THE BARREN FIELD

The entire attitude of the English Department is dominated by the fear that the undergraduates will put something over on it. The student of English, however good his record, goes through College continually under suspicion. The professors are terrified by the fear that undergraduates will concentrate in literature because it is a snap. They throw overboard all principles of sane scholarship and intelligent teaching in order to make their courses hard. Fearing intelligence, because it sometimes passes examinations without working, they place emphasis on unimportant facts. The general examination of 1929 shows the disastrous effects of such a theory. There is no question longer than twenty minutes, and all these little problems deal with trivialities, such as Swift's verse, or Charles Kingsley as a poet and novelist.

English is above all a cultural subject; it deals with all ideas that are capable of beautiful expression. An intelligent man who has dedicated four years to its study should come out with a mind rich in ideas, with a deeper knowledge of life and the meaning of life. Of course, he will have to know facts too, but they will only be important to him as forming a solid foundation for his ideas. A Senior whose primary interest is still in the dates of authors, and the names of books, and in the interrelations of sources, has wasted his four years, but yet this is the very kind of man for whom the English Department's examinations are designed. Upon such unimaginative amassing of insignificant facts the English Department places its emphasis.

One of the greatest fruits of education is the ability to choose your reading intelligently. A Senior who knows enough about the poetry of Charles Kingsley to discuss it for twenty minutes should be penalized, not praised.

In its fear of being too easy, the English Department has placed its emphasis on stupidity. In its desire to penalize the lazy scholar, it has penalized the man of intelligence. It has made itself a rigid schoolmaster for the stupid and the uninterested, forgetting the education is for the clever. In order to make sure that a few men won't get through college without working, the English Department has degenerated to secondary school methods, and discouraged the able.