a
Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL.OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
In Defense of requirements
WhereOpWionAr Free. 420 MAYNARD ST.. ANN AFBOR, Micu.
NEws PHONE: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: LAURENCE KIRSHBAUM
The 'U' Pilot Proj et:
Alld-Out Support Needed
BIG AND IMPERSONAL as the large
university may be, there come those
times when course work is exciting and
offers stimulation beyond the classroom.
Odd as it may sometimes seem, course
work is relevant to the real world. Thus
when interest in it is limited to only the
classroom, a good deal that is worthwhile
dies.
One day an instructor or a lecturer
excels his usual self and gets one of his
students excited about something in his
course. The student walks out of the dis-
cussion section or lecture hall and stays
excited all the way back to his dorm,
where he settles down to eat, discuss
football, and forget about that fleeting
moment when the big university made
use of what it had to offer.
The people in the dorm are not the
people in his classes, and if there are a
few taking the same courses, the chances
are slim that these people will be in the
same sections.
THE UNIVERSITY'S pilot project, now
five years old, is an attempt to solve
some of these problems. It has met with
both successes and failures, but accord-
ing to administrators and faculty mem-
bers connected with it, the theory be-
hind it has been proved conclusively.
When classroom and residence are iso-
lated from each other and there is little
real impetus given to share what hap-
pens in course work with those one is
living with, an all-important academic
'dimension is lost.
The advantage of a small college is
that a community is created in which
people who live together also take courses
together. Thus they share a common
classroom experience, and because they
live together they are afforded the op-
portunity to enlarge that experience
through discussion with each other.
A large university, with its random sys-
tem of housing people, cannot offer that.
A freshman may sometimes talk to one or
two of his classmates for an extra 15 or
20 minutes, but they only share one
course. Unless the instructor is an extra-
The Greeks Had
A Word for It
ONE\OF THE TWO LECTURES in the
Honors freshman Great Books course
-the Honors Program's way of introduc-
ing its participants to the exciting chal-
lenges of intellectual activity-is remark-
able for a policy which is a curious con-
tradiction of the course's purpose: as-
signed seating and recorded attendance.
The possibility that such a practice will
encourage independence or maturity of
judgment in young, impressionable and
grade-conscious Honors freshmen is mar-
ginal. It seems more likely that the policy
is designed to coerce students into at-
tending lectures they would otherwise do
without.
Perhaps, of course, the other Great
Books lecturer believes that "by suffer-
ing comes wisdom" (Aeschylus, "Agam-
emnon") and hence the practice of re-
cording attendance, since it "encourages"
attendance, is valuable.
BUT SINCE "SLEEP, the universal van-
quisher" (Sophocles, "Antigone") and
homework for other courses, not the lec-
turer, are the primary occupations of
many Great Books students during lec-
ture, and since the other lecture in the
course-where attendance is not taken-
is always much better attended, one con-
cludes that "force without wisdom falls
of its own weight" (Horace, "Odes").
The course may someday change its
rather anomalous r practice-or perhaps
its lecture content. In the interim, the
Honors Program's present attitude to-
wards fostering intellectual independence
and maturity of judgment in its Great
Books course seems to be, "I see and ap-
prove better things, but follow worse"
'Ovid, "Metamorphoses").
-MARK R. KILLINGSWORTH
ordinary one, there are no seminars or
discussions centered around the course.
Thus when class ends the instructor
leaves and the people in it disperse, and
that ends things until it is time to repro-
duce facts on the next exam.
THE IDEA of the pilot project is to do
away with the anonymity of this sit-
uation-to allow students the chance to
retain among their living companions
what they have found in class. In addi-
tion, trained floor counselors are pres-
ent, who can offer the benefits of ad-
vanced education to discussions, and who
can stimulate further interest. Planned
seminars are also held.
The hope is to offer the student the
excitement of smallness within the re-
sources of the huge multiversity.
But the project has certainly been far
less successful than the theory behind it
would indicate. While the intensive cours-
es-French and English seminar (the
latter is open to all of 10 students)-
have met with success, many students
either don't even know they are in the
pilot project, or have not been excited
enough to care.
