Word: conant
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Only eight of 55 high schools visited by James Bryant Conant, president emeritus, pass his test for a "good comprehensive school." After two years of study financed by a Carnegie Corporation grant, Conant has released "sneak previews" of his report on "The American High School Today," to be published in book form...
...academically talented student," Conant found, "is not being sufficiently challenged, does not work hard enough, and his program of academic subjects is not of sufficient range...
Even academically talented students, said Conant, "come away from such a brief exposure with very little residue" -and there are "too many unqualified students in these courses" who should never be there to begin with." Result: "State and national statistics on how many students are enrolled in language courses are meaningless. This point cannot be stressed heavily enough...
...only reason for studying a language, Conant observed, is to achieve "something approaching a mastery. And by this I mean the ability to read with ease a foreign newspaper and discuss it intelligently with a native of the country in question . . . This degree of mastery . . . cannot be reached in two years." Conant's recommendations: the most able scholars-at least the top 15% of U.S. high school students-should take four years of one language. Further, they should be urged to elect three years of another language, with the assumption that they will continue study of the second language...
Partly responsible for U.S. language lacks, Conant charged, are two sorts of offenders: school boards which justify omission of third-and fourth-year language courses from high school curricula on the grounds that few students apply, and colleges, whose two-year language admission requirements give respectability to a brief, pointless period of study. "A two-year requirement is worse than none," said Conant. "If there is to be a requirement, it should mean mastery." He continued: "The lip service paid to foreign languages in the high school, is, I am afraid, a direct reflection of lip service paid...