. COLLEGE COMMUNICATIONS

MID-SEMESTERS AGAIN

Mid-semester grades are due in the office
on Tuesday, March 22. Please plan your
work and examinations to enable you to
make these reports promptly, Your help in
making full reports will also be greatly
appreciated, as the reasons given for

the poor grades are very helpful to us

in talking with students and their
parents,

MARCH FACULTY MEETING

The next meeting of the College Faculty
will be held at 4:30, March 15, in the
Prank Strong auditorium. Important
matters are to be considered.

NEW COURSES AND CHANGES IN COURSES

According to a recent University Senate
regulation, no new courses may be offered
next fall which are not approved by the
Faculty by the April meeting, We are,
therefore, asking that all requests for
new courses and also for course changes
be presented now, This will allow us to
present the necessary requests at the
March faculty meeting and the Administra-
tive Committee could then present its
recommendations for agetion at the April
meeting,

May we ask all staff members to examine
critically the catalog descriptions of
their courses and suggest desirable
changes. Prerequisites should be care-
fully studied and requests for changes
made where neccessary, so that catalog
statements can be regularly followed.

It is hoped that all changes may receive
Faculty or Administrative Committee
approval this spring instead of being left
for the fall when we are always hurried
to get the copy to the printer,

EXCESSIVE ABSENCES

We are finding some cases of negleot in
the reporting of excessive absences, Ail
instructors of College students are
expected to check class attendance reg-
ularly and to report on the deficiency
cards any student who, aside from reasons
of known illness, has one more absence
from Glass than the number of hours of
credit given in the course, Prompt
reports prevent some student failures

and enable us to give the parents the
information they expect of us in this
matter,

‘Board

Mareh 11, 1938

PRESIDENT HUTCHINS SAYS:

"Education is serious business for
serious people, It involves hard work,
and hard work is sometimes disagreeable,
But there is no short cut to intelli-
gence. The Board of Education of the
city of Chicago is at present engaged
in trying to determine what a general
education is. Its intention is laudable,
But when we learn that it plans to make
mathematics an elective because it is
"toc hard! for mest high-school
stidents, we realize that the Chicago

of Educaticn has confused educa—
tisn with Yeorestion, it is foliowing
the dubious precept of a group of
Progressive Educators who believe that
the task of the teacher is to discover
what the student likes to learn and

to encourage him to learn it,"

"The question will be asked: ‘What
avout thoge who can't learnt* I sus-
pect that the number of children who
are actually ineducable is far smaller
than we have supposed, We may be
guilty of accusing children of intel-.
lectual deficiency as an excuse for
our failure to educate them properly.
It is easier for a teacher to say of a
boy, ‘He's no good,’ than to say of
himself, ‘I don't know how to teach,'"

"The charge that the teachers corrupt
the youth of a country is not a new one.
The battle for academic freedom in the
teaching of the natural sciences and
religion was won less than a century
agos Most of us remember when evolu-
tion and the historical interpretation
of the New Testament were condemned as
*atheism,' Today the battleground is

the social sciences, ‘Radicalism! has
taken the place of ‘atheism,'"
"If education is to educate, it must

shift its emphasis from the popular to
the important, Life is not a party,
even if spasms of material prosperity
anesthetize us temporarily. Our prob-
lems are serious, Our people must
think, and think for themselves, or
they will find someone they don't like
doing their thinking for them, letting
George do our thinking for us is more
prevalent in America than some of us
realize. When a proposal is advanced
these days, we hear everyone ask, "Who's
for it?*» ow *Who'’s against it?' Pew
people ask, 'What does it mean?'"