PHILOSOPHY 1

The value of the reading period, particularly in the field of literature, is probably unquestioned. But in Philosophy 1, the study of Logic, holding the reading period seems little more than giving two weeks' vacation to instructors and section men.

The course is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with deductive, mathematical, and inductive logic. The lectures, as far as they go, carry the student into inductive logic; the assignment for the reading period is to complete the study of that subject, finishing the text book which has been used in the first part of the course. There is no choice of assignment nor should there be any, since logic is such as science that the elementary knowledge given in Wolf is essential for itself, as well as for the final examination.

Inductive logic is admittedly the most difficult and indefinite of the three branches. For the student who is interested in the course, the two or three voluntary section meetings during the reading period can prove little more than dull gatherings at which a lot of stupid questions are asked. For the student seriously perplexed by the final chapters in the book, lectures such as have been given previously would be of definite worth. When the adoption of the reading period adds nothing, and subtracts valuable explanatory lectures, there seems little reason for its continuance in a course like Philosophy 1.