Without knowing the academic context the paper is a bit meaningless. Incoming students were obviously expected to have studied Greek and Latin, for example. And

Without knowing the academic context the paper is a bit meaningless. Incoming students were obviously expected to have studied Greek and Latin, for example. And I doubt mathematical education was the same; the focus of teaching would have been different because calculators only sort-of existed which would radically change how much rote work was taught and practised. Fully support the observation that university meant something different in those days though, the standards were much higher. Although I'm not sure if that would apply at Harvard since their class sizes probably haven't changed by all that much.