When seminars center around test
preparation, and when a student can
say "there was a tea but I never sawthe
guy who spoke," one gets the idea that
perhaps things could be done a bit better.
The problem seems to be one of the old-
est known to administrators - lack of
funds. It seems a lot of time and money
may well be being wasted for a lack of
more of it.
ONE OBVIOUS WAY to improve the
program would be to move the boys
houses to Markley. If the pilot project is
"enmeshed in tradition" in East Quad,
as one administrator told me, perhaps it
is time that tradition was broken and
the houses moved together.
As it is now joint pilot project func-
tions involve a long walk and are less
effective than they could be. Further,
the effectiveness of the "living experi-
ence" is halved by splitting the project
into two groups.
But this is really one of the least of
the project's problems. Where first semes-
ter freshmen share three and four cours-
es with their floor-mates, second semes-
ter freshmen share fewer courses. The
sophomore, program is often nonexistent.
In addition, the number of planned dis-
cussions and seminars could improve in
both quantity and quality.
But it is expensive to schedule common
sections for a large number of people
across a large number of courses, to pro-
mote good discussions, worthwhile sem-
inars, and speakers who have something
to say, to train staff counselors who
have something to offer. Each small addi-
tion to the program costs another ad-
ministrator. If the addition is to be good,
the administrator must be good. To ex-
pand the project beyond what it is now-
in courses, houses, and participants -
will cost quite a bit.
BUT IT'S COSTING the University quite
a bit not having a large and effective
pilot project. The diffused garbage of
stereotyped survey courses, whose value
is further scattered by a living situation
totally independent of any academic ex-
perience, costs a freshman a year no
one should be made to pay to waste.
If the pilot project is worth having,
then the cost should not be spared. All
the indications from pilot project partici-
pants and from a committee of faculty
and residence hall officials studying it,
are that the pilot project is achieving its
goal, the goal those who have come to
college for a more complete education
are still looking for.
Some administrators do seem commit-
ted to pushing the broadening of the
base of the project as far as funds will
allow. One official said: "The academic
bull session in the dorm, independent of
an upcoming paper or exam, is what we
seek, and what we will push for as hard
as we can."
EDITOR'S NOTE: The fol-
lowing editorial is in reply to
Daily staff writer Shirley Ros-
ick's recent editorials on ada-
demics. Prof. Sheridan Baker
of the English department is
chairman of the literary college
curriculum committee this year.
By PROF. SHERIDAN BAKER
CAN WELL understand Miss
Shirley Rosick's'disappointment
in the revised distribution require-
ments, proposed by the literary
college's curriculum committee
(after deliberations in extreme
secrecy) and voted in by faculty
and Regents.
She hoped for a new philosophy
that would arrest the sun but
discovered only the old daily
round. She wants innovation, en-
thusiasm, groups of students
studying what interests them, rel-
evance, elasticity. She wants a
meaningful education, as do we all.
Sheiwants an education free and
exciting, and not demanding, ex-
cept insofar as the student may
demand something of himself,
within "broad and flexible guide-
lines."
AS A MEMBER of the Curricu-
lum Committee during the period
under fire (excepting one semes-
ter's leave), and as chairman for
the current year, I feel that Miss
Rosick's objections, as well as the
committee's efforts, deserve some-
thing more than silence.
I shall speak only as a private
academic citizen - the member-
ship of the committee changes
remarkably, semester by semester
-but I suspect that I shall di-
vulge something of our secrets,
and something of one voter's ideas
with which neither Miss Rosick
nor some members of the com-
mittee will agree.
First, I should report, with re-
gret, that the committee is most
unfortunately not on the point
of bringing forth anything at all
about foreign languages, as Wed-
nesday's Daily .speculates , from
our pregnant secrecy. We have
talked about them, and disagreed
about them, in our few meetings
and moments left from trying to
adjudicate some of the minor
chaoses caused by the new re-
quirements, which must be settled
into print before the Announce-
ment goes to press. We are also
looking at a proposal for some
adjustable courses in contempor-
ary issues, which may, if worked
out in time, satisfy some of the
current hunger for the new and
relevant.
