READING CLASS

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The instructors of the Reading Class (CRIMSON article Monday, November 14) share a concern about the popular fallacy that one either plays the game of "Examsmanship" or acquires "real learning." We are, of course, opposed to superficially, but we find that the term "real learning" when used in this dichotomy frequently refers to a kind of thoroughness lacking perspective and control.

In the Reading Class we therefore devote some time to the way in which an examination question, when it is a good one, demands the exercise of learning with perspective and with relevance to an intellectual issue. Within this framework we turn to those procedures in reading through which relevant learning may best be achieved.

In view of this effort in the course, I am at a loss to understand how your reporter could quote me as having characterized the Reading Class as a course in "examsmanship." The Examsman, pure type, is naturally free to derive what hints he can from our consideration of the writing of essays, but we imagine that the scheduling of the class at such unholy hours as 8 a.m. may discourage his too regular attendance. John W. Wideman