Esquire Reviewer Strikes at Theory Of Education at Harvard; Cites Book

Using two recent books written by University professors as bad and good examples of the teaching he would like, Charles Rutherford, not listed in any catalogue although he states that he attended the University, book reviewer for Esquire, strikes at the educational system used here in the current issue of the magazine.

"The Sun at Noon" by Kenneth B. Murdock, professor of English and Master of Leverett House, is cited in the article as an example of the teaching of past events and obscure personages, while "The New Deal in Action, 1932-1938," by Arthur M. Schlesinger, professor of History, is mentioned as dealing with "the sunshine and shadow of today" rather than with the remote "sun-at-noon stuff."

"How his book brings back Professor Murdock," says Rutherford, "devoting three hours to a couple of eighteenth century unknowns and barely sparing fifteen or twenty minutes apiece for the dregs of American literature: Dreiser, Anderson, O'Neill, Edgar Lee Masters.

"How it brings back dear old Harvard, a school from which I learned less than I did from Metropolitan Business College."

Rutherford suggests that instead of research courses in the happenings of former centuries, students study the workings of the W.P.A. and that instead of "being nauseated by the Mathers, both increase and Cotton, they might be stirred up over John Dos Passes' reports of the living American scene."

As example of a Harvard professor of Economics, when he does not name, is given as having refused to explain the contemporaneous situation to his class on the day of the banking crash of 1933.