Like the University itself, the Harvard Summer School is the oldest in the country. Due to the war, however, this year's version of the school will be a far cry from the one envisaged by President Eliot's administration in 1871.

Most obvious of the changes in the traditional system, of course, is the substitution of a 12-week session in place of the original 6-week course. Although the Summer School will endeavor to preserve as much as possible the features of past years, the School Administration, under the leadership of Professor Kirtley F. Mather, is completely reorienting its program in view of the international situation.

"The departments are rising to the challenge," says Professor Mather, "and there will be a large number of new or partially new courses." Although the catalogue of these courses will not be released for a few weeks, it is apparent that there will be many new ones, over and above those which were introduced during the current half-year.

Saturday Is A Holiday

As in the past, the Summer School will be a complete entity in itself. Every course will meet five days a week (except for certain lab courses. Saturday is a holiday). Two half courses can be taken in the first session, and two more in the second, or two full courses can be taken throughout the twelve-week period.

No student, however, will be permitted to take more than two courses at once, and in many cases one lab course will be all that the student can manage. Certain sciences such as geology will have two lab periods in addition to five lectures a week, while chemistry and physics generally require four afternoons a week for laboratories. In fact, Chemistry 3 demands 20 hours a week of labs, and obviously it would be almost impossible to take another course in addition to this.

There will be no half courses extending throughout the term except for special research courses and seminars. For this reason no second half-year courses will begin in the fall.

Duplication of Courses

There will, however, be an inevitable amount of duplication in certain courses. For example, because the first half of Math A was offered during the current second half year, both the first and second halves of that course will be offered in the second session, and if 25 or more request it the half will be offered again.

Examination periods will be held on the last three days of each session, or August 6 to 8 and September 17 to 19. Only five examination periods are necessary (Thursday afternoon and Friday and Saturday mornings and afternoons) to take care of the five general groups classes which meet at 9, 10, 11, 12, and all others.