ROCKS AND ROSES INTERMINGLED IN CRIMSON'S NEW CONFIDENTIAL GUIDE

Certainly for the first time at Harvard College, and probably for the first time at any college in the country, a group of undergraduates has prepared a critical catalog of college courses, which appears in this morning's Crimson as a "Confidential Guide of College Courses."

The Crimson's-guide was prepared by a group of Crimson editors who have felt that in the past discussion of the merits and defects of college courses has been altogether too meagre to be of any value either to instructors or prospective students.

This morning's guide takes up over 40 college courses, including nearly all those courses offered to Freshmen as well as about an equal number of the larger and more important courses open to upperclassmen.

Each criticism was written by an editor of the Crimson whose knowledge of the course and of its instructors justifies him in a statement of opinion. And in each case, the statement of the merits and defects of the courses under discussion is a purely personal opinion based on the reactions of an undergraduate to the subject matter and the methods of instruction of the course under consideration. Some courses may be too highly praised; others too greatly censured.

The Crimson does not pretend to present a categorical statement of the merits and defects of the courses mentioned below. It presents, rather, the personal opinions of a fairly representative group of undergraduates. The Crimson does not endorse these opinions. But it does guarantee that they were written, and are being published, seriously and sincerely, with the desire for the improvement of the courses of instruction at Harvard-College as the guiding motive.

The Crimson considers these criticisms in the light of communications written by its own editors. Consequently, in all fairness, it now throws open its regular communication column to all members of the University who feel moved to carry the discussion further, and praise courses which have been condemned, or censure courses which have been defended.

In arranging its guide of courses, the Crimson has perpetrated another radical innovation by discarding the traditional grouping of the college catalog; and arranging the subjects in alphabetical array, and the courses in numerical succession.

Anthropology 1

Although Anthropology is technically the most human course in college, the way it is taught deserves no such high praise. Not that it is inhuman at all, for Anthropology 1 is one of those mediocre courses which are at once the curse of the University and the backbone of its moderately high level of instruction. There is a bewildering mass of miscellaneous facts to be mastered which from their very nature can not be too systematically coordinated. The course will provoke enthusiasm from those few who have a decided bent for this sort of thing and from the rest the semi-boredom with which the majority of students always regard a course so conducted as to demand much memorizing at the expense of creative thought.

Biology 1

Biology 1 will provide everyone who takes it with a conversational knowledge of such popular topics as evolution, heredity, and parthenogenesis; and to those who like it, will impart an enthusiasm for biological science which will probably lead to further study in the field. Those who dislike it will do so because an occasional lecturer becomes unduly technical, and most of all because in the laboratory they will be forced to spend countless weary hours drawing unimportant pictures of bugs, leaves and frogs' legs with absurd minuteness. The limited conception of the scientific method which they may gain thereby could as well have been acquired in a few weeks instead of a year. Four specialists, most of them human, give a smattering of astronomy, zoology, and botany. The course is relatively new, improving constantly, and can be taken casually.

Chemistry A

The nature of this course renders superfluous any comment other than that given in the University catalog.

Comparative Literature 6a and 6b

These courses are listed for "undergraduates and graduates". This indicates an exceedingly faulty estimate of Dr. Magoun's character on the part of the authorities of the English Department. Although still a young man, he has already pursued scholarship to the point of pedantry, and shows so great an enthusiasm for the mechanics of literature,--bibliographies, card catalogs, and philological dictionaries,--that he seems to have lost any love for literature itself. Doubt- less a valuable aid to graduate students in their highly technical researches, Dr. Nagoun possesses none of the qualities necessary for a teacher of undergraduates. To an undergraduate he seems no better fitted to be a teacher of English literature than is a genealogist to be an historian.

Economics A

Economics A, billed as a course in the "Principles of Economics", might more properly be denominated "An Introduction to Taussig". Understanding this fact, and most of the instructors take care to make it plain, the student will go into the course with eyes open and derive a great amount of benefit from it. The text book of the course is Professor Taussig's two-volume work of the same name, and no other. As a result there is a great deal of economics which the student need not know, but he must know that part of the subject contained in the book. When he finishes the course he will have a satisfying feeling of having acquired something and of having worked hard to get it. No attempt is made to amuse the students; the object is to make them think.

Economics 8

Economics 8 is indispensable to an intelligent understanding of the problems of finance. Though the early work repeats Economics A to some extent, the entire course presents a complete picture of monetary problems from the details of country banking to the principles of national finance and reparation payments. By his earnestness, his position as a high authority, and his delightful humanness, Professor Young succeeds its making enjoyable a subject which has infinite possibilities of being made dry and over-technical.

English A

An analysis of English A as it still is, which cannot be improved upon by an undergraduate, may be found in John Palmer Gavit's remarkably discerning book on "College":

"I was puzzled for a while by the radically differing attitude of the Harvard Freshmen toward English A as it used to be.

