421 3rd st.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
2nd July/35

Dear Pound:

Was interested, & of course pleased, with your decision
concerning this year's Hopwood awards; but was more inter-
ested in your brief comments in your letter to Jones: some-
to the effect that if "violently educated" I might be ready
by next year for a major award. I suppose it's to do with
education in social & economic awareness, but would like to
hear more since I believe I have a sincere interest, tho
obviously at a pretty low level of apprenticeship, in verse.
If worthy of a reply, am also sending along the latest pre-
sentable poem I've done, for purposes of comparison, believing
that it show some progress in awareness.

Expect you were pretty disgusted with the stuff submitted;
poetic activity certainly at a low level in the university.
In fact suppose Wilson is the only one who's deserved the
prize he won at all. & I suppose it was disheartening to
see how little all your work has sunk in, but then you are
still considered a menace by the faculty.

Things so stuck
up, that while I'm at the university (& am going back next
year to take graduate work & attempt to get a major) I've
taken refuge in the Middle Ages. Have gotten it fixed up
so I don't have to be bitched in philology, & can go on
reading in Chaucer, Dante, & old french.

Meanwhile, in some measure to attempt to become aware of
waht's going on, am doing necesary reading in Marxism, etc.
that I've neglected. But perhaps even more valuable, am
spending 6 weeks this summer with Wilson in Woodstock, mak-
ing some effort to rid myself of the academic stink that's
gathered about from the university.

But the attempt to force any sort of awareness on my work
has shelved me lately, & I haven't succeeded in getting
anything done recently; so would appreciate it, if you
think it worth it, to hear what you have to say.

where was it said
that one word
that triumphed over dead?

by ever-widening last,
the skyscraper story on story,
that elongated burrow
the subway

fast
yields what once was forgotten:
home to dutiful wives
then back to the office where
back to the factory where
work accumulates dutiful lives.

long approaching,
the last no longer accomodates;
bursting as subway at quitting-hour
rising

story on story
is the birth, the coming-to-be,
over the knell of the passing-away.

deny
we no longer can deny
the ever-widened last,
the skyscraper story on story,
that elongated burrow
the subway

fast
yielding what's now begotten.

76 Avenue Road, Apt.2.

Toronto, Ontario

12-26-37

Dear Mr. Pound:

In talking with M. Gilson this fall, while he was
here at the Institute of Mediaeval Studies, I learned
of your communication of some years ago to him in regard
to Dino del Garbo's commentary on the *Donna mi prega*.
And as I am doing work in philosophy and literature he
handed the thing over to me, with result, however inad-
vertently, that your work is beginning to satisfy the
requirements of aspiring Ph.D.'s.

I shall make an edition of the commentary with all
the necessary critical apparatus, placing the ideas in
their Scholastic and Arabian background and all such that
will be necessary for its explication, with the intent
of stating to what extent Dino has determined at least
one reading of the poem. In some ways it may be a pedes-
trian task, but then again it may be valuable for indi-
cating with some precision what it is that Cavalcanti
is writing about.

At any rate I thought it only right to inform you,
since I am using your mss. and working over a poem which
I know is dear to your heart; as well as to express my
desire for any suggestions you may have to offer.

Otto Bird

If you' ( in parenthesis ) have any PO EMS / send 'em to TOWNSHA

Montgomery Butchart, co/ G.Wright Inc.

57 Museum St. London W.C.I

saying I asked you to do so. They are out for quality not
quantity/ and cd/ I think use you. If they don't go bust they c
also print brief resume of yr/ beliefs re/ the del Garbe//
if and/or when you have any.

//

WHICH reading are you dealing with ? The one I fuss over or
another one ?

Send me anything you like up to 20 pages / better yr/
ideas on two or three sheets/ unless I ask for
further light on partic/ points.

Young Paul GOLBY is working on R/pies/tartrallology . You might
also connect with him/ his opinions cd. enrich a thesis
and concentrate our fire.

