Breach in Speech

Harvard achieved early dominance in the teaching of public speaking in the United States. The first speech professorship in this country, the Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory, was created here in the early Nineteenth Century. After a distinguished beginning, speech training fell into academic disrepute among American colleges. This loss of prestige was caused by the rise of the "elocutionary movement," which stressed speech delivery and overlooked content.

In the last half century, while speech has elsewhere become a much more formidable academic discipline, Harvard's original dislike for the "elocutionary movement" remains unchanged by contemporary circumstances. The current Boylston Professor, Archibald MacLeish, is a poet, a situation reflecting Harvard's current lack of interest in speech training. Even though Professor MacLeish has expressed his support for greater teaching of the speech arts, the University's speech training is conducted in a sadly limited manner.

At present, three major limited enrollment courses are offered, two in speech and one in dramatic interpretation. The University displays its disdain for speech by refusing to count more than two half courses, and sometimes only one, for the degree. Although speech courses are given under the auspices of the English Department, no speech course can be counted for concentration in English. In contrast with another utilitarian art, three full courses in English composition can be counted for the degree; two full composition courses can be counted for English concentration.

However, there are more tangible indications of the lowly status of the University's speech training. The speech department has only one position of tenure; the department itself is relegated to inadequate facilities on the third floor of the Busch-Reisinger Museum. Even if the interested student surmounts all these obstacles his tutor often advises him not to take a speech course.

It is indeed time that the University regarded speech training as a legitimate field of study. No one at Harvard wants a situation comparable to that of most American universities where there are a multitude of speech courses and an undergraduate major in the subject. But the study of speech could be a beneficial part of many undergraduates' curricula. Courses should be offered in the techniques of group problem-solving, dramatic interpretation, the analysis of argument, mass persuasion, and rhetorical theory.

The University should act to improve the status of the speech arts at Harvard. Not only should more courses be given, but more positions of tenure should be established, better facilities provided, and more degree and concentration credit given. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences should not refuse to offer a course merely because it possesses pragmatic value. The ability to communicate one's education to the public is a skill deserving attention if Harvard wishes to have any influence on the outside world.