Fallacies Revealed

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To the Editor of the CRIMSON

May I add a few belated remarks to your Baedeker on courson which was published Monday?

Certainly if this article was intended to be really a guide to new students it should have avoided purely personal impressions as much as possible and yet I cannot but think that the comments on several of the courses mentioned were intensely subjective criticism.

It seems, for instance, that the remarks concerning courses in the English Department were founded on a theory that is at least debatable. A comparison of your writer's views on English 41 and Comparative Literature 6 is illuminating. The latter receives a very thorough "roasting" while Mr. Perry's course evokes nothing but praise. This we learn is because English 4d succeeds in "making delight in literature contagious." Undoubtedly it does, for when a man is concentrating in literature (as, I think, Dr. Magoun has a right to believe that most of his students are), has not the instructor the right to assume that those who attend his course are already possessed of this delight. After all, this is certainly a small prerequisite to demand of one specializing in literature in college. Furthermore Comparative Literature 6 is "for undergraduates and graduates." Why should the graduate students be neglected? I fancy that Dr. Magoun did not exact much of the mechanics of literature from them. Such things are usually in a course for the benefit of graduate students only. It seems to me that the foundation of your editor's reasoning is unsound. Courses in literature are not solely for entertainment. If a student feels that they should be, let him stick to English 52.

I cannot help feeling also that much injustice is done Dr. Sheffer in the criticism of Philosophy 1. If there is anything he tries to avoid in this course it is the "parrcting a number of logical rules-of-thumb" for which you so harshly condemn him. If any one doubts this let him compare the texts used in Philosophy 1 with the treatises on "formal logic" used in most college courses in logic. Let him also read some of the final examinations which Dr. Sheffer has set in his course in which no rules of logic, no technical knowledge or terminology in necessary and in which none of these adjuncts will save the student from failure, if they be not accompanied with clear reasoning. If I were to make a list of the most stimulating courses I took in college, Philosophy 1 would be first.

After all, such destructive criticism as comprised most of your "Guide" is not calculated to help the student in selected his courses. However, if students do follow your advice, Professors Lowes and Perry will have to give their courses in the New Lecture Hall and Mr. Copeland will play to capacity audiences. (Signature withheld.)