"'I don't know what it is all about,' said one. So far as I can see, I am just repeating the course in elementary English Composition which I thought I got through with in preparatory school. It bores me sick and wastes a lot of good time that I might be putting into something useful.'

"'The finest thing in the Freshman year, if not in the whole College,' said another. The instructor is on his toes with enthusiasm; every session is an inspiration. I wouldn't miss it for anything.'"

"Presently I saw that for each student the course was what the particular subordinate instructor made it. Upon him depended, so far as that course and that student were concerned, whether Harvard University was a failure or a success."

English 2

English 2 is such an ancient and honorable institution at Harvard that too much adverse criticism would be as dangerous as it was futile. Professor Kittredge's traditional method of taking up each year a very few plays of Shakespeare line by line and in scrupulous detail may be condemned by weary student theorists as overly meticulous. During the period of the course it does seem that both the instructor and his class become so preoccupied in scrutinizing misprints and emendations in quarto and follow that they have no time for the appreciation of Shakespeare. Some months after the last memory passage has been transcribed, the last three-line quotation identified, and the last "fact of Shakespeare" recorded in the June bluebook the student finds his appreciation of Shakespeare returning and all the more intelligent and acute for the detailed knowledge of Shakespeare which he acquired during the preceding year.

The course, moreover, is considerably enlivened by Professor Kittredge's delightful digressions upon liberal education, the CRIMSON, Cape Cod, and Life-in-General; the acrobatic performances of his eyeglasses; and his dramatic exits down the aisles of Harvard 5.

English 5

Since the resignation of Dean Briggs, English 5, his famous course of composition, has enjoyed the migratory fate of the proverbial buck. Originally entrusted to Professor Copeland, who with great fanfare held a preliminary competition last spring to select the personnel of his course from the throngs of undergraduates and the graduates of "Harvard, Yale, and Pomona who besieged the doors of Hollis 11 last year, the course has since been transferred to Professor Robert M. Gay of Simmons College, an instructor of no small reputation, whose textbook on composition, "Writing Through Reading," is considered as satisfactory as it is possible for a textbook on such a subject to be. Although robbed of Professor Copeland's highly diverting presence, the members of English 5 seem assured of competent instruction at the hands of his successor.

English 22

English 22, a composition course, will be conducted this year by Mr. Hersey, Mr. Hersey's genius is not of the incisive, analytical order. It lies in his extraordinary capacity to help those whose aim it is to become proficient in the art of composition.

Mr. Hersey has an ideal temperament for a teacher of composition. A link of sympathy unites him with those who have an ear for words or poetry. His judgments are well considered, sage, and just; his criticism is subjective, inspiring, and invariably kindly.

Nevertheless, those who have little interest in writing would find his course dull, for he exhibits nothing that is flashy, as a more objective and less lofty spirit would be prone to do. His humor is quiet, his satire gentle, yet they are all the more refined for being do. And not the least of the recommendations for his course is that Mr. Hersey is before all things courteous and innately gentlemanly.

English 28

Any student who is willing to sit through a year of professorial vaudeville may emerge from this trial by fire with a valuable residue of knowledge. For more than 30 weeks he must submit to being talked at by ten or more professors, to adjusting himself weekly to a new style of delivery, and to winnowing his over crowded note-book for the handful of good grains.

For the student's better assistance a section man (this year there will be two) was provided, and entrusted with the all too difficult task of tying up the loose ends which the eminent professors were forced to leave. To bring order out of such chaos was more than one man could accomplish last year and promises to be more than two men can do this year. Another course, English 41, attempts to review the entire subject of the history of English literature and is said to succeed where this course fails by substituting continuity for diversity and breadth of range, and one man's ministrations for the work of many. Whereas English 41 seems in good truth to be a review of English Literature, English 28 could better be described as a review of the professors of English Literature at Harvard.

English 31

Being the first of the more advanced courses in English composition, English 31 has great possibilities which are only partially realized. Whereas the courses which are considered less advanced and taken perfunctorily by students in atonement for past "D's" or in anticipation of future "O's", English 31 is generally undertaken by students who have a serious desire to improve their literary style. Work on daily themes, occasional long compositions, and a novel, provide excellent opportunity for literary experimentation. But one cannot help feeling that Professor Hurbut would be a better guide to his students if he lived less in the literary past. While it is greatly to his credit that he should profess an admiration for the works of Jane Austen and the eighteenth century authors, it is less to his credit as an instructor that he should at the same time proclaim so complete an ignorance of Michael Arlen and his ill if only for the sake of pointing out the absurdities of these scriveners to his pupils.

English 41

The enthusiastic and sincere applause prolonged far beyond the requirements of mere courtesy which invariably terminates the last meeting of English 41 is sufficient commentary on the merits of