Famous Professors Awaken Adults In 'Cliffe Special Seminar Program

"Idea-hungry" middle-aged women can learn enough Greek in ten weeks to read Homer or participate in a 16-week course in how to read a newspaper through the Radcliffe Seminars.

"Ancient Greek with Readings" and "The Press and Public Issues" are among the eight discussion groups available in the 'Cliffe adult education program which recently concluded its second season.

The seminars were started last year to provide an intellectual challenge for women whose family responsibilities have lessened or who have arrived at a mental stalemate in their jobs, according to Mrs. Richard Borden '51 of Milton, director of the program.

Up to 79

Qualifications for admission are not strictly established and a college degree is not required. Sixty percent of the women enrolled in 1951-52 were between 40 and 50 years old, but ages ranged from 24 to 79. Seventy-nine percent had bachelor degrees from 21 different colleges and the same percentage were married.

Many of the faculty are professors with outstanding careers who have passed the retirement age, but still have much to contribute to their field of learning. Albert Guerard, former professor of comparative literature at Stanford University and father of professor Albert Guerard, Jr., conducted a seminar titled "A Century of French Culture," and "The Origin of American Political Institutions and Ideas," was led by Charles H. McIlwain.

Seminars, which meet in two-hour sessions once a week, are on a graduate level, taught by the discussion method, and based on outside reading. There are no examinations and no grades. At the completion of a seminar, a student has accomplished about the equivalent of a one term college course.