I don't find his address at moment/ but you cd/ get him via Criteria:
( my name as introd/ ) IF letter via Criterion don't reach him
I will indeterminate his ubiquity/

The edition of the commentary shd/ OF COURSE include reprod of
the photos// If that isn't cheap enough in Canada ; try
Ullman and co/ ( Manuldruck, Zwickau )

also my name as introd//

I shd/ think the Italian version shd/ ALSO be included.

Plus deciphered or still better DIPLOMATIC printing of the text
with ALL the abbreviations.

and an english version with notes.

Wjat about yr/ passing thru Rapallo, if various books not in
local library//

There was a bloody gt/ sprawlin edtn/ of commentaries

Gardo/ Celenna/ Rossi/ in parallel cols/ don't seem to be in book case
and forget name of editor// might trace it if you don't.

You do NOT want it till the END of yr/ studies, as it
is more confusing than otherwise AND NOT pertinent to del Garbe

/ good thesis wd/ deal with GARBO, a thorough job on THAT

wd/ be more use than a wallow in the wake of whoever it was
did the cloppy correlation of G/ with the others/

adding, as I remember it,

NO light.

My preference is for Avicenna// BUT the EARLY printed editions
are more like to retain traces of what the XIII century
though Avic/ meant

than are modern ones ( or O.E..

wasn't so, how's your arAAAalik ??

we can use a arAAAbiKor .

Bunt'n gone off on Persian .. but
don't seem to do anything but Firdusi; whom he cant put into
English that is of any INTEREST/

more fault of subject matter
than of anything else in isolation.

and so forth.

12 Jan

Dear Bird

If you are still pluggin at that thesis, I think
you will find a good deal of interest in J.Scotus Erigena/
vol I22 of Migne.

No use my bothering you with partic/ refs/ until I know
what you are doing. Also one ought to read the whole thing
esp/ the commentary of the pseudo Dionysus. So far I don't
find the text backs up various statements I have read
ABOUT Erigena. I want corroborations on various points.

Often a hurried reading fails to find a "denegat"
at the end of passage. A lot of nice idea start in one's own
head that can't be attributed to J.S.B.

Another point in ALL study of Patrologia and mediaeval
philes. or rather a whole system of examination is WANTED.

I suggest you will write interestingly if you start sorting
out the elements as to source or probable source; and suggest
FOUR categories.

E. European ( say greek )

HHAHAHAHAHH
roman

jewish

and north European, Scotus, Urosseteste, Albertus de la Magna
etc.

My present feeling is that ALL biblical influence
is merely rotten so far as the thought is concerned.

Very probably a exaggerate. But justice and measure are Roman
The admirable tradition may start with Ambrose and last to
Antonine. The greek is fine. The European good.

My time is consumed in trying to improve my own education, to educate
my educators, preparing and then trying to educate my students after I have
succeeded in enticing them into my program. I now have some 95 divided
into the first 2 years of the program. I did manage to get Descartes'
Geometry translated this summer, or at least those parts of it I want to
try to use during the 1st semester of the 2nd year. Apart from its
mathematical value, I hope it will prove invaluable in comprehending,
pacing, and judging the worth of Descartes' work. The book is also
very difficult, intentionally so, and it should prove useful as an
exercise in reading. The hardest thing with students is to get them
to realize that they can't really read, and it often proves shorter in
the long run to get them to work on a difficult work, which they will
admit to begin with that they cannot understand. The task then becomes
the pleasanter one of showing them that they really can understand much
more than they realize if they only go about it in the right way.

The Square & Fenollosa will be most useful when we are doing
Poetic & Grammar during the 3rd & 4th years of the Program. The Bookstore
situation here is not good. The College store actually orders little
except what is specifically ordered for class work, which is mostly the
usual sort of text book. At least a little life has come with the books
my boys get, but, as you know, there is little extraordinary about that.

Yrs.

