"CONSIDER THE LILIES . . ."

Among the phenomena observable at Harvard in graduating or recently graduated classes, is the student who, having concentrated in English, is in grave doubts as to the benefit he has derived from his four years in college. One of the most open expressions of such doubt and dissatisfaction that has recently been voiced is contained in a letter published in the current number of the Alumni Bulletin. The writer finding that his training in English has meant little more than a harrowing grind for divisional criticizes the Harvard system of instruction as applied to this department, declaring that the right kind of contact is not established between teacher and student and that "the constraining effect of divisional examinations" must be removed before a "taste for beauty" and a "cultivation of critical standards" can be instilled into the student.

That English Literature as a field of study does not lend itself so readily to the Harvard tutorial and divisional examination system as History or Philosophy or Economics will scarcely, be denied. But the writer of the article under consideration does not bring up the question of the inherent suitability of English as a field of college concentration; he rather implies that if some-how a different sort of contact were established between students and tutors, and if divisional were abolished that a new vigor and a new enthusiasm would spring up among the great legion of concentrators in English. In many respects it is the now familiar plea for inspirational contact and a chance to become educated by independent browsing.

That the chances for inspirational contact in the English Department at Harvard are less than elsewhere is open to grave question; that the student who is really interested in and adapted to the study of English Literature will fail to browse by himself regardless of divisional or an overemphasis on the historical, side of literature is untenable. For the rest, those who are no more fitted to the study of English than of any other college subject, those who have picked English because they could not make up their minds what they wanted to study, or those who would rather read novels than trace historical tendencies or spend their afternoon in a laboratory in other words, the larger part of the men who are concentrating in English a chance to browse is practically synonymous with a chance to loaf. But for the "constraining effect of divisional examinations" they would never attempt what little reading they do, and English, as a field of concentration would be of even less benefit than it now is.