Students emerging from the recent exam period with grades well into the alphabet may find consolation for their grief in the brevity of the fall term reading period. Upon returning from the Christmas recess they found themselves saddled with heavy reading assignments, and nine days later, when exams began, even the most studious saw that they had given many of their courses a cursory treatment. But the short January reading period is not to be a scourge unique to students presently enrolled in the college. In the Registrar's recent bit of long range scheduling, the Ten Year Calendar, we see that condensed fall term reading periods prevail throughout the coming decade.

The Class of '59, for example, will find the January reading periods of each of its three upper class years also stuffed into a brisk nine days. This shortened period is not enough time to deal adequately with reading assignments, since professors rarely case their doses in view of the condensation.

There is no real reason why we should absolutely amortize ourselves for the next ten years. The University could arrange a satisfactory amount of time for the winter reading period by beginning the fall term a week earlier and starting the reading period a few days before Christmas vacation.