It would have been uncharacteristic of Lowell to stop while things were going his way, and indeed, he did not. In his annual report for 1908-09 Lowell wrote, "It may be hoped that under the new rules for the choice of electives, some form of general examinations... on the principal field of study will be more commonly required." For the new president, the suggestion was a cautiously worded one, but it was only the beginning. Lowell fully believed that students forgot most of what they had learned in a course as soon as the final examination was out of sight, and he was determined to put a stop to such academic waste.

Medical School Tries Generals

Since no undergraduate department would take him up on the idea of general examinations. Lowell turned to the graduate schools. The Medical School was the first to think favorably of his plan and accordingly, in 1911, the graduating class there took the first compulsory generals in University history. The next year the Divinity School followed suit, and two years later, convinced by enthusiastic reports from the two graduate schools, the undergraduate department of History, Government, and Economics began to require generals. Within ten years, President Lowell was able to report with evident satisfaction that all departments except Chemistry and Engineering were requiring some kind of comprehensive exam before awarding a degree.

By 1915, Lowell, who had already established a wide reputation for being anything but complacent, set out on yet another academic crusade--tutorial. One of the most formidable criticisms of his plan for general examinations had been that the average student couldn't pass such an examination without help in preparing it. A tutorial system like that of Oxford or Cambridge was obviously the answer, but the University couldn't afford a staff of new tutors.

Lowell was convinced, however, that the general examinations and tutorial were essential to his overall plan of rousing students from their intellectual apathy, so he decided that since the University couldn't have both quality and quantity in its instruction, it would have quality. Accordingly, as the College budget increased from year to year, he held the number of Courses to a minimum and used the extra money gradually to hire a complete staff of departmental tutors.

Reshapes Undergraduate Study

Thus in the first decade of his administration, Lowell had reshaped the pattern of undergraduate study and laid the foundations for a comparable change in student attitude. With the new requirements for concentration and distribution, tutorial, and general examinations, undergraduates found their academic life substantially changed. The would-be dissipators could no longer expect to graduate on a few weeks of annual cramming and only the very industrious could hope to graduate in three years.

Concrete results of the change became increasingly apparent as the years went on. Throughout the twenties and early thirties, the number of students in Honors increased every year until in 1934, the Honors percentage of the graduating class was just about twice that of the Class of 1915. The number of degrees awarded with distinction rose at a comparable rate. Most important, however, was the change in student attitude.

The deliberate "C-men," for whom President Lowell had always felt particular antipathy, were at last becoming a minority group. Partly by his own example of industry, Lowell had instilled in faculty and students alike a distaste for complacency and intellectual lethargy. The tutor system too had a new premium on individual effort, so that the men who had planned on doing just enough to get by were finding it rather heavy going.

Student Housing Problem

More so than many of his colleagues, Lowell was disturbed by the student housing situation which prevailed when he took office in 1909. Because the enrollment had increased faster than the College's physical facilities, many students were unable to live in College housing. Those who did were little better off than the others, for the College rooms were poorly kept up and equipped with marginal facilities.

Of the students who lived elsewhere, many were poor and lived wretchedly in isolated cold-water flats, blocks or miles from the University. The greatest disparity was between these and the fortunate few--the rich and the "clubbies"--who maintained luxurious private dormitories on the "Gold Coast" of Mount Auburn street. For all but the "Gold Coasters," who ate in their own dormitories, the meal situation was nearly intolerable.

Food Riots in Memorial Hall

All boarding undergraduates were supposed to eat in Memorial Hall, but the consistent overcrowding there led to a series of food riots.

In 1919 the Administration closed Memorial Hall as a dining room, and for the next six years everyone in the University had to "eat out" in the Square, if he were to eat at all.