SUGAR COATED LEARNING

Several courses in the University are conducted with an apparent in to popularize learning by sugar coating the material and by glossing over the difficult or technical aspects of the subject superficially. Most notable are the elementary courses designed for Freshmen, more especially courses like Geology 1 and Government 1.

This method of teaching has long been defended and is called humanizing knowledge teaching extension courses to background and is characteristic of correspondence courses and courses which give a mastery of English literature by spending fifteen minutes a day. The college student, however, is expected to have a sufficient amount of brains and intellectual interest to master a subject without resort to armchair talks" or popular lecturing. If the Freshman is not treated from the first as a mature individual, capable of accepting responsibility and is nurtured upon spoon-fod knowledge, he will soon find college work too much for him when he encounters a professor who has no consideration for his "immaturity."

This must not be construed as a defense of boring, technical lectures, for interesting lectures must always be the aim of all good teachers. Rather it is a criticism of the lax and unintellectual way in which many elementary courses are run. The subject matter of every course should be treated completely, profoundly, and without any attempt at sugar-coating or popularizing at the expense of intellectual understanding.