On the evils of the course system there is probably no new thing to be said. Such devices as the “group system” at Harvard interfere with liberty of election without appreciably correcting the graduate’s ignorance of the courses he has passed and cashed in for his degree. Recognizing this fact, certain faculties have latterly inaugurated general examinations in the whole subject-matter studied under one department, as notably in History, Government, and Economics; but thus far the general examination affects professional preparation, as notably for the Law School, much more than it affects the straight arts career, where it provides just one more obstacle to “pass.” This business of passing is a seasonal nuisance. The early weeks of term-time are an Arcady of fetching lectures, more or less interesting assigned reading, and abundant “cuts.” Across the smiling sky float minatory wisps of cloud--exercises, quizzes, tests. Then up from the horizon blow the “hour exams,” first breath of the academic weather that later on will rock the earth with “mid-years” and “finals.” But to be forewarned is, for the prudent student, to get armed, and Heaven knows he is amply warned by instructor, registrar, and dean. So he hies himself to the armourer, the tutor, one of the brotherhood of experts who saw him through the entrance examinations; he provides himself with bought or leased notebooks and summaries; he crams through a few febrile nights of cloistral deprivations and flagellations; and the sun shines again on his harvest of gentlemen’s _C_’s, the proud though superfluous _A_ or _B_, and maybe a _D_ that bespeaks better armour against the next onset. Or, of course, he may have slipped into “probation,” limbo that outrageously handicaps his athletic or political ambitions. Only if he have been a hapless probationer before the examinations is there any real risk of his having to join the exceedingly small company of living sacrifices whom a suddenly austere college now “rusticates.” (For in America suspensions and expulsions are the penalties rather of irregular conduct than of mental incompetence or sloth.) In four years, after he has weathered a score of these storms and concocted a few theses, the president hands him a diploma to frame, he sells his other furniture, puts mothballs in his cap and gown, and plunges into business to overtake his non-college competitors.