# The Bold Innovation

## General Program of Liberal Education
Has Analysis of Great Books as Core

Text by Al LaPorte, '54
Photos by Hal Munger, '51

ON Sept. 14 of last year Notre Dame's College of Arts and Letters gave birth to a new program of studies. On that date some 50 incoming Freshmen and five faculty members of the A. B. school began digging their way through the General Program of Liberal Education.

The General Program—an academic “GP”—has been the ideal of liberal educators for so many years. It is an ideal which, once upon a time, was standard operational procedure for all institutions, it then being the only accepted way to offer and receive an education. But an era of specialization set in, even to learning, cutting down the academic horizons and putting definite limitations on what should be studied. Still the graduate of a Liberal Arts college is labeled an “educated man,” a “cultured fellow,” though he has only a smattering of the broad scope of liberal education and has spent half of his college career confining himself to the study of economics, politics or sociology.

> "In any study or investigation, the humblest and noblest alike, there seem to be two ways in which a person can be competent: He may have either what can rightly be called a scientific knowledge of it and, therefore, be able to judge correctly which parts of an exposition are satisfactory and which are not. This, in fact, is the sort of person we take the man of general education to be, and to be educated is to be able to do this. In this case, however, we expect to find in the one individual the ability to judge of almost all subjects, whereas in the other case the ability is confined to some special science; for of course it is possible to have this ability in one field of knowledge without having it in all."—Aristotle, De Partibus Animalium.

Now the pendulum is starting back over its old path, returning to its origin in the General Program. Certain European institutions have long stressed the broad, cultural learning and a few American schools have waded in the pond. But, with the exception of the University of Chicago, St. John's College in Annapolis, and a few other daring centers, no one has really taken the plunge on a large scale. Last Septem-

ber Notre Dame tested the water. She is still standing only ankle-deep, but neither a Rome nor a reform in educational methods and aims is built in a day.

SCHOLASTIC, in taking a look-see at the General Program, is not attempting to judge it. We realize that the Program has not had sufficient time to work out its bugs, to get the kinks ironed out. Less than a year has elapsed since its inauguration and, though the decision to keep it going has to be made on this one year performance, we are hardly competent or foolhardy enough to make any statements along the lines of valued judgments.

We do, however, think it within our capacity to present a picture of what is going on within the Program. Admittedly this picture cannot be complete, due to the limitations in space and this writer's powers of expression, but most of all due to his limited knowledge of the subject. We ask that SCHOLASTIC's readers bear this in mind and hope that all concerned will be satisfied with our treatment of the baby in Notre Dame's educational family.

### Great Books the Core

In the public's eye, the General Program and Great Books movement are one and the same. The association is understandable when it is remembered that Chicago's Mortimer Adler and Notre Dame's Father John Cavanaugh have been guiding lights in both fields. But there is a difference, as both educators will be quick to point out.

Great books—classics—do constitute the core of the Program, and the Program has a reading list of almost 200 different books for the four-year course, books ranging from the Bible, Homer

DR. BIRD helps class with a classic

A SEMINAR CLASS under Dr. R. Thompson includes the first men to try program.

14

The Scholastic

Notre Dame Is Scene
of Regional Congress

As the scene of the Eighth Fort Wayne Regional Congress last week end, Notre Dame played host to more than 150 delegates from the six other regional colleges.

Rev. Joseph A. Kehoe, c.s.c., vice-president in charge of student affairs, welcomed the visiting students at the first plenary session Saturday afternoon. In stressing the importance of the National Federation of Catholic College Students in this country today, Father Kehoe stated, "I have every confidence that the enthusiasm shown here will bring nothing but good results."

In the keynote address, Al DeCrane of Notre Dame explained the purpose of the congress. Miss Anna Marie Herold of the University of Munich told of the work of the NFCCS Overseas Service Program in aiding German students. The session was concluded by Regional President Jo Ann Madler.

Saturday evening, the delegates were guests at the Student Council's "Intercollegiate Swing" at the Palais Royale.