BUT MISS ROSICK is right in
observing that the Curriculum
Committee, as now situated, will
not bring about the kinds of in-
novation she wants. We haven't
the constitution for it. New courses
must come from men interested in
teaching them.
The committee (each man busy
to the eyeballstwith his own
courses, committees, students,
papers, research, writing, in about
that order) cannot find the im-
petus to go about recruiting, and
then persuading departments to
take its recruits and its programs.
Perhaps the committee should be
rewired. But the fact remains:
new courses come from the man
and the department.
Miss Rosick is right in believing
that students should beginreform
by persuading particular men on
the faculty to teach particular
courses.
Miss Rosick asks for two kinds
of reform, not always distinguish-
ed or distinguishable: reform of
educational philosophy, and re-
form of pedagogical methods, or,
more simply, of general require-
ments and of specific courses.
In addition to hoping for a new
philosophy, she hoped for relief
from laboratory science by sub-
stituting a course in the history
and theories of science; she hoped
for broadly synthesizing courses
in social sciences and in the hu-
manities. But mostly she hoped
for the abolition of requirements
in English composition and for-
eign languages.
THE COMMITTEE did in fact
take a long and multidirectional
look at the philosophy behind
distribution requirements. We
talked about a number of things
that would have made excellent
headlines: abolishing all require-
ments except 120 hours for grad-
uation, with a limit of 40 in one
department; turning curricular
matters entirely over to depart-
ments, each department to design
its own, making the departments
small colleges which trade among
themselves their several skills as
needed-languages, English, chem-
istry, psychology, history, and so
forth.
We talked about the new resi-
dential college, and looked with
hope toward workable experiments
there, which will afford models
for limbering up the curriculum
in the literary college in general.
We tested various suggestions
among the faculty at large; and,
in the end, we discovered that the
philosophy of the liberal arts
college-Literature, Science, and
the Arts-was not easily abandon-
ed, in our heart of hearts.
Our academic society as a whole
is not yet ready to give up, under
pressure from specialization, on
the one hand, and independence,
on the other, the idea and the
ideal of the well-educated person.
THE IDEAL sounds quaint,
stated baldly, and perhaps I over-
state. Nevertheless, it assumes an
educated person as one who knows
the literature and the history of
his culture, its music and its arts,
who can write with distinction,
that is, with some resonance from
that cultural depth, who knows
at least one language other than
his own, which is simply a part
of that cultural heritage, who
knows something of mathematics,
of science, and social science.
This is the "General Education"
on which the liberal arts college
builds, including ours, with our
slightly diluted distribution re-
quirements. From this foundation,
we go on up to specialization, not
primarily as a breadwinner but
as a mindwinner and integrator,
or so our loftier dreams would
have it, before the necessity to
stay alive takes over from the
parental bankroll.
To something like this ideal,
the faculty of the literary college
gave their affirmative vote, ex-
pressing fears that we were not
demanding enough toward assur-
ing an education for those we
certify educated.
THIS IS INDEED a different
philosophy of education from Miss
Rosick's. which emphasises "how
to think," and wants some foot-
work in dealing with change and
currency, and thinks very little
about knowledge, particularly
knowledge associated with the
past, which may go even as far
back as Hemingway.
The longer I immerse myself
in the process of learning and
thinking, the more I am con-
mendously important to thought.
vinced that knowledge is tre-
No one can read Kenneth Bould-
ing's The Meaning of the Twen-
tieth Century without being im-
pressed, and indeed excited, by
the knowledge that has produced
this grand sweep of thought-and
I mean such seemingly inert facts
as that the waterwheel was in-
vented in the sixth century and
the stirrup in the eighth.
No disinterested observer could
very long listen to a discussion of
Viet Nam, proceeding toward in-
finity on perfectly untouching
parallels, without concluding that
there was nothing wrong with
the "how to think" but something
very wrong with the very different
"knowledges" from which each
started.
