Lawrenceville School - Olla Podrida Yearbook (Lawrenceville, NJ)

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The Conference System is not an experiment. A half dozen years of use at Exeter have proved its potency in increasing student interest and in raising scholastic per- formance. There is every reason to believe Lawrenceville's experiment will be the same. Here the system is too new for final judgment. But already it has produced desirable results. The beauty of the conference room is a constantly influential atmosphere. Teachers have decorated their rooms to express their tastes and personalities. As for the students, they have felt and enjoyed the informality, responded to the new relationship ol' common effort. They have taken part more freely in group discussions, l i l BEFORE have asked more questions, have carried discussion more frequently beyond the classroom walls. And they have been stimulated to wider reading, a result of the new technique which is leading also to the building up of departmental libraries. The value they set upon the scheme is evidenced again in the extraordinary care they have taken of rooms and equipment. The Harkness gift has given Lawrenceville a limitless opportunity. It is gratifying to see that boys and masters are so fully responding to its stimulusf' Twelzty

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ll D Someone in the party questions the number of students in a class. 'gWhy, she says, was twelve the number selected? This question can best be answered by handing the inquisitive person a copy of the LAWRENTIAN for Ianuary, and pointing out just a few lines set down by F. V. Hancox, of Lawrenceville English Department and Chairman of the Secondary Education Board: The question of the proper number of persons in a school class . . . is a matter of keen debate. Many schools, in an attempt to rationalize necessity, argue that twenty-Hve is the ideal. Many others, realizing the advertising value of 'opportunity for concentration' announce that four and no more is the magic number. But the middle of the road is always safer and saner than either curb, and so Lawrenceville has adopted a twelve-in-a-class policy. Also Mr. Hancox adds, twelve-in-aclass gives a variety to the discussion, and still permits this discussion to take place. Therefore, it is the logical number, just as the Conference System is the logical system. And logic is what governs the School. Lawrenceville's carefully selected number of an even dozen is heartily approved of and may be easily defended. We accept it, and for a moment we look toward the thirteenth chair. To understand the feeling of the masters, we go to the logical man, and find Mr. I-Ieely buried in a mass of papers in his office. We manage, with considerable difficulty, to extract him for a moment, and he expresses his sentiments and those of the entire faculty: Nirzezeen

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IIPD lmpressed, we leave the oflice and wander aimlessly about the campus. We even stop to question some of the fellows who are scurrying past us. This is an interesting pastime, and we are not long in discovering that the student body is with the system to a man. Never was more whole-hearted approval lent by any group so large, and certainly never by such a discriminating group as 494 Lawrenceville students, when they consent, it means something. On our way across the Circle, we are given a few moments to think on our own, and we Hnd the answer obvious. Even if we had not seen and been impressed by the DURING new classrooms, building, and method of instruction, we would certainly have been swayed by the fact that student and master both unite in approval of the system, and this union leads to others. Chief among these, outside of the common aim for scholarship, is the relationship between master and boy, of which Lawrenceville has more reason now than ever to be proud. The boys are no whit awed by the faculty, for they have been seated around a table with the gods and found them human. They fearlessly ask questions and express opinions, and find themselves receiving counsel which has definite value. Boys and masters laugh and joke, the system has accom- Twenty-one