English 1

The difference between English 1 and Comp. Lit. 42a and 42b is, for the average honors candidate in English, inconsequential. The latter discusses pre-Shakespearean literature, devoting two or three weeks to Chaucer. The former spends most of its time on Chaucer, with detail of his grammar and allusion, and adds about a month (Fridays during the second half) for reviewing other Middle English writers. Although required only for honors candidates, either of the courses presumably gives enough information for an answer to the first Divisional question. For this reason, both are large courses.

During the last few years, the two courses have tended to cover more and more of each other's material. This seems unnecessary. The detailed analysis of Chaucer's works, with its inevitably pedantic point of view, is at present as uninteresting to the lecturer as to the handful of students present, from whom he can rarely extract the slightest evidence of vigor. If the course is ever to be satisfactory to any concerned, the distinction between English 1 and Comp. Lit. 42 must be clearly defined, with the former much reduced in size, and by some means exclusive of all those who are merely fulfilling a requirement.

English 2

English 2 is a course in Professor Kittredge. Its primary thesis is, to be sure, Shakespeare; but incidentally one learns, when Mr. Kittredge was born, how to handle a son, a good deal about the opposite sex, and the way to drink. Common knowledge as these subjects may be, the course is by no means easy. There is a peculiar way in which spot passages the student has never noticed before appear on the examinations. And A's are rare enough to be mentioned in the lectures.

The work of the course consists in learning the meanings, actual and supposed, of every word in six of Shakespeare's plays. By the time one is through with the course, he ought to know something about Elizabethan English. Some students actually do. Otherwise there is a good deal of memory work to be done, and without which, no matter how well a man does on the other material in the examination, he can get no higher than C. The emphasis is on small details, and if one doesn't like these minutiae, as Professor Kittredge suggests at the beginning of the year, he had better not take the course.

English 3a

For the student who contemplates graduate work in English or who plans to take 3b, Mr. Kittredge's course in Beowulf, 3a is indispensable. To complete one's study of Old English with it, however, is analogous to leaving Latin with Caesar. It is an elementary course concerned mainly with the reading of prose varied by the often delightful and always illuminating comments of Mr. Magoun. The grammar, one of the simplest, is covered at almost breakneck speed and the reading begun before the student has mastered more than the demonstrative paradigm and the representative strong verbs. That reading consists largely of selections from the chronicles, touchdowns and lives of the saints with an occasional smattering of verse. For the man interested in linguistics this course can be very fascinating since it will introduce him to that portion of our language which, though it represents surprisingly little of our contemporary vocabulary, is still its course and center. Little do we realize that in our conversation we are constantly using and repeating this Teutonic element of our speech in our commonest and homeliest words and phrases.

English 10a

Some acquaintance with the art of public speaking is, as Professor Packard says, almost necessary to every college graduate. Certainly it is a very valuable thing, and English 10a is the only course in the University which approaches the subject.

A great deal of attention is paid to the outlines for the five major speeches required in the half course, and this outline training will be found valuable in other work. The two sections of the class are as a rule small, numbering no more than a dozen or so men apiece, which enables a certain amount of purely informal discussion to be carried on. Naturally, confidence on the speaking stand is one of the most important assets gained. Some stress is also laid upon improving the quality of voices which are at all unpleasant.

Of course, the student in this class has to sit through a certain amount of boring talk, but occasionally some of it is worth-while or interesting. On the whole, this course well repays a half year's work; and it is unfortunate that there is not a supplementary course, counting for a degree, which might complete the work started in English 10a.

English 10b (1hf)

English 10-b stands unique as being the only course in the University which consciously attempts a practical study of the theatre and its requirements upon the actor. To a large extent, it is a workshop course. Its three sections a week are devoted to training the voice and seeking to obtain--with widely varying results--poise of body and ease of mind. The outside reading is interesting but of minor importance, and the reading period is partly devoted to the production of a one-act play by the members of the course. Especially suited to the desires of the student who wishes definite instruction concerning the business of the theatre as well as instruction in public speaking, the chief attraction of the course is the congenial atmosphere of informality with which it is conducted. More than a symbol of Professor Baker's vigorous sojourn at Harvard, English 10b stands as a healthy prophecy that the University will again, sometime, have a "live" department of the Drama.

English 12

English 12 is one of the best composition courses in college. It does not pretend to inspire great writers, nor is it able to make men writers at all. What it does do is to develop one's ability to write good prose and poetry. Professor Maynadier is a good sound critic who is not carried away by his own or anyone else's unfounded enthusiasms.

The course requires fifteen hundred words a week. There are no other restrictions so that the student is free to follow his own interests. If a man wishes to write poetry the requirement is considerably less. The course is recommended to any who wish to improve their writing and have their work soundly criticized.

English 22

English 22 is unfortunately one of those composition courses whose slogan is "you get out of this what you put in." The rudiments of literary creation are not induced into raw Freshmen and Sophomores by a brief judgment scrawled below the mark on the back of a weekly theme, nor even in the tri-weekly 20-minute conference. In these conferences, as in the readings of themes during the lectures hours, the criticism is mostly on the subject matter and plot, and little on the technique of the writer. This is satisfactory for students aiming at earning a living writing short stories for the Saturday Evening Post, but it will not breed mature and polished writers. On the whole the standard of work produced in this course is much lower than in English 31 and other more critical courses.

But then, English 22 is closely descended from English A-2, and so from English A, and students are not only required to keep the principles of literacy close in mind, but they also attend Mr. Hersey's charming lectures on Dickens' London, and Stevenson's Scotland, which are suitable for breaking school-boys into literary consciousness. Mr. Hersey lectures largely to 12-year olds, and despite the fact that his criticism is not intense enough, the course affords an easy, and uncompetitive opportunity for future business men to play at writing