A second student disagrees with him violently. He says he has obtained a tremendous lot out of his three years with the department, and especially praises the student-instructor relationship:

"In what other department could you get full professors or associate professors to tutor you and teach you as individually as they do," he says.

Another student takes a middle ground. He thinks the close supervision may be good for some people, but it's too close for him. He calls the weekly tutorial for honors candidates (bI-weekly for non-honors) a "little to much of a good thing".

A fourth man sides with him cu-tutorial, but otherwise thinks the department excellent, and vastly underrated by other students in the College:

"There just aren't enough students to exploit the great faculty we have," he says.

Starck thinks, though, that his faculty has suffered this year from the death last June of Karl Vietor, one-time world authority on Goethe, German literary romanticism, and the German baroque period. Starck predicts though that Vietor's successor, whom he'll announce shortly, should bring the department up to strength again.

Another comment of Starck's is that German in common with other languages has passed the post-war low in student concentration. He points encouragingly to the seven juniors he's training now, as compared to his solitary senior.

Government

Number of Concentrators: 596.

1951 Commencement Honors: cum, 44; magna, 20; summa, 0.

Grind or dilettante, any student feels at home in the Government department; how hard a concentrator works almost entirely depends on which course he tackles.

The offerings range from the very difficult to the superficially easy -- from Robert G. McCloskey's "American Constitutional Development" (124) to Bruce Hopper's "Russia and Asia in World Politics" (186). Concentration in this field can mean endless free weekends, or it can entail much midnight-oil burning.

Although by no means a "white buck haven"--about 40 percent are honors men--this has become the most popular field in the College. As Departmental Chairman Rupert Emerson said recently, "For some obscure reason it has become fashionable in recent years to concentrate in Government."

The department, which corresponds to what other instiutions call Political Science, divides itself into three areas: American, International Government, and Political Theory.

Concentrators must complete eight half courses in Government, Economics 1 or Social Science 115, and two half History courses (or one full one.) Two May written examinations are required of all--a three-hour general departmental exam, and a four-hour divisional in the area selected. Honors candidates have a thesis added, but have wide range of topics.