EDITORS DAILY CRIMSON:- Gentlemen: No one can realise more fully than I that there is great difficulty in making really helpful criticisms of student's themes. At the same time I think that the instructors in English B might come a little nearer getting over this difficulty than they do. It would be less exasperating if the instructor would not say anything about a theme unless he had something to say. As it is, one very often finds a line or two of criticism so indefinite as to give one absolutely no idea whether the theme be poor. indifferent, or good. An acquaintance of mine recently found this comment as what was meant for a description: "Regarded as a chapter this shows skill. It reminds me of a passage in Kidnapped." Now it happened that my illiterate friend had merely "skimmed" Kidnapped two years before. What did the criticism tell him? Even if he had read Kidnapped how was he to know whether his theme seemed to the instructor a feeble imitation or a dangerous rival of Mr. Stevenson? And certainly the comment told absolutely nothing about the theme regarded as a description.

I venture to suggest that B or C written at the end of a theme would tell one a good deal more than most of the criticisms which one now finds there. If his themes were marked one would have a definite notion of the value of his work-a notion which he certainly cannot get from "This shows care" or "Literary promise." Of course there are drawbacks to my plan, but I offer it as an improvement, not as an ideal.

Then it seems to me that it would be better for a student to see the corrections of his first narrative or criticism before trying to write a second.

All this I say with full recognition of the "hideousness, the immense ennui" of life passed in correcting themes. I should also like to say, without presumption, if possible, that the comments of one of our instructors leave little to be desired.