In describing the successful working

at Bowdoin, of what are virtually preceptorial courses, President Hyde in TheNation lor February 3 gives a valiant and widely generalized rap at the lecture system of college teaching: "All teaching that deals exclusively with men in large groups is second, third, or fourth rate, he declares, and having so spoken he proceeds to "elaborate the matter. It was hardly to be expected that so sweeping a statement would go unchallenged. A week later The Nation contains a somewhat tart rejoinder from R. M. Johnston of Cambridge, who suggests that in President Hyde's notions we have "methodology run to seed," and who apparently sees danger to the individualizing possibilities of education in "the recent invasion of the intellectual field by highly organized and destructive hordes of standardizes." Mr. Johnston would rather like to know what President Hyde would have to say about such courses as those given by James Russell Lowell and by Nathaniel Shaler; and he points with pride to a long line of lecturers beginning with Abelard and stringing unnamed down through the centuries, in proof that President Hyde was wrong in saying that all teaching that deals with large groups is fourth rate. His point is a valid one: a man may be greater than a method; for method is after all merely an adaptation of means to requirements, it is a matter of averages. Yet since education is so largely concerned with average teachers and average pupils; since brilliant exceptions are so notably rare, President Hyde may perhaps be pardoned for emphasizing method and denouncing departures therefrom with somewhat hyperbolic vigor. As between the lecture system and the conference system of teaching the chance may well rest upon the characteristics of the teacher. Some vital minds there are that, like giant watch fires, may distribute widely their warmth and illumination; from the mountain tops their message carries to the scattered plain. But, alas, most of us are better likened to the oil heater, operative to best advantage in the limited area of a cottage room.

There is no one occasion during the year, not even in the commencement season, when those who have the College interests at heart are more conscious of the fine reservoir of intelligent loyalty from which the College may expect anything within reason than they are in the annual meeting of the secretaries. As one speaker expressed it, "We represent the points of contact, connection with which makes the live wires." It was with some knowledge of the benefits mutual to College and alumni that the annual meeting was first projected by which these executive officers of classes and associations should gather for conference with one another; it is with more complete knowledge that each year now these meetings are anticipated as events of moment to the interests of Dartmouth. In other columns the record of the meeting this year is given; but it is impossible to give more than a skeleton, for much of the life and benefit lies in the informal discussion of current affairs in the College.

The benefit of these meetings was made greater a few years ago by a vote which requested secretaries unable to attend to secure representatives from the alumni outside of Hanover. This has in most cases been done, to the advantage of course of the gatherings. The College now hopes to bring together next year a number greater than ever before. Secretaries are urged to begin now to plan to attend.

It is very difficult to get a clear statement at any specific time concerning the undergraduate attitude toward scholarship. It is for this reason that one of the speeches at the Secretaries' meeting— that of Mr. Teall '10, upon this subject— is printed on a later page of this magazine. It is not necessary to agree at every point with what is said to value a plain utterance of this sort from the student point of view. After all, is not that the hardest thing to do in education, to get the point of view of the student? The best teachers and the best administrators are they who realize that the undergraduate entering at eighteen and graduating at twenty-two sees life with the eyes of youth. The College grows old and teachers come and go, but from one decade to another the undergraduate age remains practically a constant. We can never, in justice to the ideals of the College, cease to be ambitious for much that can never be attained. Sometimes faithful labors may set the standards a bit forward, and bring rewarding satisfaction to the anxious instructor. Never, indeed, can effort become weak without rapid deterioration. But always it is the immature, man with whom the college is working, and unless this be realized in the estimating of results achieved, undue discouragement will enter and abide where it does not belong, and energy will be palsied where 'it can little afford to be weakened.

The Carnegie Foundation admirably practices what it preaches in the matter of publicity, and in its reports it covers the whole field of discussion about educational affairs. Its statement concerning its latest publication, the fourth annual report, shows careful consideration of educational problems,

This, like the three preceding reports, deals not only with the current business incident to the conduct of the retiring allowance system, but takes up also the discussion of questions dealing with educational history and educational policy. Some of these subjects are of immediate interest, such as politics in state institutions, agricultural education, college advertising, the function of the college trustee, the articulation of high school and college and the like.

During the year the foundation granted 115 pensions amounting to $177,000. It is now paying 318 pensions, the cost being $466,000. The professors receiving these pensions come from 139 colleges, distributed over 43 states of the Union and provinces of Canada. To the accepted list of colleges, that is, to the list whose professors may regularly receive pensions under fixed rules as a right and not as a favor, seven colleges were admitted. during the year. These were: Coe College in lowa, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, the state universities of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Missouri, and the University of Toronto. The governors and legislatures of these states asked for this privilege for their universities.

