REQUIREMENTS IN LANGUAGES BRING STUDENT ATTACK

That student opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of a reform in the language requirements and demands greater freedom of choice for the individual has been convincingly proved by the first replies to the Student Council's Language Questionnaire. Two hundred questionnaires have been returned to the Council's special committee, of which Arthur S. Pier, Jr. '35 is chairman, and of these a great majority express dissatisfaction with the prevailing system and in particular urge entire abolition of the elementary requirement.

Most of the men questioned admitted that they had derived some benefit from their elementary language courses, but said that such primary work had interfered with more important studies to an extent which showed that a modern university is no place for such purely basic material. It was suggested that the elementary rule should be met before admission to College. Both German A and French 2, the most popular of such courses, were severely criticized in the replies.

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A large group of those answering the questionnaire, besides desiring to abolish elementary rules, asked for a further liberalization to permit a free choice of a reading knowledge in any two languages as the means of satisfying the regulations. Most rated modern languages as more important than Latin and Greek, and quite a few were indignant at the present position assigned to Spanish and Italian.

These questionnaires were sent out a week ago by Pier's committee to 379 students selected on a proportionate basis from the rank lists of the three upper classes, and in the case of the Freshmen chosen at random. The nature of the replies has convinced the Student Council that most of the men solicited have been reasonably imparcial in their judgement and that there is little or no connection between specific men's positions on the rank list and their opinions of the language system.