Our educational system demands
very little knowledge of us. The
College Boards give us some sub-
stance, but our own final exams
ask only that we retain what we
know for two hours, and then
never asks again-and some find
even this system too exacting.
THIS IS the real trouble with
foreign language requirement: it
asks that we memorize and ac-
cumulate-and this is work-and
then it refuses to let us wipe the
slate clean at the trimester's end.
I myself, who am a wretched,
cook-book product of a training
in languages far worse than that
our students currently do not
enjoy, believe that no mental
training equals that in a foreign
language, as it strains your mind
into an awareness of grammar
and syntax and words, by which
thought becomes articulate.
I am perfectly convinced that
nothing has widened my aware.,
ness of language in general, of
English in particular, and of the
mysterious connections between
thought and the words that clothe
it than the intense commitment
I made to Latin about a decade
ago in an effort to translate
Catullus into idiomatic and metri-
cal English. The products were
mediocre but the learning was
tremendous.
And it all started about fifteen
years before that, in the last
semester of my senior year, when
I suddenly discovered that I was
about to graduate and didn't know
anything. Somehow a course in
freshman Latin seemed toube the
answer. I would at least know
something of what every educated
man from Shake'peare up through
T. S. Eliot had known, and I
wanted the feel of it.
I FIND dropping the foreign
language requirement unthink-
able, lopping off still more of our
cultural knowledge, making us
second raters behind the best uni-
versities in this country and a few
more notches below the tops of
Europe. losing one of the best
trainers we have of that linguistic
facility which is almost the very
sinew of thought.
As for freshman English, I
would not only teach it harder and
better but also add another se-
mester in the senior year as the
last chance of straightening out
the only way we can think straight
at all, even in numbers: working
our thoughts into clarity and
grace on paper, since the squirm-
ing facts exceed the squamous
mind, if one may say so.
But these are the dreams of a
poet doomed to awake a commit-
teeman. I meant only to suggest
that the distribution requirements
perhaps have some thought be-
hind them, that perhaps an edu-
cation is something more than
asking a student what he wants
and then trying to impart it as
benignly as possible.
IT IS NO COINCIDENCE that
many of the best minds in this
university were trained in Europe
in systems that demanded some-
thing of them, including two or
three languages.
S
A
0
Also-p: Strategy of the
Vietnamese War
By JOSEPH ALSOP
WASHINGTON-In Saigon, Gen.
Westmoreland has now re-
vealed the invasion of South Viet
Nam by seven regiments of North
Vietnamese regular troops, and he
has said two more regiments may
also have entered the country.
That adds up to three divisions
in the invasion force. The general
has also said he thinks the enemy
has the capability of raising the
ante a bit further, increasing the
invasion force to four divisions
in all. Here, beyond doubt, he is
basing his estimate on the enemy's
acute supply limitations, which
must certainly be taken into ac-
count.
Some U.S. policymakers, and
those not the most easily alarmed,
are none the less inclined to think
that the Westmoreland estimate
may be on the low side. The prin-
cipal factors in the enemy's sup-
ply problem are briefly as follows:
FIRST OF ALL, the coastal
-supply route, on which the Viet
Cong formerly depended very
heavily, has almost certainly been
blocked by intensive American and
Vietenamese coastal patrolling.
Immense numbers of searches
are made every week without once
revealing a coastal vessel carrying
illicit supplies. It must be as-
sumed, therefore, that almost
nothing is being smuggled across
the beaches of South Viet Nam,
whereas a year ago the picture
was very different indeed.
Secondly, however, the North
Vietnamese have made a gigantic
effort to improve the Ho Chi Minh
Trail through Laos. It is now
truckable down to Attopeus and
can probable deliver 40 tons of
supplies per day.
The problem, here, is the need
to carry supplies forward by por-
ter from the Vietnamese border.
