The lack of academic competition in American as contrasted with the prevalence of this stimulating factor in European Universities, is attacked by president-emeritus Lowell in an article appearing in the June issue of the Harvard Teachers Record, which will be put on public sale today.

The article, entitled "Degrees, Prizes and Honors", deals with the relative merits of the European and American systems of awarding degrees and the greater emphasis on academic accomplishment that is found among the students of European universities.

Lack of Competition

"The lack of scholastic ambition," President Lowell writes, "and respect for scholarly attainment by the average American undergraduate has been due in part to the comparative absence of genuine and serious academic competition; in part to the fact that he has been inclined to believe that college grades as ordinarily given indicate diligence and decility rather than real superiority; while the faculties themselves have not been certainly have not tried to convince the public, that academic distinction is a harbinger of later success."

Scores Cumulative Degrees

Together with the academic lethargy found so often in universities on this side of the Atlantic, President Lowell deplores the use of the cumulative system adopted by the American universities and declares that the "effect of the superposed degrees is likely to be crystallization in situ."