Word: hand
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Lamont gives us what his publishers call "a firsthand report on college life today." Feeling around with his First Hand, Lamont discovered that there was a "dark side" to college life, that people didn't just row to Ivy Championships--they had problems, suffered from career pressures, sexual pressures. Just like anyone else. Eureka! Aflush with the joy of discovery, Lamont set his wisdom machine to work and came up with a program involving the end of grade inflation (a grade recession?), the fostering of alternate career routes, the institution of single-sex dorms, God-knows-what-else...
Admittedly, this is not a complete exposition of Lamont's argument. But that argument seems inherently worthless because it is not, as touted, "first hand" but secondhand, the result of "more than 650 interviews." Throughout, Lamont comes across as an interloper, a strange wanderer on the outside looking in. The punch line goes, "I was there--I know." Well, Lamont wasn't there, and it results in some embarassing misperceptions. Lamont repeatedly yaps about the "crush in the libraries." What "crush"? The only crush I've ever seen at Harvard is in Q-world's pinball arcade during reading period...
...LIKE conducting a battle campaign--you find the grunts, the students in the front lines....then you talk with the sergeants (grad students), then the junior officers (academic advisors). Finally, when I had my basic research in hand, I would go to the general, the president, and ask for an overview...
Luckily, Lamont didn't have to go it alone, though. The academic brass led him by the hand, providing him with "typical" students--a couple of pre-meds, a pre-law student, a few women, not to forget a smattering of minorities--all chosen by the front office, the University administrators. Lamont explains "I could waste time randomly interviewing, but I wanted to make it as scientific as I could...
...inscription of Pompeii. Gombrich's central thesis concerns the need for order that resides in every human brain. Sometimes nature is accommodating: in hexagonal snowflakes, in the rhythmic chirping of crickets, in the natural laws of gravity and motion. Far more often, the eye sees chaos and the hand seeks to regulate it. The manner of regulation, says Gombrich, exhibits itself in decorative art. From the most elaborate Gothic structures to the smallest Christmas trees, individuals constantly attempt to fill in blank spaces and correct eccentricities. Some of the book's conclusions are debatable: "There are no laws...