The governors and legislatures of twenty-six other states asked that their universities' should also be admitted to the foundation. The fact that only five state institutions, one of these in Canada, have been admitted to the Carnegie Foundation, after a year of administration of the rules under which tax-supported colleges and universities become eligible, testifies to the scrutiny exercised in the admission of institutions. As the president explains in his report, the names of certain well known institutions do not appear. This means that some question has arisen in the examination of these institutions which made the trustees feel that it is necessary to wait— such, for example, as the articulation of the institution with three-year high schools, or its failure to maintain entrance requirements, or the maintenance of a weak school of law or medicine below the standards of law and medical departments of stronger institutions.

The report shows, also, that two institutions retired from the accepted list: Randolph-Macon Woman's College, which withdrew after deciding that the election of trustees must be approved by a Methodist Conference, and the George Washington University whose connection with the foundation was ended by the action of the foundation. The reasons stated are that the university had impaired its endowment and that two professors had been arbitrarily dismissed. There are now sixty-seven institutions on the accepted list.

The second section of the report is devoted to an examination of the working of the rules for retirement as shown in the experience of the past four years. The president gives in this connection a summary of a statement from each teacher now upon the retired list as to the reasons for his retirement. As a result of the experience, two changes were made in the rules by the trustees: one extends the benefits of the retiring allowance system so that service as an instructor shall count toward the earning of a retiring allowance. Heretofore only service in the rank of professor was counted toward an allowance. The other change makes retirement after twenty-five years of service possible only in the case of disability unfitting the teacher for active service. Except in the case of such disability, the teacher can, under the rules as now framed, claim a retiring allowance only upon attaining the age of sixty-five. Formerly a professor might retire after twenty-five years of service. This change in the rules, does not, however, deprive the widow of a teacher who has had twenty-five years of service of her pension. The action was taken in view of the fact that many men were willing to retire from the position of teachers and go into business, or because they were tired of teaching, or for other reasons entirely foreign to those for which the rule was intended to provide. Only a small minority of those retiring under sixty-five years of age did so because of ill health.

The third section of the report is devoted to tax-supported institutions. It .states in detail the reasons which have governed the trustees of the foundation in dealing with state institutions. Agricultural education and the agricultural college are also treated at length. The trustees make clear their intention to ask of the institutions of every state whether the university and the college of agriculture are competing or co-operating parts of a state system of education. The low standards and general demoralization resulting from the competition of these two types of tax-supported institutions in the various states are definitely pointed out.

The fourth section of the report is devoted to educational administration, and deals with such subjects as financial reports, college advertising, which has in many institutions developed to formidable proportions, the function of the college trustee and other administrative topics. The problems here taken up are those of immediate practical significance in the operation of colleges and universities. The foundation announces that it will distribute within a short time a bulletin suggesting a simpler form of treasurer's report which it hopes may obtain general use. It is noteworthy that only a small proportion of the colleges and universities calling on the public for support print a straightforward financial statement showing what they do with the money collected from the public. An analysis is here given of the duties of the college trustee and the importance of choosing men who will perform these duties.

The fifth section of the report is occupied with more distinctly educational problems, such as the articulation of high school and college, the weighting of college entrance requirements in favor of the classics, the relative value of educational criticism and educational construction. The whole effort in this part of the report, as in former reports, is to urge upon all the colleges of the country, whether state controlled or privately endowed, the necessity of articulation with the state system of education. In this section, also, the president takes up the statement which has been made in several quarters that the foundation might become an arbitrary force in education, and shows that .the real power of the foundation is dependent upon its fair discussion of educational issues. The amount of money in the hands of the foundation is insignificant compared with the college endowments themselves, and the president insists that its most substantial asset come from a fair, impartial and public handling of educational questions.

Following the report of the president is the report of the treasurer. In this matter the foundation has followed the advice which it gives to other institutions and prints a detailed statement, showing not only the larger items of expense, but even the individual salaries which are paid.

THE ALUMNI MAGAZINE has pleas- ure in announcing the election of Johr. Merrill Poor '97 and William Rennselaer Gray '04, to the board of editors. Both Mr. Poor and Mr. Gray are closely identified with the life of the College of the present day, and both are widely known among the alumni. It is antic- ipated that the work of these men will materially aid the MAGAZINE in fulfilling its mission of making closer all connections between the alumni and the College.