As the concentrator in English nears his graduation, that time when Harvard ceases to be a teacher and becomes a dues-collecting unit of freemasonry, he will step out into the world tolerably well-acquainted with Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dryden, Tennyson and other literary worthies. He may even know the encyclopaedic facts concerning the French Romanticists of the gaslit era and the battlefields of the Sturm und Drang may be an open book to him. But it is questionable whether or not he is sufficiently prepared to keep his calm in a world of raucous dust cover blurbs, eclectic modern poetry, and rumbling Broadway controversies. Had he been able, for example, as a senior, to supplement his thesis and tutorial stack-work with an intelligent course in modern literary trends and criticism he would probably never have to seek shelter in the almost religious regimen of the Book of the Month Club.

It is conceivable that such a course, covering modern theory in literature and drama, would attract chiefly those men who are well-read beyond the standards of Bible and Shakespeare courses, rather than those whose reading of twentieth century literature is more or less haphazard. This might be avoided by conducting the course less in the research spirit than is the present English 26. It would need a leader of no ordinary talents, a teacher who stands above the tight world of literary schools and who could cope with a chaos of names. He would have to survey a fairly ordered system of well-known names, such as Conrad, Galsworthy, D. H. Lawrence, and Bernard Shaw; and make order out of the conflicting ideas of the Eliots, the Masefields, the Sinclair Lewis's, and their French and German influences.

On the other hand, there would be some danger of the course becoming a superficial though civilizing holiday in the realm of the newer classics. It would be wise, on this account, to limit such a course to concentrators in English and a small quota from related fields, requiring occasional written critiques from the students. In this way a thorough and permanent course could be organized to combine the features of the now defunct course on English Critics and Critical Technique given by Professor I. A. Richards two years ago, and English 26 which Mr. T. S. Eliot is giving this year.