The English Department will recommend, rather than require, that concentrators take its new introductory course next year, even though a majority of the professors in 'English are understood to favor an outright requirement.
W. J. Bate '39, chairman of the Department, said last night that if the decision had come to a vote earlier this fall, English 10 would now be listed as required. But the Departmental staff was willing, he said, to yield to the preferences of the two men giving the course.
William Alfred and David D. Perkins '51, associate professors of English, will teach the course. Alfred said yesterday that "a course may go dead if people feel they have to take it." He felt the Department should wait a year to see if the concentrators were actually avoiding the course.
Bate admitted that "there are two schools of thought" in the Department on this matter and that the present measure was a compromise.
The decision only to recommend the course could still be reversed. But Bate said this was not likely, now that Alfred and Perkins have taken a stand.
Bate pointed out that because the Department objects to requiring any sort of course whatsoever, it voted down three weeks ago a proposal stipulating that all concentrators take a definite number of upper level survey courses, such as English 130, 140, or 150.
Bate Criticizes Hum 6
The English 10 reading list includes a brief sample of the literature from each of the important periods in literary history. The Department discontinued the course five years ago because it felt that Humanities 6 would be an adequate substitute.
Bate called this view a mistake, and said that "the students had been the ones to pay for it." He pointed out that over half of the concentrators have so little knowledge of literary history--which Hum 6 does not cover--that they are not properly prepared for their generals.
The return to English 10, together with a large increase in the number of upper-level surveys and a memorandum urging all tutors to recommend those courses to their tutees, constitute the Department's attempt to offset the current situation. Bate pointed out that at present many students know so little English literary history that they would be unable to name a single significant author or work in several important 50-year periods.
By reinstating English 10, the Department's normal introductory course, Bate hopes to expose students to a variety of literary periods as well as to perhaps even a dozen different professors. At present, he said, upperclassmen do not have an historical introduction to the field.
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