After their panel sessions Sunday morning, the Press, International Relations, Family Life, Science, and Apostolic Commissions presented their resolutions at the third plenary session that afternoon.

One of the most significant congress acts was a resolution of regional support for Notre Dame's bid, through the campus YCS, for the chairmanship of the National Catholic Action Commission. The bid will now be presented

at the National NFCCS Council meeting in Philadelphia April 20-22.

Before adjourning, the regional congress gave a vote of thanks to Notre Dame for the University's hospitality, and to the outgoing regional officers for their work during the past year.

John O'Connell, regional president-elect, was congress chairman.

BLUE CIRCLE APPLICANTS

Students wishing to apply for membership in the Blue Circle should send a letter of application to 159 Cavanaugh by April 28. The letter should include the student's qualifications, scholastic average, and disciplinary record.

NFCCS Delegates Name
O'Connell Region Prexy

John M. O'Connell, Sophomore class president and NFCCS junior delegate, was elected president of the Fort Wayne Region of the National Federation of Catholic College Students at the regional council meeting here Saturday morning. He defeated Jerry Weigers of Aquinas College, for the post.

O'Connell will assume his new duties at the next regional council meeting, to be held May 13 at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College.

Other new officers are Miss Terry Hisey of Saint Francis College, regional vice-president; Miss Claire Morrissey, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, secretary; and Weigers, who was acclaimed treasurer after receiving the only nomination for that position. Miss Cynthia Kelly of Saint Mary's College was nominated for both vice-president and secretary.

Placement News

Mr. William Dooley, director of the Placement Office, has announced additional job interviews for next week.

On Monday, Mr. James C. Young of Firestone Tire and Rubber Co., will interview sales prospects. Mr. Joseph Abbott of Federal Radio, Telephone and Telegraph will interview M.S. and B.S. Electrical Engineers and M.S. and B.S. Physics majors. A representative of the Socony Vacuum Oil Co., East Chicago, will interview B.S. and M.S. Chemical Engineers.

On Tuesday, Mr. E. G. Henderson of U. S. Steel, Pittsburgh, will interview Accounting majors. Mr. L. E. Grundeman of Commonwealth Associates Inc., Jackson, Mich., will interview Engineering majors. A representative of the Dupont Co., Wilmington, Del., will see Civil, Chemical and Mechanical Engineers.

On Wednesday, U. S. Steel will interview all day. A General Electric representative will speak with Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, as well as Physics majors. The General Electric interviews will continue Thursday. On Wednesday and Thursday, a Krcger representative will interview sales and managerial prospects.

A representative of the G. R. Grace Shipping Lines of New York City will see Accounting majors and managerial prospects on Friday.

Those qualified for and interested in talking to these company representatives should sign up at once in the Placement Office. Company literature should be read in advance of the interview and is also available in the Placement Office.

NFCCS DELEGATES register attention at regional congress. Insert: Old and new presidents Miss Madler, John O'Connell.

Apr. 13, 1951

13

and Virgil to Newman, Marx and Freud. The emphasis, if it can properly be called such, in Notre Dame's program is on the Christian classics, though treatment is accorded worthwhile themes by many authors.

The difference between simply reading the Great Books and the way they are read in the General Program is that here they are used as a course of study, read with a definite plan and goal in mind, discussed not in a haphazard or here-and-there way, but methodically. They are studied with an eye first, to develop the art of reading appreciatively, analytically and critically. The works are read for content, critically, are analyzed and discussed through the use of the Seminar. But they are also read slowly, getting away from the lump and down to its constituent parts, picking apart not just paragraphs but single words, following the ancients in their method of explication. This approach is the tutorial.

The purpose, then, of the General Program in its use of these books is to develop the art of reading, for this art includes the arts of the trivium: Grammar, for its apprehension of the object through verbal notations; Rhetoric, for interpretation; and Logic, for following the path of ideas. While this training in reading is going on the student cannot fail to absorb some of the meat, the cultural heritage which is on the printed page. This exposition could be termed a natural and intended result of the Program's first aim, and, therefore, becomes itself a purpose or goal.

