The Tar Heel
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA.
Published Every Thursday by the General
Athletic Association.
Edward V. Mveks,
Grorgk S. Wiixs, -W.
R. Webb, Jr., -Harry
Howell, -Jas.
A. Gwyn, -
M. II. Yount, - -
Editor-in-Chief.
Literary Editor.
- Athletic Editor.
Exchange Editor.
...... Local Editor.
- - Local Editor.
Harry Howell,
Jas. A. Gwyn, -
- ' - Business Manager
Assistant Bus. Manager.
Entered at the post-office in Chapel Hill, N.
C, as second-class mail-matter.
The Grade System.
Some very strong- points can be
made against the grade system in a
colleg-e or university of high rank.
The love of reward for faithful
work is not only unobjectionable but
commendable, provided it is of the
right kind. The reward that a colleg-e
student should be satisfied with
is, not a
"one"
or "two" for his
grade, but the fact that he has
mastered a certain amount of know
ledge, tlw he is gaining in mental
power.
Not only does grading assume in
the student a wrong- motive for
working, "but it causes him to de
rive less benefit from that work
than he otherwise would; e. g., in
his preparation of a recitation he be
comes interested in a certain phase
of the subject. He could well af
ford to neglect the rest of the lesson
in order to work this thought to the
end. , But no, he, is to ; be t graded,
hence he must learn what ison the
fifteen or twenty pages assigned as
a recitation. The' tendency is to
make him a machine.
The effect on the teacher is no
less unfortunate. If his grading , is
to be accurate, he must usually
mark as the student recites, lhe
result is a constant cooling of any
interest and enthusiasm that he
may attempt to throw into the reci
tation.
The highest ideal, although it
may be utterly impracticable, is to
have no recitation grades and no ex
aminations; but for teacher and pu
pils to work together for a common
purpose ' to gain knowledge, and
make themselves broader men.
To what was said in the Tar
HEEL of Nov. 8, about excusing-
from examination those members of
the Senior class whose term stand
ing is at least ninety, the following
may be added;
Examinations usually foster a me
chan'ical method of working. An
ambitious student of good mental
ability and. a reasonable amount of
industry must all the while that he
is studying and reading on a sub
ject, keep in mind the final exami
nation. This is usuallyvof such a
nature and such a length, that his
knowledge of the great principles of
which he has been studying-, and
his ability to use them, can be deter
mined, if at all, in a very unsatis
factory manner.
The result is that he answers a
number of specific questions which
may or may not, test his grasp of
the subject, his power as an inde
pendent thinker, and the extent to
which he has improved his time.
Indeed, instead of testing- a student;
in these points, the examinations of
tener than otherwise, test the
amount of the text-book that he has ;
been able to commit to memory and
retain. The writer knows a num
ber of students whose grades, sim
ply because of their good memory,
were nearly always higher than the
grades of students who were their
acknowledged superiors in all that
goes to make true scholarship.
There are two typical students
that may be spoken of in this con
nection: the first is the ambitious,
conscientious one, who, from a sense
of duty, and from a love of know
ledge, does his best every day. He
reviews as much as he can, but on
examination depends mainly on the
knowledge that he has gained du
ring the term. He often fails to do
himself full justice because the
mental and physical strain of the
examination period unfits him for
the best work.
The second student is the one
who has no desire to know anything,
and the height of whose ambition is
to 4 'g-et through. ' Towards the
end of the term, he "'gets up" a
few "spots;" if he is lucky enough
to g-et them on examination, he is
all right; if not, he "falls," gets
more "spots," tries again, and may
be "gets through.
Not to' require an examination of
him who makes a grade of ninety,
will stimulate the careless student
to do better work; and will give the
industrious one fuller play for his
own independent thinking.
We regret very much to learn
that the game with Vanderbilt has
necessarily been declared off on ac
count of trouble in securing the
field. Vanderbilt has a strong team,
the strongest in its history, and as
we too have a team that we feel
proud of, it would have been a royal
strugg-le in Atlanta, next Saturday,
and one that we were anxious to see
take place ; not only because we de
sire to see our athletic strength
contrasted with theirs, but we also
wish closer relations to exist be
tween us and them. Though young,
Vanderbilt has already taken one of
the most prominent stands of all
the Southern Universities in every
branch of college work, and we wish
to be as closely allied to them as
possible.
As to the game of ball we can
only judge of our strength as com
pared with theirs by their game
with Sewanee, and yet this will
hardly be a fair comparison as the
rivalry between these Tennessee
Colleges has attained to such a oitch
i that each will do its utmost, and
this was not the case in Asheville.
1 We hope that in the future arrange-
i ments can be satisfactorily made
and the contest occur regularly.
j ;We are also very sorry that we
are unable to meet our Alabama
friends on the field. Mr. Powers,
'96, has told us some pleasant sto
ries of them and their team.
