To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I have read with interest and with a certain reminiscent sympathy your editorial of April 28 on the new requirements for graduation in Ancient and Modern Languages. The bewilderment to which you refer is, I think, due to two causes; first, to a misunderstanding of the plan as outlined in the pamphlet; second, to the fact that it has been impossible to publish before now the specimen examination papers which (it is hoped) will go far to clear up that misunderstanding.

The central purpose of the plan is to get certain great books, or parts of great books, read for their own sake--not read about, or lectured about, or crammed for the information that is in them. No body, to be sure, is forbidded to take a course which includes the reading of the Bible, or Shakspere, or the two required authors, if he wants to read them in that way. But the thing which is really offered is exactly the thing for which there has been a persistent demand of late--the opportunity to read independently of courses. And the editorial suggestion that a new course be established, with its tacit assumption that the talk of professors about books is a sine quanon to the intelligent reading of the books themselves, is the strongest evidence possible that the new plan has not come too soon.

The specimen papers in the Bible, Shakspere, and the ancient and modern authors will be available within the next few days. They have been prepared in order to show at once the sort of reading which is intended. It will be seen that there are no questions which cannot be answered from the thoughtful reading of the specified works themselves. Not a single book about books or authors is required. A list of convenient works of reference is given in the pamphlet for anybody who wants to use them. But it is expressly stated at the head of the list that these works of reference "do not constitute a part of the requirement."

The Divisions mean exactly what they say in the pamphlet; "the primary object of the plan is not to exact performance of a task, but to assist in the formation of a habit--the habit of reading good literature."

I am writing on behalf of the Committee which has had in charge the working out of the details of the plan, and I think I can promise that an opportunity will in some way be given, after the specimen papers are out, for the asking of any questions whatsoever about matters which may still be not quite clear.  JOHN L. LOWES.

May 5, 1921