Effect of War Varies In Language Fields

This is the eighth in a series of articles to conclude this week discussing the effects of the present war on the departments of concentration, their courses, enrollment, and Faculties.

Far Eastern Languages with its obvious intimacy with the world situation, stands as the most war-torn department of all the various language fields and English. The smaller departments have found that their cliques of faithful adherents will not desert them to the more warlike concentrations, and the larger have been able to adjust their programs and retain their usefulness and attractiveness.

With 267 concentrators listed last November, English is the second largest field in the College, only surpassed by Government. Because of their very nature the courses in English have not been altered in content or number, but have simply seen internal shiftings of emphasis, The fundamental courses, especially, will retain their ante-bellum form, but the department foresees the necessity of trimming its "topsails." One expected addition this summer, however, will be English 190b, Literature and Democracy, to be given by Faculty Instructor Harry Levin with Associate Professor Perry Miller this summer and Associate Professor Francis O. Matthiessen next winter.

English Loses Two

Only two junior members of the English Faculty have been lost to the war, but two more are expected to leave next month. Instead of replacing them, the senior members are increasing their teaching and tutorial burdens. The department only dropped six undergraduates at midyears, but more will be going as a result of the latest draft. Graduate students are expected to be even more severely hit.

Romance Languages, purely on a basis of the number of concentrators, is the second language field. Only two of its 87 concentrators of last fall have gone to the wars, but there has been a visible realignment of students within the field.

Enrollment in Spanish has jumped between 30 and 40 per cent; and, at the same time, Italian has fallen off sharply in a nation-wide reaction to world affairs. In tune with these adjustments, the department will offer intensive courses in Spanish, French, and Portuguese this summer. The Romance Faculty has lost several of its younger men but the permanent staff remains intact at the moment.

German Suffers Little

Contrary to what chauvinists might demand or expect, the German Department has suffered little because of the declaration of war. It has lost one concentrator of its 18 to the Army and another has simply left College, but there has been no sizable reduction in the more than 700 students who take courses in the department.

There has been also no reduction in the number of Faculty members since September, but the departure of several younger men to the draft army is now imminent. No course changes have resulted except for the addition of a section in Military German in German E and the predicted dropping next fall of a number of courses which will be given in the summer term.

Perhaps the war's logical oddity number one at Harvard is the sudden burgeoning of the Far Eastern Languages Department. Although it remains on the books a department with a single undergraduate concentrator, its total for the past two years, there has been an overwhelming increase in the students taking courses in the department.

Jap Course Attractive

Last year the department's 20 students were almost entirely graduates of whom 75 per cent are now gone. Undergraduates took little more than the Far Eastern history courses. Today, there are only four candidates for the Ph.D. degree while about 100 undergraduates are taking courses, twice as many as in the fall. Chief attraction is Japanese 6b, the intensive eight-hour a week course, which prepares men for intelligence work.

This rise in numbers has occurred despite the dropping of Chinese 11b, History of China, because of added burdens on the staff. The bracketing of this course reflects a recent shift of student interest from Chinese to Japanese, a trend which the department will attempt to fight with an intensive course in Cantonese and Pekinese this summer. The Faculty in the department has been increased with the addition of three assistants in February, while one left for Washington last fall. The annual Harvard-Yenching Fellowships, of which there are usually three or four each year, at present have been suspended.

In the four smaller language departments, the war has caused little change. Neither Semitic Languages nor Comparative Philology has suffered any alterations at all. Indic Philology, with its one concentrator and one Faculty member, has felt a decrease in course enrollment from 16 to 13 student because of a shift to intensive Japanese. The relatively new Celtic Department, founded in 1940, has felt no changes in its one-man staff and 20 students.