Language Requirement

Arguments against the foreign language requirement seem to be an unavoidable aspect of Harvard life. Debate has ranged from charges that it is a foolish nuisance to sweeping condemnations of nearly all departments involved. But most of these criticisms have a purely personal basis and overlook the important reasons for maintaining the requirement. The report submitted by Dean Whitla and the Committee on Teaching should help clarify the situation.

Abolition of the requirement can be justified only if Harvard does away with all academic requirements. Languages are as much a part of General Education as the Natural Sciences or Humanities. The college now asks suprisingly little of entering students and there is no logical basis for the inordinate attack which has been directed at the language requirement.

Moreover, the effects of abolishing the requirement would go beyond the curriculum at Harvard. American secondary school systems in recent years have given increasing priority to foreign language instruction, thanks in large part to increasing strictness of college-level requirements. Were colleges to lower this standard, many school systems now accelerating or instituting more comprehensive programs would abandon such attempts. The results of such a move would be regrettable, to say the least.

But there are also positive reasons for the continuance of the language requirement. Not the least of these is the frequently repeated argument of the growing need for better communication in today's world. This argument is well-worn and obvious, but no less true. Even a rudimentary knowledge of a foreign language can make a student's experience abroad far more valuable. There is, moreover, a personal gain to the student in offering him an incentive to continue his study in a field which is more rewarding as proficiency increases. There is simply no other way, for example, to learn the modes of thought in another culture than to study its language. Exposure through language is invaluable.

Learning a language is not easy by any standards. Complaints about the language requirement may often stem from the fact that the study must be carried on at the most difficult level--the elementary one. But students have not found satisfying the requirement by scoring in placement tests extremely difficult--many have passed it, in fact, after one elementary course. Harvard requires only an introduction, not fluency, and if this instruction may lead to further study there is no reason why it should not be considered as important as introduction to Natural Sciences or Humanities. What is wrong with the language requirement, more often than not, is not the rule itself but the attitude of the students in fulfilling it. The language requirement should be kept.