Word: foreign
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...reproof for a widespread educational failure. Said longtime (1933-53) Harvard President James B. Conant: more than a year's close study of U.S. high schools has left him much less concerned with programs in mathematics and science than with a "most distressing situation" in the teaching of foreign languages. Conant's bluntly-worded report: "In school after school only two years of any language were offered ... I submit that to study a language for two years, even two languages for two years each, is a waste of time...
...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...
...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 in the colleges and universities. I strongly suspect that the proficiency in a foreign language that is often required for a bachelor's degree -indeed, for a doctor's degree...
...major oil companies have ever drilled in Spain because of currency restrictions and a law that limited foreign participation in drilling companies to 25%. But now Spain is in desperate financial straits, needs both oil and dollars, cannot afford its own major drilling program. Last week the Spanish Cortes (parliament) passed a sweeping new oil law to lure foreign drillers...
...first time, both management and capital can be 100% foreign, and the government will guarantee free conversion of profits, to be split fifty-fifty, into hard currencies. U.S. oil companies have long been plugging for such a change. Caltex and Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) are already negotiating for rights under the new law, which imposes only two major restrictions: 1) Spain's home needs must be met first, and 2) Spanish oil must be carried in Spanish tankers...