GEN. ED. Ahf REVISITED

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I read with interest your proposal concerning the use of social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities papers for the present freshman course, General Education Ahf.

But the reason for having such a course should be examined. Surely you remember the days when a full course in creative writing was required of all newcomers? With the advent of General Education courses, English A has been squeezed out of the picture, but the basic need of first-year college students to practise "creative writing" (that writing done without research but as the product of one's imagination along lines suggested by experienced English instructors), still exists. It is a fact worthy of additional consideration.

A second factor, and one which I as a freshman appreciate far more than the hours spent re-copying or typing 600 word themes, is the excellent reading material offered. This reading is not only of an informative, analytical nature, valuable in itself, but also includes several note worthy critiques of trends in the English language. To top this off, like dessert after an interest-awakening banquet, seem to be a lively five weeks of selected poems of the English language, most of them quite short and to say the least, pithy. The prospect of that remarkable novel, referred to periodically by many college lecturers, 1984, also looms in the future.

The purpose of Gen. Ed. Ahf is not to learn how to write "purple prose," to "sling bull," or fill pages with a quota of words, but to strengthen the student's grasp of his native tongue, to smooth the wrinkles in his writing technique. In short, it is to do what no course in humanities, or even literature can be expected to do that is to offer the majority of those who will never darken the doors of Warren House the opportunity of improving their writing ability during the first two semesters at Harvard. Joseph M. Cronin '56