That this course of studies is not offered in survey form follows from the general idea of education upon which both are based. The survey or continuous story treatment springs from the conception that it is the educator's role to cram his students with as much factual information as possible. The students are the passive recipient of their professor's labor, sitting quietly erect while he feeds them with a silver spoon. His method is that of the lecturer, bringing everything to his audience, requiring only that his listeners be receptive.

On the opposite side of the picture stands the General Program, basing its whole course of action on the philosophy that the student should take an active part in his own education, taking education in the literal sense of leading out, not jamming in. Instead of presenting the whole meal at once and trying to force down a platter full of food, the Program tosses one item at a time to the student, makes him work not just to save himself from drowning in a vat of wine but rather to earn a second drink from the goblet. "Blocks" of material are covered, but "gaps" are left

to the student to fill. He is no longer the quiet, passive recipient of a welter of facts but rather the eager, searching and very active participant in his own education.

## The College vs. The University

Critics of the General Program have fired blasts which, to a great extent have missed their mark completely. They have confused the role of the college with that of the university and, as a result, their shots are wild. It is not, essentially, the role of the college to provide means for specialized study. This task falls far more properly to the university, for it is the place of research, advanced knowledge and specialization. The college, on the other hand, exists to introduce the student to the liberal arts, to their skills and understandings, as Newman's * Idea of a University * states. Specialization does not properly belong to the college until after the student has been so introduced to the liberal arts. Here lies the reason for the General Program's existence.

To whom would such a course of studies appeal? Let's take a look at the men presently enrolled in the General Program. On the whole, they fall within the top 25% of their high school graduating classes. (Two of those answering SCHOLASTIC's questionnaire led their classes). Their scholastic aptitude, as measured by the American Council on Education's Psychological Examination for College Freshmen 1948 Edition,

ranks the Freshmen of the GP group 8 points above other Freshmen in Arts and Letters, the average of total raw scores being 121.5 for the GP's and 113.26 for the AB's. They're not long-haired, starry eyed, emaciated esthetics—some were high school football players, one picked up a soccer letter, a few others lettered in basketball, baseball and tennis. They don't throw down the sport section of a newspaper in disgust or rip up the comics in arty indignation. They are, in a word, college Freshmen, a little sharper than most, but still college Freshmen.

They like the Program. Poll returns in which any fears of repercussion were eliminated by the medium of anonymity, turned up one reply which took sharp issue with the phrasing of a question. In answer to the query "Have your expectations (concerning the General Program) been realized? Are you content with the Program?" the student launched into an attack indicating that nothing could be wrong with the Program and who the blazes were we to even think such a thing?

## P's Director Criticizes Program

Revelation of this kind of spirit within their students should bring smiles to the five-man faculty. The Director of the General Program is Dr. Otto Bird, a nationally prominent leader in the Great Books movement, who received his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 1939 and has since taught in St. Michael's

NOTRE DAME is one of the country's first universities to adopt the GP education.

Apr. 13, 1951

15

College, Toronto and St. John's Univer-
ity, Brooklyn, New York. Assisting Dr.
Bird are the Fathers Brennan, Dr.
Richard Thompson, and Mr. Edward
Cronin. Three of the five have docto-
rates—Father Tom Brennan Junior and
Mr. Cronin lack the Ph.D.

Just what the opinion of the fac-
ulty at this point of the Program's ex-
istence is can best be summed up by the
Director, Dr. Bird.

"The SCHOLASTIC has asked me to write on how I think the General Program is doing. It is a question, of course, that puts me on the spot. It also seems to me that we address the question, 'how are you doing,' most appropriately to a sick person. I am glad to report that the General Program, far from being sick, is showing every sign of vigorous life.

