University of Chicago - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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instructor is aiming to do two things: Teach his subject and contribute to the liberal education of his students. The marks he gives are incidental, but they are necessary if we are to have educational attainments expressed at all in degrees. Shall he discriminate between students Who do work of varying quality? T 0 ask the question is to answer it. Shall this discrimination influence a studentis progress toward a degree? Manifestly so. The value of a degree is determined by the lowest grade at Which. it may be won. Is an easily won degree worthy of the University of Chicago? Is it desired by the students? Will not the sin- cere student welcome anything Within reasonable limits Which enhances the value of the degree Which he hopes to Win? But What if a student gets conditions and failures in his first quarters? He not only fails to win his majors but gets minus honor-points and at the end of the quarter is farther away from the degree than when he began! That may be one way of looking at it; but the honor-points are merely a method of averaging grades. If the student can do better, he ought to. If not, he owes it to him- self to drop out and get better preparation or go into some other work. If he resumes his studies later he can overcome the early record. What about student activities? Is the system so severe as to limit the average student here? Careful investigation would probably show that only a few students Who have been prominent along these lines would have had to relinquish them under the present system. It would have been to the advantage of these few to do so. Probably not a few would have had to handle their college work more seriously. The value of these things as a part of ones college career is great, but it is secondary. The student makes a serious mistake Who conhnes himself Wholly to his classwork, but he makes a greater mistake Who treats his classwork as only a means of staying in the student community for the sake of its other interests. Some applications of the system may be modified in the light of experience, but we may well expect that a few years trial Will show a distinct advance in they esteem in which a bachelofs degree from the University of Chicago is held. F. J . GURNEY.

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The New Marking System The widely recognized need of a more scholarly type of undergraduate life led to the adoption of the new marking system. There is no magic in a method; the standard of scholarship depends ultimately on public opinion in the institu- tion, but a system was desired more conducive to the end in View. The old sys- tem uSed the letters A, B, C, D, E, the values based on percentages, each letter covering a certain range. C, from 75 to 61, was the passing mark, D a condition, and E a failure. The new system uses A, A-, B, B-, C, C-, D, E, F, with tthonor- pointst, for each major taken, corresponding to the grades, from six to minus two. D is the bare passing mark. A bachelofs degree requires 36 majors and '72 honor-points. The object sought is to be attained by dismissing shiftless and incompetent students and increasing the value of a degree. To accomplish these two things a stdeadlineh was established and the requirements for a degree increased. T o retain in college students unable or unwilling to do fair work injures both the students themselves and the general tone of scholarship. It is recognized that in college a student encounters a type of work quite different from that in high school. He may need some time in which to find himself and learn how to do it. Therefore, the plan gives mu'ch leeway in the first year. A student who can get his majors of credit, even with the average of D, has a year in which to learn how to study. After that, if his record is ten honor-points below the standard ttwo per major takeny he is dismissed for poor work. The plan, however, is not a mere piece of heartless machinery; extenuating circumstances will always be considered. The higher requirement for a degree means not only a minimum amount of credit, but also a minimum standard of quality. The new system went into effect this year, and it is too early to state definite results. Only those who entered since the Spring Quarter come entirely under it; it is not retroactive. The summer is not a typical quarter. The great body of students enter in the autumn, and that is the only typical quarter whose results can now be studied. Last autumn there were in the Junior Colleges 406 new and 464 former students. Of the former, 92, 01' 22.670. made so poor an average that if they have not already withdrawn they will be liable to dismissal for poor work at the end of the Spring Quarter. Of the latter, 53, or 11.4KZJ, made a similarly low record. Some of the expressions from students have shown resentment toward the system. Now students may look upon it as a hardship or as a help. Are they working for a degree or for a liberal education, of which a degree is the token? If for the hrst, the high standard is a hardship; if for the last, why resent it? Every i 10

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The William Rainey Harper Memorial Library One of the great developments of the year in the life of the University has been the completion of the fund for the erection of the general library building as a memorial 0f the life and work of President Harper. This is the culmina- tion of a movement inaugurated by the Trustees, soon after the death of President Harper, in response to suggestions from many quarters that such a memorial should rise in the quadrangles. It may be said, indeed, that although the Uni- versity itself is President Harperis monument, it was, from the day of his death, universally felt, that, as a matter of course, some special memorial must rise that should beat his name. Various suggestions-were made as to the nature of the memorial. In hxing upon the general library building, as, on the whole, the most appropriate and fitting, it was considered that this building would be the laboratory of the Whole University, the center of its life, frequented by all instructors and all students, Where the choicest treasures of the University would be gathered, the object of greatest interest to all visitors, a visible symbol of the intellectual life of the institu- tion and thus of the great teacher, student, scholar and leader of whom it would be the memorial, while'it would, at the same time, in its proportions and archi- tecture, be in and of itself monumental. Something over $800,000 has been raised for this memorial. It is under- stood that the building will cost $600,000 and that the rest of the fund will be 12