. . . . In its operation, the requirements of a major course of study produce an entirely different result. The case of English, the most popular subject for the major study, and the most striking example of disorganization, is worth consideration. A Freshman course takes the student over a few high spots in literature which include entirely distinct and separate introductions to Shakespeare, Carlyle, Ruskin and a few others, studied without reference to their relative importance or period. The student may at his option, follow this by a slightly more coherent Sophomore course in which he begins the process over again, landing on a few other high spots missed in the previous series of leaps and bounds.. But any time after his Freshman Year he may secure the additional eighteen required credit hours by taking several of the remaining two dozen of unrelated courses. Each may lead him into a detailed consideration of the lives of the minor bards of a narrowly limited period, although he has never received the background necessary to an intelligent appreciation of them.

Now it is interesting to know the state of Otway's health when he wrote The Orphan and the countless other minute facts such as might be required on a daily examination paper in many of our English courses. But art is long and life is short as several astute gentlemen have observed before out time, and such microscopic examinations of limited fields are quire meaningless to the large majority inadequately prepared for these courses. (Yale News).