An army of 40,000 porters would
have to be deployed-and fed
about 30 tons of rice each day as
well-in order to distribute a daily
input of 40 tons of supplies. Some
of the work can be and is done
by elephants, but this is quite
limited.
THIRD, and increasingly im-
portant, Canbodia's loudly pro-
tested neutrality is obviously as
phoney as most of Prince Siha-
nouk's protestations. Arms de-
liveries to Sihanoukville for the
Viet Cong are strongly suspected,
and it is about as certain as any-
thing can be that the very large
numbers of North Vietnamese
troops in the Chupong Massif have
been getting at least their food
from Cambodia, just a couple of
miles away.
Fourth, invading forces can also
reduce their supply requirement
for a long time by consuming the
accumulated food caches of the
Viet Cong main force units. These
caches are impossible to estimate,
but they are certainly very large.
If you work these factors, and
if you also remember that the
normal supply requirements of a
North Vietnamese outfit are far
smaller than ours, it can be seen
why some people in this town
think that the total invasion force
may eventually be increased to
five divisions or even to six. The
intention to send in as large a
force as possible can hardly be
doubted. On this point, work on
the Ho Chi Minh Trail is decisive
evidence.
THE QUESTION really is not
what the Hanoi government in-
tends to do, but why they want
to do it and whether they will go
on wanting to do it. The heroic
battle in the Ia Drang Valley,
where American troops took on
immensely larger numbers of the
enemy, paid a price that must
make every American sad, but
ended by destroying the equivalent
of an entire enemy division, may
perhaps make Hanoi change its
plans.
But until this week Hanoi's pur-
pose has plainly been to try to
break the American will to win by
courting battle with the American
outfits in Viet Nam-and this al-
though the exchange to date, in
these hard fights, has been so
favorable to the Americans that
it seems far more likely to end
by breaking the will of Hanoi's
own troops.
There is no doubt that the
Hanoi 'policymakers are still con-
vinced that Americans are soft
and irresolute and can, therefore,
be worn down until they grow
tired of the war-and call it quits.
Foolish people in this country
have helped to produce this fool-
ish belief-although probably they
have not helped as much as is
charged by the other foolish
people who come perilously close
to wanting to deny the right of
0
free speech,
BUT THAT LEAVES a central
puzzle of a rather hopeful char-
acter. For the best way to tire out
the Americans was not what Hanoi
is now doing. The best way was
to dig in for a very long war,
fought in true guerrilla style, in
penny packets, with the Ameri-
can outfits in' Viet Nam hardly
ever seeing the face of the enemy.
This was much feared by every
American military leader and pol-
icymaker until the precise op-
posite began to happen.
The puzzle is hopeful in char-
acter because it has only two
possible solutions. Either the lead-
eers of the Hanoi government are
supremely stupid or there is some-
thing on their side that forbids
them to opt for the alternative
that would be the worst for our
side.
And that something can only
be a new fragility, a novel and
progressive loss of morale and
authority, throughout the whole
Viet Cong structure and organiza-
tion, which has made it too risky
to try to dig in for a very long
var.
(c),1965, The Washington Post Co.
9
Letters: On GI Joe, The Daily's Motives, and theDraft
To the Editor:
CONGRATULATIONS to The
Daily on the great national
service rendered by pointing out
the evils of the G.I. Joe doll. It's
tragic that toy manufacturers,
government controlled, no doubt,
in the face of the recent national
crisis, should use such diabolical
means to stiffle budding draft
card burnism. Who dares to tam-
per with the sacred institution of
a boy and his doll?
I can only compare it to a com-
parable plot against the American
girl. Gone are the days when dolls
were baby dolls-when you could
feed them water from a little
bottle and then have them wet
your lap in a realistic fashion,
teaching the incomparable joys of
motherhood and instilling in every
single little girl the overwhelming
desire for a large family and four
glasses of milk a day.
No longer will one all-purpose
doll do. In a broad-based plan to
stimulate the economy, baby dolls
are out, and IN is Barbie, an over-
sexed clotheshorse with her own
beauty parlor, a doll designed to
make every eight-year-old's heart
beat faster for clothes, more
clothes and the cute teen-age boy,
next door.
