The end of English a moved closer yesterday with the announcement that University Professor I. A. Richards will teach an experimental General Education course next year that may eventually replace English A for filling the freshman composition requirement.

The course, General Education A, will be given as a half course both semesters next year and will be open to 150 Harvard men and 50 Radcliffe girls each term, Students may take the course in place of a half year of English A.

Richard's course will probably be expanded to a full year, if it replaces English A.

Richards will try to integrate the teaching of composition with the theories behind General Education. The relationships of the Humanities, Natural Sciences, and the Social Sciences to each other will be considered in the course.

The course will be given partly in lectures with discussion groups, headed by assistants, also meeting to help students with the themes they write. Richard P. Wilbur, newly-appointed Briggs Copland Assistant Professor of English Composition, has been named as the first of the assistants in the course.

Cross Section Wanted

A cross section of the Class of 1954 will be admitted to the course so that the administration may see whether the course should replace English A. The Committee on General Education recommended that the old English A course be replaced with a new non-credit one that was integrated with G.E.

Twenty-five percent of next year's freshmen will again be exempted from their composition requirement by passing an anticipatory examination, Theodore Morrison '23, director of English A. reported. The same percentage was excused this year.

Richard will attempt to have his students participate in the lectures through a discussion of written themes in the class. As in English A, students will be excused from the second semester of their composition requirement by getting an A in the first half.

Students who take English A the fall semester may take General Education A in the spring if they do not gain exemption.

The course was accepted by the Committee of the Composition Requirement, headed by Samuel H. Beer, associate professor of Government. If this experiment is not successful, some other course may be introduced to replace English A, Beer said last night.