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To the Editor of the Crimson:

If the theory of Harvard College is to give a broad cultural education, it seems to me that a course in Fine Arts should be available. Ideally, its object would be to interest the student who is going to be a bank president in art, and enable him to make intelligent comments when visiting foreign art galleries on his honeymoon.

Students examining the course book find Fine Arts 1d, which is a half-year course covering the art of western Europe from Early Christian to modern. Also, there is Fine Arts 1c, which is a similar history of ancient art; and Fine Arts 1a, which cuts out our future bank president because it requires an ability to draw. To the student who wants a survey of European art, there is no selection but 1d.

Since this course used to extend over a full year, Professor Opdyke finds that he has a tremendous amount of ground to cover in a very short time. With this in mind he gives his lectures totally disregarding the fact that there are students trying to make notes of what he says. I dare say he will succeed in covering the ground. But he talks at such a rate that those who don't take notes even have trouble following, while those that do take notes face each lecture as a terrible ordeal. This, together with the relentless requirement of a certain number of prints which have to be indentified thoroughly, two minutes for each, in quizzes, makes the course thoroughly unattractive.

It is easy to criticise. But I think some improvement might be made. For example, if Professor Opdyke omitted from his lectures any topics adequately discussed in the reading, he might find that he had more time. And if the lectures dwelt on general characteristics and interrelations, with a few examples discussed at a rate of talk such that the student could look and take notes--why then the student would be interested in the course, and would seek illustrations of lecture material in the assigned reading.

Professor Post's Fine Arts 7b shows that this can be done. The course covers modern sculpture; but the introductory lectures so far have covered the sculpture of the Late Renaissance, the baroque, the rococo, and the Nco-classic periods, not at all completely, of course, but completely enough to give a general idea to the student and to interest him in the subject. And there are few lecturers who make it more pleasant to take notes than Professor Post. David R. Lit '38