Nor is Barbie enough. Spend,
spend, spend. Besides Barbie's
against the conspiracy that leads
my two-year-old nephew to shoot
me dead with endless relish thirty
times a day and that makes my
ten-year-old cousin feel a moral
need to start dating.
Maybe we could have G.I. Joe
captured by the Viet Cong, only
to be released to repudiate U.S.
involvement in the war. All red-
blooded American boys would turn
in horror to pelt store owners
with rotten tomatoes, tear down
displays, and burn the stockpile of
Beachhead Kits.
Or better, let himamarry Barbie
and have to take a desk job to
keep her in clothes. Barbie could
then have three kids, get fat and
sloppy, and all our old ideals would
be restored.
-Mary Ellen Gottemoeller, '69
Intimidation'
To the Editor:
UNFORTUNATELY, I was out of
the country when the story
broke concerning Regent Eugene
Power's various conflicts of in-
terest on the Ann Arbor scene.
As a result, I have no idea of
what new facts may have come
to light since November 1, when a
thoughtful friend sent me a
bundle of clippings, via American
R . t n the,. it might
an extended "expose." There will
be many in the state who will,
now, always remember Eugene
Power as the man who was steal-
ing from the University.
After a few moments of thought,
I began to wonder if there was
any connection between the
Power Probe, and the disagree-
ment, earlier this year, between
Eugene Power and the Daily Sen-
ior Editors concerning the relative
merits of the new University
theatre.
A few years ago, a former Daily
editor proposed that the Daily
start a "file" on every Regent and
administrator, full of potent in-
formation which would be used if
any of these people disregarded
the advice of the Senior Editors.
I had thought that this idea
had been forgotten, but the nature
and characteristics of the recent
collection of accusations of conflict
of interest on the part of Regent
Power have raised some doubts
in my mind. Perhaps a few of the
Senior Editors should look closely
to see if they have any conflicts
of interest regarding the use of
the Michigan Daily as an instru-
ment of intimidation.
--David Kessel
Boston, Mass.
EDITOR'S NOTE: There was no
"connection," intended or express-
ed, "between the Power Probe, and
the disagreement, earlier this year,
between Eugene Power and the
Daily Senior Editors concerning the
relative merits of the new Univer-
sity theatre."
The Daily doesn't intimidate, it
just prints what's happening.
-R.J.
Reclassifications
To the Editor:
VIEW with horror the use of
draft boards in Ann Arbor to
inhibit disagreement of students
with national policy. It has become
grossly apparent to any casual
observer that the U.S. is the
most reactionary force in the
world politic, but even the dema-
gogues defended this type of be-
havior under the guise that free-
dom was being preserved "at
home."
Even this is no longer "true."
When the "pursuit of happiness"
is ablated as well, then we can cut
our glorious constitution into
"paper tigers" in support of the
"great consensus."
-Lee Waldenberg, '63
0
Schlze 's Corner: Part Two
THIS, the second in a marvelous
three-part series on the new
left, is a discussion of "the un-
implementation of the unobjec-
tives of new left unpolitics," or
"looking mother squarely in the
eye."
Yesterday's lesson recounted the
process by which the new left
had decided to adopt a platform
like writing to our congressmen
or something dull like that." Pre-
cautions were proposed.
THE LEADERSHIP absolutely
forebade the rank and file to
carry on political activities of any
nature. "Both political parties are
morally and fiscally bankrupt,"
the leadership explained. "They're
vailing, members were encourages
to organize marches, trots, races,
and stampedes.
But the leadership solemnly re-
minded its following that All was
not fun and antiwar games. "Re-
sponsibilities abound. When moth-
er asks you what you do all day,
look mother squarely in the eye,
place your hand on her shoulder,
Ol Ilis Airfligatt 1 tilil
jT COSTS a huge amount just to pro-
duce what quality the pilot project has
now. Many administrators connected with
the nrogram have promised that money.
I