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En Garde, whole no. 17, April 1946
Page 32
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page 32. facade. He was a man unsure of himself, who compensated in a variety of ways--the most common being the development of a personality quirk like the man who thought he was Samuel Johnson, or else through identification with the students (fraternity activities, fooling around the football field as a "fan", and such things). His chief interests in life were usually his lodge membership (most often in either a Masonic order or in the Knights of Columbus), his activity in local business men's groups such as the Kiwanis, and his garden or golfing or both. The professor who led as intellectual a life as is led by the average FAPA member was a definite rarity. The associate professors and instructors were cut from the same bolt of cloth, the only difference being that they weren't as old, and didn't have as many degrees. The deans, as a rule, were men picked for their executive ability, and probably had as much talent along that line as is possessed by most lead men in most machine shops. They had as a rule even less scholastic and cultural attainments than the professors, since they were less frequently compelled to go through the motions of teaching a class. Even had the faculty had been competant, the curriculum at Blank was largely a waste of time, and the inability of most instructors did not improve matters at all. Though the University requires certain high school subjects as prerequisites (so many units of physics, so many of chemistry, so many of language, and so on) I did not take a single beginning course which did not spend from nine weeks to a year duplicating material that I had had in high school, provided it was a subject I had taken in a high school at all. The high school graduate might as well have spent his time reading WEIRD TALES, since he was forced to duplicate his high school course at college before getting into college subject.s I'd estimate that 20% of my class time at Blank was spent in unnecessary duplications of one kind or another. After the would-be student get into actual college work, he usually finds himself actively hampered by the faculty, and very seldon helped by any of them. In four long godawful years, I did not have a single semester in which I did not have at least one (and more often two or three) lecture courses in which the instructor confined himself either to reading directly out of our text or to delivering an inept paraphrase of it. Since I learned how to read when I was five years old, I might just as well have stayed home. Scarcely any of the elementary science laboratories seemed designed to give the students a workable layman's knowledge of the field in question. As a rule the emphasis seemed to be on making laboratory technicians---which of course is correct procedure if the subject is one which the student intends to take up deeply, but certainly is not applicable to one who will never in his life do laboratory work. The language classes seemed aimed largely at teaching stupid conversational phrases and dubious grammer, instead of giving the student a passable ability at reading, which would be a real tool for most of them.
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page 32. facade. He was a man unsure of himself, who compensated in a variety of ways--the most common being the development of a personality quirk like the man who thought he was Samuel Johnson, or else through identification with the students (fraternity activities, fooling around the football field as a "fan", and such things). His chief interests in life were usually his lodge membership (most often in either a Masonic order or in the Knights of Columbus), his activity in local business men's groups such as the Kiwanis, and his garden or golfing or both. The professor who led as intellectual a life as is led by the average FAPA member was a definite rarity. The associate professors and instructors were cut from the same bolt of cloth, the only difference being that they weren't as old, and didn't have as many degrees. The deans, as a rule, were men picked for their executive ability, and probably had as much talent along that line as is possessed by most lead men in most machine shops. They had as a rule even less scholastic and cultural attainments than the professors, since they were less frequently compelled to go through the motions of teaching a class. Even had the faculty had been competant, the curriculum at Blank was largely a waste of time, and the inability of most instructors did not improve matters at all. Though the University requires certain high school subjects as prerequisites (so many units of physics, so many of chemistry, so many of language, and so on) I did not take a single beginning course which did not spend from nine weeks to a year duplicating material that I had had in high school, provided it was a subject I had taken in a high school at all. The high school graduate might as well have spent his time reading WEIRD TALES, since he was forced to duplicate his high school course at college before getting into college subject.s I'd estimate that 20% of my class time at Blank was spent in unnecessary duplications of one kind or another. After the would-be student get into actual college work, he usually finds himself actively hampered by the faculty, and very seldon helped by any of them. In four long godawful years, I did not have a single semester in which I did not have at least one (and more often two or three) lecture courses in which the instructor confined himself either to reading directly out of our text or to delivering an inept paraphrase of it. Since I learned how to read when I was five years old, I might just as well have stayed home. Scarcely any of the elementary science laboratories seemed designed to give the students a workable layman's knowledge of the field in question. As a rule the emphasis seemed to be on making laboratory technicians---which of course is correct procedure if the subject is one which the student intends to take up deeply, but certainly is not applicable to one who will never in his life do laboratory work. The language classes seemed aimed largely at teaching stupid conversational phrases and dubious grammer, instead of giving the student a passable ability at reading, which would be a real tool for most of them.
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