Blocked in Cow Grazing, Spencer Discusses New Courses in Writing

That the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory has the right to tether a cow in Cambridge Common was denied by Boylston Professor Spencer in an an interview with the CRIMSON yesterday. What's more he seems to be right, despite Time Magazine's quoting of the legend which was also quoted by the CRIMSON last Tuesday.

David W. Balley '21, Secretary to the Corporation, said last night that he had found no authenticity for the legend, though he admitted he had accepted it as "gospel" when an undergraduate. Bailey said that he had spoken to Clifford K. Shipton, Custodian of the University Archives who is editing Sibley's "Harvard Graduates," and Shipton has said there was nothing in the official records or in the terms under which the Boylston Chair was set up that would substantiate the bovine fable.

Less interested in cows than in his academic plans, Professor Spencer went on enthusiastically to predict an increased emphasis on "the Union between the study of literature and creative expression," revealing his plans to implement such an increase.

Envisions Writing Program

This coming fall he accordingly plans to revive English A-5, the advanced prose composition course, which has been previously given by former Boylston Professors Copeland and Hillyer. "English A-4, dealing with versification, will be continued," he announced, "with greater emphasis on the student's intense analysis of individual poems." He will also teach a course on Shakespeare.

"With the tremendous desire for guidance in writing which has been discovered among returning veterans," he went on to say, "the Boylston professorship should become a focus for building up such facilities." He envisions an integrated structure of composition courses, starting with English A-1, working through a middle group of courses, and through a middle group of courses, and culminating in English A-5.

"The middle group offers the most exciting possibilities," he emphasized. These would consist of course dealing with specific forms. Men who conduct them should be left free "to instruct on an individual basis rather thus by a predetermined curriculum." Appointees would ideally be men who have had experience both in teaching and writing.

The Briggs-Copeland instructorships, now given to promising writers, "should be expanded so that these men eventually may teach courses in the middle group." he added. "The high standard of ability which these men have embodied in the past would be just what we need in the future."