Behind the Times

Still out of step with the University's current efforts to set the stage for a curriculum generally practical in wartime are the narrowly limited language requirements set for graduation from College. With our new allies have come major shifts in the importance of languages once classed as secondary; and yet men entering Harvard are still faced with the meager choice of meeting intermediate standards in either French or German.

The large portion of each class that fails to pass the preliminaries in either of the two is then forced to take elementary or intermediate courses in one of them regardless of individual leanings in other linguistic fields. Today, when the value of German and French is no greater than that of Spanish or Russian from the diplomatic and military stand-point, the College should place equal emphasis on at least four major languages, if for no other reason, simply to gear its machinery in one more way to the demands of wartime education. Were the limits thus expanded, a student, upon failing to satisfy the requirement, would have twice as wide a choice; and for that minority wishing to concentrate in Russian or Spanish there would be no preliminary detours. The barriers caused by such detours deserve more consideration now than ever before, because of the increased number of required courses that limit the curriculum of the average man who is either enrolled in, or preparing for, some branch of reserve training. To leave such barriers untouched now is at the very least impractical.

The necessity and importance of a language requirement is not being questioned. Its value has, if anything, increased along with that of the sciences. But preserving accepted pre-war limits in language requirement is to sacrifice expediency for traditional academic prestige. This prestige has already met large compromises under emergency conditions, and it must continue to until the needs of the present are met.