FINE ARTS 1d

With the study cards for the second half year out, undergraduate interest is focussed on courses starting with the second semester. Among those which will be most under consideration is undoubtedly Fine Arts 1d, a half course covering all phases of European Art from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West right down to the present time.

A moment's consideration will suffice to show what an unusually large field this is for any course, be it even a full year, to attempt to cover. And yet Fine Arts 1d sets out to give an adequate survey of the vast mass of material piled up over a period of some fifteen centuries in less than fifteen weeks.

An excuse for this might be put forth if there were any lack of demand for the course, or if it were being taken only by those with a good foundation in the Fine Arts. But the course is filled to overflowing every year with an ever increasing enrolment, while Fine Arts instructors themselves sit back and admit that the situation sadly needs remedying. A majority of students fail to get any real artistic appreciation out of their frenzied memorizing of slides, it is generally conceded and yet it is the assumption when they voluntarily enter the course that they earnestly desire to assimilate some knowledge of a subject which is likely to play so important a part in their leisure hours after graduation.