Bryn Mawr College - Bryn Mawr Yearbook (Bryn Mawr, PA)

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PUBLIC OPINION Dear Editor: Any opinion we express about comprehensives may soon possess the ironic flavor of an article on the guillotine by Marie Antoinette. How- ever, as in a game of musical chairs, we can safely predict that comprehensives won ' t get all of us. There will be some winners. There remains, though, some question as to the partic- ular type of loser. Will it be the girl who does not know the courses in her major subject any too well and so is at a loss when the time comes to synthesize them? Or, will it be the girl who understands her major field but who hasn ' t a very good exam technique? In other words, will the losers be those people who really don ' t understand the game, or merely those who haven ' t learned how to hesitate in front of one chair until the next one is free? In the cold light of reason, anyone who doesn ' t play the game well, deserves to lose. Only thus can winners be extolled. Only ' thus can we brag when we are fat and fifty, that every Bryn Mawr graduate can marshal the great bulk of material gleaned from three or more courses, into three orderly comprehensive examinations at any moment that the exams are set. Nobody thinks it unjust when girls who haven ' t studied flunk. They have probably got- ten something else out of life besides grades. However, there might come a moment, after the excitement of graduation has subsided, when we would have a little queer feeling deep down inside about the girl who didn ' t pass her comprehensives. Maybe in the four years we knew her, we realized that she had a much keener mind than we had. She just didn ' t have the knack of exam-taking. Maybe she worried too much about the genuinely appalling fact that a whole college career hangs by the slim thread of nine hours of examination. Maybe she elaborated too much on one question when her professor wanted a well balanced paper. We don ' t bar race horses from the track be- cause they are too high-strung to stand quietly in the paddock waiting for the race to begin. If they could they probably wouldn ' t be able to run very fast. We don ' t shoot Seabiscuit because he ' d make a poor plough horse. Like- wise, as often as not, the possessors of fine minds don ' t have a perfected exam technique. They haven ' t needed it like some of us slower-witted individuals. Thus, in the final comprehensive handicap, we sure-footed mules may beat the thoroughbred race horses. The elimination of a girl with a high I. Q. because of exam-shyness is a fault of the ex- amination system itself and cannot be helped until some better way of testing the ability of students is found. We would, however, suggest that the college palliate the blow of flunking comprehensives for this particular type of girl by allowing her to take part in all the formali- ties of graduation with her class, although post- poning the signing of her diploma until she has passed conditioned exams reset at some later date. Senior. The Last Day of Classes 12

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Miss Park BIG-WIGS Mrs. Manning Mr. Hurst our grades aren ' t in yet 11

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