Judge — January 27, 1917 — page 15: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes academic standards at Amherst College. The joke turns on a pun: when Annabelle asks if "Jack passed his Midyears" (midyear exams), Gertrude replies that she thinks "they passed him"—reversing who did the passing. The implication is that Jack is such a poor student that the exams were lowered to his level rather than him meeting the standard. It's social satire about grade inflation or institutional leniency toward certain students, likely wealthy or well-connected ones. The fashionably dressed women in the campus setting suggest this is commentary on social hierarchies at elite colleges, where academic rigor might be compromised by other considerations. The cartoon gently mocks both the student's incompetence and the college's accommodating standards.