We clip the following- from the
Sewanee Purple, and make an hum
apology to the . Sewanee captain,
if we misunderstood his remarks in
the Sewanee-North Carolina g-ame:
"We appreciate the Tar Heel's
pleasant remark on the conduct of
our team. It gives us pleasure" to
testify, in return, to the fine
bearing- of the Carolina men, both
on and off the field. We haven't
but one kick to make against them,
and perhaps that is not tenable:
the)r played a selfish g-ame; they
kept the ball all the time.
We are sorry that the Tar Heel
should have excepted our Captain in
making- its compliment to our team.
His speeches to which exception
seems to have been taken, were
prompted by a desire on his part to
hurry the g-ame, which was inces
santly delayed, to Carolina's advan
tage as it appeared to him, and not
from a lack of sympathy for any
real injury to a Carolina player.
No man at Sewanee enjoys greater,
or more justly deserved popularity,
than he on whom the wrath of our
contemporary has fallen."
We are. always glad to see good
feeling- existing- between us and onr
neighbor state.
We wish to apologize to the Caro
linian for any misstatements we
may have made in the article in a
late Tar Heel on South Carolina
Colleg-e. It was entirely uninten
tional, and we deplore the fact.
: Efforts are being made to secure
cheap rates in order to enable the
students to take in the Virginia
game. It is to be 'hoped that they
will be successful, and that a larg-e
number of boys will take the trip,
and help the team by cheering-.
Timely "rooting" is very encour
ag-ing, and has won games.
Among Our Exchanges.
The Trinity Archive is now un
der the management of the Senior
Class, instead of the Literary Soci
eties, as heretofore. The first num
ber for the year has been received;
it is devoted almost entirely to the
inauguration of their new Presi
dent, giving the different speeches
on that occasion.
There are two little things in
this number that strike us rather
humorously. One is from a speech
of Captain Durham of the Trinity
team, delivered before the Univer
sity-Trinity g-ame; "But of the five
times that we have met our distin
guished contemporaries across the
way upon the athletic field, four
times have we hung their scalps as
trophies upon our walls. And we
promise that if history does not in
this respect repeat itself, it will be
no fault of ours." We know not
what history is referred Jx; the his
tory of 1892 was repeated. Trinity
in speaking of athletics confines
herself to football; we would like to
ask her how about baseball.
The other thing was an item un
der "Miscellaneous;" "Some one
wants to know is the hospital near
the college being- erected for the
special benefit of the Chapel Hill
team when they come to play Trin
ity." Strange, isn't it,( how queer
this sonuds now?
The Sewanee Purple calls our
victory over Sewanee "rather startling-;"
says that while having no
idea of victory, they did not expect
a ny 36 to 4 ag-ainst them. But they
take some satisfaction in having
scored on us.
The Purple goes for the Vander
bilt Hustler for its self laudatory
editorial in a recent issue.
Last week's number of the Nasli-
ville Student contained a letter
from its U. N. C. correspondent,
W. R. Webb Jr. '
The Oct. number of the Washing
ton and Lee Southern Collegian
lias been received. It is a very
well gotten up and readable issue.
The Wcsleyan Argus, coming from
a colleg-e so far distant from us is
naturally not very intersting to us,
but we can admrie it as a very g-ood
periodical, nevertheless. We have
two good Wesleyanites among- us.
We are glad to welcome among
our exchanges the Fayetteville Ob
server, edited by that faithful
alumnus. Ma j. E. L Hale, '60. It
publishes the Tar Heel account of
Prof. Graham's lecture on the Mecklenburg-
Declaration of Independence
Universitjr of Virginia takes
great credit so herself because she
has refused flattering offers to play
Brown m New York on Thanksgiving-
Day, and remains true to her
contract to play us on that date in
Richmond. College Vopics says,
"Our Thanksgiving- Day game in
Richmond has g-otten to be recog
nized as the greajtestevent in South
ern athletics, and the interest in it
is increasing- annually." It would
never do to depart from this custom
even before such f acinating pros
pects as a game in New York. If
anyone thinks that North Caralina
will prove a foe unworthy of our
steel,' let him hold his breath and
wait. The 'Tarheels' have always
played the g-ame to win, and if they
failed in their purpose, they kicked
up a heap of dust trying."
The Sczvance Purple says,
"North Carolina and Virginia meet
in Richmond, Thanksgiving Day,
to settle the Southern Champion
ship, provided, of course, (italics
ours.) What is this provision that
our contemporary makes? Surely
it can not be the Vanderbilt game.
College Topics and the Sewanee
Purple seem to have formed a mu
tual admiration society, object, to
wage a crusade on the Vanderbilt
Hustler. Topics and the Hustler
have been engaged in a war of
words about a Virginia-Vanderbilt
g-ame, which it seems the Tennes
seeans were very anxious to obtain
but were unsuccessful. The fight
is still going on, but has branched
into purity in athletics, and impor
tation of stars. '. ...
Falls, '97, a member of the scrub
team, umpired. the Trinity-A. & M.
g-ame.