Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Poisoned Ivy I was disturbed to read Malcolm Gladwell's scurrilous review of Ben Hart's Poisoned Ivy in the May issue of The American Spectator. Mr. Gladwell completely...
...When it comes to a discussion of Dartmouth College in general, Mr...
...In chapter six of Poisoned Ivy Hart points out that Dartmouth students can graduate without reading any of the classics of Western civilization, and goes on to argue compellingly for a great books requirement...
...The fact of the matter is that the academic profile of a Dartmouth freshman class does not differ from that of other Ivy League and similarly selective colleges...
...Gladwell completely misrepresents the spirit of the book, leaving his readers with the impression that Hart's book is no more than a reminiscence of college hijinks...
...The American Spectator, of course, is not to be blamed but commiserated with...
...Gladwell's review is unnecessarily harsh...
...An official in the Dartmouth Office of Admissions commented as follows on Mr...
...Gladwell betrays an abysmal ignorance of what is going on in the highly selective colleges at the present time...
...Ben Hart, of course, realizes that serious academic study is necessary to build character...
...Gladwell paradoxically accuses him of ignoring...
...Since Mr...
...It is amusing that Mr...
...He is fighting to preserve the very values that Mr...
...This comment ignores Hart's valuable analysis of the liberal mind as he experienced it at Dartmouth...
...The same sort of demonstration could be made, at greater length, about his description of Poisoned Ivy...
...This is why Shakespeare is preferable to a Harlequin romance...
...Further, 22 percent were in the second 20 percent of their high school class, and over 30 percent were between the 40th and 60th percentile...
...In a very sound barrel of apples, you have come up with a rotten one...
...Of a class 87 percent white, almost 60 percent of the total were "B" students in high school, and almost 20 percent were "C" and below...
...His outrage mounting, Hart constructs a test for the greatness of literature on page 49, finds that "Homer, Virgil, Plato, Aristotle, Dante, and Shakespeare pass this test," backs it up with cool reason-"The longer a work endures, the more esteem it has...
...Gladwell is employed by the Ethics and Public Policy Center...
...What other than a scrupulous concern for fairness, after all, forced me to the tortuous appraisal: "Hart does not pretend this is a particularly thoughtful book...
...Gladwell specifies no source for those "statistics," it would be useful if he could supply one, complete with appropriate bibliographical references...
...His "statistics" are entirely false, as is his general characterization of Dartmouth-upon which much of the "logic" of his review is based...
...As the country moves progressively further to the right, our educational institutions remain mired in a quagmire of liberal intransigence...
...Grant Snyder Boston, Massachusetts I am sorry to conclude that Mr...
...He dismisses Dartmouth as a serious academic institution, instead delegating to it the purpose of building character...
...Snyder is quite right, however, in his accusation that I failed to represent the instances when Hart, discussing "curriculum reform at Dartmouth . . . argue[s] compellingly for a great books requirement!' Let me do that now...
...Assuredly, Mr...
...Ethics] -Jeffrey Hart Professor of English Dartmouth College Hanover, New Hampshire Malcolm Gladwell replies: I am hurt that Mr...
...He then has the temerity to suggest that Mr...
...Of that group, most are in the top 10 percent...
...Upon his arrival at school for the first time, Hart's central concern appears to be that "it is possible to survive at Dartmouth without ever having read a word of Shakespeare, Dante, or Homer," which is reasonable, especially since, eight pages later, Hart tells us that he already has on his bookshelf the works of "Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare...
...Snyder seems to have missed my heroic attempts to do the "spirit" of Poisoned Ivy justice...
...Of that top 10 percent, most are closer to the upper end than the lower end...
...Gladwell argues that Dartmouth College is a "party" college, the USC of the East, and seeks to support that characterization with some "statistics!' He writes: Statistics from the class of '87, for example, show that a great percentage of Dartmouth's regular-admission, non-affirmative action students are academically mediocre...
...At one point, Mr...
...In the admissions process for the class of '87, about which Mr...
...Hart's modest attempt to redress this situation certainly deserves our praise, not the petty slurs it has received in The American Spectator...
...A cad would have opted for something pithier, such as, say, "This is not a particularly thoughtful book," thereby robbing Hart of one of the most plausible of the charitable explanations for his book's fatuousness- that he actually intended it that way...
...Hart has "less of an affinity with the old educational ethos than simply with an upper-class summer-camp hedonism...
...Hart gives a balanced view of Dartmouth which Mr...
...The self-selection of applicants for the highly competitive colleges is such that they are selecting almost exclusively from the high end of graduating classes...
...Hart's book has its flaws -on the level of style especially- but its general purpose is laudable...
...Finally, the tone of Mr...
...In his review of the book Poisoned Ivy by Benjamin Hart, Mr...
...Gladwell has chosen to, seemingly willfully, distort...
...Gladwell makes the blanket assertion that Hart "does not pretend that this is a particularly thoughtful book...
...Gladwell writes, it was necessary to deny admission to 2,413 applicants who ranked in the top 10 percent of their classes...
...More disturbingly, it ignores Hart's discussion of curriculum reform at Dartmouth and other liberal arts colleges in general...
...Gladwell displays an even more vicious bias...
...He states things better"-then dodges a bullet from modern science ("I felt relieved that a computer still couldn't write The Divine Comedy") before asking the question that, by this point, has become rhetorical: "What I could never understand was why any student would pay more than $10,000 a year to take Women's Studies when they could (continued on page 49)(continued on page 49...
...Malcolm Gladwell has perpetrated a vicious and checkable fraud in the pages of The American Spectator, betraying the trust of his readers and the confidence of his editors...
...Gladwell chooses to ignore this significant analysis and discuss only Hart's comments on athletics and social life...
...In reality, Mr...
...The vast majority of candidates for admission to Dartmouth, and therefore acceptances, and, it follows, matriculants, rank in the top quarter of their respective classes...
...The SAT scores of entering Dartmouth freshmen do not differ from those of freshmen at other Ivy League and similarly selective colleges...
...Gladwell's "statistics": "The statistics that are cited in the photocopy of the article you sent me not only are erroneous, but give rise to serious doubt about the integrity of the author...
...A very small percentage-affirmative action, special talents-does not fit that description...
Vol. 18 • September 1985 • No. 9
