Language Change
A few days before the first semester ended, when the ground was bare and the Outing Clubbers wore long faces, the faculty gathered in the 1902 Room of Baker Library for one of its infrequent special meetings. Before it was a recommendation, already approved by the Faculty Council, that the language requirement for the Dartmouth A.B. degree be changed. After discussion, the proposal was adopted by the full faculty, as is necessary for any fundamental change in the educational policy of the College, and starting with the entering Class of 1954 next fall the new requirement will become effective.
The present foreign language requirement for the Bachelor's degree appears in the College catalogue as follows:
To secure the Bachelor's degree, a student must have completed satisfactorily in secondary school and college the equivalent of four years' work in one foreign language or a total of five years' work in two foreign languages. At least one year of foreign language must be taken and passed in college and any foreign language begun in college to satisfy the language requirements must be taken and passed for two years
This requirement has served for nearly 25 years, ever since the Class of 1929 entered college, but it has always contained the possibility of inequalities, such as its application in the case of the man presenting practically no foreign language credits for admission and in the case of the man presenting perhaps as much as eight years of study in two languages. The proposal was therefore made by the Humanities subcommittee of the Interdivisional Committee for Study of the Curriculum, which started delving into the whole problem three semesters ago, that this inequality be eliminated by establishing a qualitative test which would enable the student at any time to demonstrate his language proficiency and be certified as having fulfilled the language requirement. Along with this opportunity the student would still have the alternative of meeting the language requirement by passing courses of the requisite level.
Embodying these views, the new requirement states that to secure the Bachelor's degree "a student must have demonstrated the ability to read with understanding a representative passage in a foreign language." All entering freshmen will take a qualifying test, on the basis of which the department concerned may certify a man as having demonstrated that ability or as being required to take language courses in order to attain it. The student may take the qualifying test at the end of any semester and, if successful, be excused from further language study.
As recommended by the Humanities subcommittee, for an initial period of three years the language ability required will be approximately the equivalent of a grade of 600 on the College Entrance Examination Board language tests. It is the estimate of Prof. Clark W. Horton, Dartmouth's testing expert, that such a score will find about 15% of Dartmouth's entering freshmen excused from language study.
In the deliberations which led to the new requirement, the subcommittee came to one fundamental conclusion—that the chief value to be derived from foreign language study is "the ability to read the language with understanding." It was quick to admit that other values attach to language study, but neverriieless felt that the most realistic and measurable criterion, especially where "the great central core of students" are involved, is the practical one of reading ability. The faculty as a whole agreed with it, and freshmen entering Dartmouth next fall will find that the idea of proficiency tests has been extended still further for the benefit of those who already possess reading ability in a foreign language.
Royal C. Nemiah, Lawrence Professor of the Greek Language and Literature, served as chairman of the committee formulating the new requirement. Other committee members were Professors Francis L. Childs '06, James F. Cusick, Maurice Mandelbaum '29 and Robin Robinson '24.
