"English Composition"

English 22 is more than Harvard University exacting a thousand words a week from undergraduates who think they ought to write and are willing to pay $100 to be made to do so. For it not only exerts the usual critical influence upon whatever creative literature a Cross Section may happen to produce but also undertakes actually to inspire the Cross Section.

'By means of a unique collection of slides, taking all literature as its province, Mr. Hersey creates in his students a nostalgia for Old World traditions which attest European Man's brilliant history of Desire and Dreams. And nostalgia, is after all, the stuff of inspiration. The emotional compulsion of such titles as "The London of Dickens" and "Stevenson's Scotland" is second only to that of the slide lectures themselves.

Mr. Hersey is particularly well informed about the profession of creating literature, notably of scenario writing. Primary sources in the art of converting novels into plays, and plays into movies he has acquired in quantity from Hollywood, and uses them to illustrate subtleties in transition which give his listeners a unique insight into the technique of dramatic production both in the cinema and on the legitimate stage. His knowledge in this department is extremely up-to-date, especially in the matter of modern stage sets.

But Mr. Hersey's slides and his knowledge of the technique of modern drama are an inspiration not equal to the personality of Mr. Hersey himself. For Mr. Hersey in a personification of Old World grace and delicacy; of that refinement of thought and action which, as the product of an highly stable society, occurs only occasionally in history and then after centuries of struggle towards the artistic unity which was pre-War England.

Fine Arts 1c

"History of Ancient Art"

Fine Arts 1c, like other Fine Arts courses, is wholly factual. It consists entirely in memorizing slides and lecture notes. As the catalogue announces, it treats plastic art from the beginnings in Mesopotamia to the end of Ancient Times at the beginning of the Dark Ages. With Fine Arts 1d in the second half, it is the Harvard Course of concentrated culture for Casual Sophomores.

Fine Arts 1c is complete, and is efficiently and pleasantly conducted. The three lectures a week by Professor Chase are absorbing. Professor Chase has the faculty of classifying diverse facts and ideas so that they can be easily memorized. Not the least of the course's virtues is the Fogg lecture room, unquestionably the best lighted and ventilated place of study in the college, Mallinckrodt MB9 included.

Geography 1

"The Human Habitat"

An executive whimsy having ordained that Geography 1 may fulfill the science requirement, the course is much patronized by those to whom the rigours of an actual science would be distasteful. But it has rigours of its own, and the unorthodox will learn that a laboratory without labor is of all the creations of man the most weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable. The subject matter purports to deal with man and his habitat, but it soon develops into nothing more than a series of bald platitudes, reached by devious roads of deduction, a compendium of the laborious undeniable. The vocabulary is meretricious; the reading matter is not to be borne. All this is, of course, that outgrowth of the fact that economic geography is a science in the same sense that government is a science.

An imposition on the rather credulous, a vast and cumbrous monkeyshine surely there can be no course embalmed in any catalogue that is so very trivial, so sadly and wholly useless as this. Its lectures may be amusing and sometimes even instructive, but the laboratory is the exhalation that kills.

German 5

"German Prose and Poetry"

German 5 is dull and monotonous in presentation. Daily throughout the year the student prepares about eight pages in his book and translates only a few words in class. The alert can determine exactly when they are to be called upon, thus making it quite unnecessary to awaken for more than ten minutes each hour. The books read are for the most part intended for second or third year work in German and say so in the prefaces. As in preparatory school courses, the examinations are marked solely on the basis of literal translation of selected passages. The course will satisfy the student seeking to enlarge his vocabulary or the already well-versed German scholar who wants a "snap" courses, but a half year is enough for either.

Government 18

"International Government"

"Hamlet might suffer by the absence of the melancholy Dane, but the loss would be as nothing compared to that which Government 18 will suffer by the absence of Professor Bruce Hopper. Built on rather shifting ground and lacking satisfactory reading, the course has revolved almost entirely around the personality of the lecturer, and students have flocked to it in ever increasing numbers to hear one of Harvard's most fascinating speakers. But, this year Hopper is off hobnobbing with the "little brothers" of the Russian steppers and Government 18 is in the hands of others.

The League of Nations has been the focal point of the course, with attention devoted also to the principles of international intercourse, the World Court, the Economic and Disarmament Center