"The medical analogy is not as face-
tious as it sounds. The ancients in their
consideration of education frequently
compared it to the art of medicine, and
our language still uses 'doctor' to name
both the physician and the teacher. The
point is, of course, that both physician
and teacher perform an auxiliary func-
tion. The primary agent is the person
immediately concerned, the patient or
the student. In both cases the effective-
ness of the art is measured by its suc-
cess in arousing vital activity in that
person. In the life of learning that ac-
tivity is primarily the activity of the
intellect.

"The SCHOLASTIC'S question, there-

fore, can be interpreted as asking
whether the General Program is suc-
ceeding in awakening and exciting the
intellectual activity of its students. Let
me say at once that I think this is per-
haps the most important single question
that can be asked of education. It is
also one that cannot be answered in a
moment. For a full and complete an-
swer you need nothing less than the
whole lifetime of the student. With
these qualifications, I would say that
the symptoms of the General Program
are most encouraging.

"The students are gaining an introduc-
tion to their intellectual tradition and
are engaging with its ideas and issues.
I think they are learning to appreciate
that it is difficult to read well, still more
difficult to speak well, and most difficult
of all to think well. If they can live up
to the start that they have made, and
have the opportunity, they have every
prospect of acquiring the liberal arts
and intellectual virtues which constitute
a liberal education. Speaking for the
General Program, may I conclude by
saying that we shall do everything in
our power to see that the opportunity
exists at Notre Dame."—Otto Bird.

"The crucial task of higher education today is to provide a unified general education for American youth. Colleges must find the right relationship between specialized training on the one hand, aiming at a thousand different careers, and the transmission of a common cultural heritage toward a common citizenship on the other. The purpose of general education should be understood in terms of performance, of behavior, not in terms of mastering particular bodies of knowledge."—The President's Commission on Higher Education.

So the return to the old idea of a
college education is being made at Notre
Dame. Though still on a small scale,
hesitant, like an infant taking its first
uncertain steps, the General Program
strikes out into the bright if confused
academic world. How her critics receive
her will determine whether she grows
or withers away. Thus far, she shows
every sign of becoming a healthy,
sound Program, a course of studies
which has every chance of making good.
At least that's the way her students
and faculty see her.

'Gambling Professor'
Speaks Here Friday

Michael MacDougall, "The Card Detective," internationally famous speaker on dice, cards, and crooked gambling, will speak at Washington Hall next Friday at 8 p.m.

Mr. MacDougall is sponsored by the University Concert and Lecture Series. The "Professor of Gambling" will discuss card-tricks, dice, and why gambling houses never lose.

The speaker is acknowledged an expert on dice and cards by gamblers, police departments, and the Army and Navy. He has been a gambling detective for 20 years, during which he has exposed much crooked gambling and testified as a qualified expert at criminal trials. MacDougall is the authority who broke up a three-million-dollar gin rummy swindle in Hollywood; and who found enough evidence to break up the New York Caplin gang, whose gambling take was reported to be over four million a year.

Private gambling clubs frequently
call him in to investigate the play of
certain members who seem to win
oftener than the laws of chance allow.
Every gambling house in New York
has a picture of him on the wall and
dealers and stick-men are warned to
watch for him. Three bullet scars on
one leg and scars around his chin and
face are souvenirs from characters
with whom MacDougall has made him-
self unpopular.

A radio lecturer and writer of authoritative books on crooked gambling, he is the author of the column, "The Inside Straight," now syndicated in 100 newspapers. Several of his books are *Gamblers Don't Gamble* and *Danger in the Cards*. Gaming articles by him have appeared in *Pic*, *Cosmopolitan*, *Esquire*, *Look*, *Life*, and the *Reader's Digest*, among others.

Mr. MacDougall will be followed in
the Concert and Lecture Series calen-
dar by the Very Reverend Martin C.
D'Arcy, on April 23, speaking on "The
Catholic Idea of Education."

MOST OF THE FRESHMEN enrolled in program are hard put to find fault with it.

16

The Scholastic