Abolish 560

If there ever was a justification for a language requirement, Harvard's interpretation has long since undermined it. No one would dispute that there is a positive value to learning a foreign language--value not as a memory exercise, but as exposure, however tentative or potential, to another culture. Even a score of 800 on the college boards would not indicate this. The exam still does not include a listening-comprehension or speaking section. It tests only the basic vocabulary and rules of grammar, the kind of knowledge which, for Harvard's presently required 560, can be picked up in a year or two and forgotten even faster.

Everyone--students, language faculty, and administrators--know this. Now and then someone suggests the obvious: if there is some purpose to requiring a language, have a meaningful requirement.

But there are several factors which preclude such a solution. First, strong cases can be made for requiring other disciplines on the same grounds. The science departments, for instance, have long yearned for a universal Math 1 requirement. Math, after all, is "the language of science," and no one could say that Math 1 is any less valuable than French A. A stiffened language requirement would encourage such claims. Also, administrators, especially admissions people, dislike any talk of increased requirements, because they are afraid of detracting from Harvard's chief selling point--freedom from requirements.

It is therefore unlikely that Harvard will ever correct its farcical language requirement by making it more meaningful. There is another alternative which has not received enough attention--dropping the requirement altogether.

Since close to 90 per cent of Cliffies and over 60 per cent of Harvard freshman enter with a 560 or better, departmental resources are now geared to minimal training to an unwilling minority. Abolishing the requirement would not affect the majority at all. The study of languages is increasingly popular and Harvard's official brochures would continue to encourage prospective students to take languages in high school; statistics show that an impressive proportion (75 per cent) of those who pass the requirement voluntarily continue language study at Harvard.

This trend would continue in the absence of a requirement. At the same time, those who were not motivated to make even the minimal 560 in high school could spend their Harvard careers much more valuably in fields that interested them, and the language departments would no longer have to teach a captive audience.

Harvard's fear is that such a move would be interpreted as discouraging language teaching at all levels throughout the country, and this would be ill advised. Such concern sounds a bit egocentric and is probably unnecessary. No one ever seriously claimed that what was good for Harvard was good for the country. And abolishing the language requirement would be good for Harvard students and, so, good for Harvard.