Voting unanimously last night to defer the election of the majority of its members to the end of the Senior year, the undergraduate body of Phi Beta Kappa took an epechal step toward dissipating the belief of many that a gold key does not mean intellectual power, but merely the ability to grind out high course marks. Although any system of selecting men upon whom to confer recognition of scholastic achievement is necessarily fallible, that based primarily on course marks has, at least at Harvard, been demonstrated inadequate and unjust.

Under the present system, by which eight of its 65 members are chosen on the basis of two-years course work, and 32 more on the basis of three, many men who received degrees magan cum iaude have been denied membership, while some of those admitted as undergraduates failed to measure up under the severe test of independent initiative and originality offered by tutorial work and honors theses. Such a system is a relic of the days when courses offered the only field in which the application of intellect and effort could be measured. The University recognized the existence of a better test years ago, and accordingly shifted the requirements for honor degrees to conspicuous achievement in Divisional examinations and honors theses. Phi Beta Kappa, with a conservatism born of long tradition, has until now refused to read the handwriting on the wall. The approval of the new system, while allowing the maintenance in a restricted form of an undergraduate nucleus, may well mean a new birth of life and vigor for the Society as a group of graduate intellectuals.