Mumbling, Grumbling ...

Lists of irregular verbs rarely stimulate either teachers or students. Yet, in order to restrict the fellowship of educated men to those acquainted with a foreign language, Harvard must require students to take a large number of arid courses which deal with little more than verbs, syntax, and whatnot.

Ideally, secondary schools should supply enough preparation to enable a student to pass a college language requirement. If such were the case, Harvard could teach basic courses only for those with a specific interest in learning a new language. But the gap between what secondary schools do, and what they should do presents a major engineering problem.

The College language problem could of course be solved by making a minimal language proficiency a prerequisite to admission. Such a solution would, however, close the University to graduates from the schools which are unable, because of faculty or funds, to offer sufficient language training. At the other pole, is the college which advises "all the preparation possible" and at the same time assures the prospective student that he can easily meet the requirement in college. Harvard tends toward the latter extreme.

Because three years of language study in high school are generally necessary to pass Harvard's requirement, the University should say so explicitly. And admissions office information should make clear that the student who must pass the requirement in college often has to forego taking more stimulating and valuable courses. At present, the admissions office only advises as much language training as possible, and says nothing about the inconvenience of meeting the requirement in college.

Making minor changes in admissions data is clearly no panacea to the language instruction problem in secondary schools. In some schools, nevertheless, the changes might have the effect of producing better counselling in language study. In addition, a more complete statement might induce some students to do individual study or to seek outside instruction.

The number of students immediately affected by such a change would, no doubt, be small. Nevertheless, it is the colleges which ultimately must set the standards for lower education. If high schools are led to believe that the colleges will take care of language instruction, that is exactly what they will have to do. The impetus to raise standards must come from the top.