Books and Boredom

There has been some agitation among freshman lately for a mass book-burning of Language and Informal Logic, the textbook General Education A used just this one year and intends to drop. Although the volume was panned--with considerable justification--in a recent Atlantic Monthly article, no riots over it are expected. General Education A does meet a more subtle protest, however, in widespread apathy towards its bi-weekly round of reading and papers. More words are written in less time for Gen Ed than perhaps any other course in the University.

The course has, over the years, tried to better its means of achieving a "Harvard Standard" in under-graduate writing. To further this end a more compact Handbook will be published next year. It will include reference material for figurative language problems (the task of Language and Informal Logic this year) and will be supplemented by a dozen or so "top-flight" essays from present freshman writing. With the Handbook for reference, the high-grade essays as a standard, and revised editions of the two anthologies for inspiration, incoming freshmen and Director Harold Martin plan to settle down to an efficient and fruitful program.

General Education A should not, however, be content merely with textbook revision, since many of its problems lie in the structure of the courses's reading. After a freshman works with the longer and more challenging books of his other studies, the literary forkfuls Gen. Ed. uses as fodder for themes seem uninspiring.

General Education A can be made more flexible. A worthy project would be extension of the program now used in honors sections: assigned reading is longer and better, discussion is therefore more fruitful, and papers are fewer and better-prepared. Next year remedial sections will be made optional instead of compulsory for poor students. Harvard cannot help receiving both good and bad freshman writers every year and laziness is difficult to remedy in any course. With further text and course revision, however, General EducationA might be able to train poor and undeveloped writers without boring them.