up to this time, little attention had been paid to the choice of courses requirements for distribution. Too early specialization at the expense of essential general training, conventional choices or unguided following of the way of least resistance were undesirable tendencies not wholly obliterated by the advent of concentration and distribution.

By means of divisional examinations the administration sought to insure a better correlation of the student's work, to urge him to appraise the general field of his concentration as a connected whole, rather than as a group of courses having merely a formal relation with one another. These examinations gave an opportunity of testing a student's real knowledge of his subject and his real abilities at the end of his college course. Moreover, such a plan gave the student a more definite goal toward which to work. Under its influence the college graduate seemed better fitted to play the game of life.

Divisionals Useless Without Tutors

Yet, although divisionals are a means to an end, they are ... what is infinitely more important to a college career and to their own value an end for which a means is provided. In January, 1925, the tutorial system was extended to the Division of Modern Languages. Today, every department making use of the general examination is provided with some form of tutorial guidance.

This is the means which enables a student to prepare systematically for his comprehensive examinations. It is the tutor, coming into personal contact with the student, at stated intervals during the last three years of his college life, who endeavors to guide and help him in his work. It is this corps of experienced teachers that President Lowell describes as "carrying out the conception that the unit, the only true unit, in education is not the course, but the student himself." Without the tutorial system general examinations are but a test of knowledge acquired during a frenzied year or even half year of haphazard cramming of a multitude of facts and general conceptions.

What effect has the plan of general examinations, with its concomitant tutorial system, had on the educational life of Harvard? Has its procured the desired results? We can judge only from external appearances.