THE PROFESSOR AS A BORE
Kelley, James Bernard
The Professor as a Bore Rewewed by JAMES BERNARD KELIEY ¦JMLLSGC TEACHING AND COLLEGE LEARNING. By Ordway Head. §P ,T«J* University Press. New Haven, Conn. 56 plus vii pages. $2.00. Hrf-^M VNMWT...
...Nevertheless, above them, Is the spectre laced to their masochistic hearts...
...D. or its equivalent...
...Ezra Pound Sings Again Reviwed by HERRY ROSSOLHKO THE P1SAN CANTOS...
...Awaiting only his own judgment, he stands above the world and issues his Dantlan addresses to all the layers of man and the distraught world...
...TEAD QUOTES a number of famous American educators on what learning should be...
...Knowledge is made to appear dreary and dull...
...Aba canticle OP...
...Perhaps the most dreadful thing about college teaching is the complete lack of enthusiasm many, teachers I nave for their work...
...For some reason or other if a man or woman wants to become a college , instructor he or she need have no qualifications beyond acquaintanceship with a particular field of learning...
...In fact one cynical friend of mine once ret marked that, "the possession of a pure I monotone is an essential prerequisite I for college lecturing...
...Hrf-^M VNMWT TEACHING Of AMERICA Ukei place in the graduate schools and fiflwlfct feeond wont can be found in the undergraduate schools...
...i | • THESE THINGS I say as a member of the college teaching profession...
...A superb craftsman, lyricist and imagist, a forerunner of all that once danced riotously in modern poetry, Pound has built these cantos on cosmic erudition...
...Added to that is i the handicap of poor speaking ability, no training in platform presence and almost complete unawareness of material which has appeal and which can be grasped by a student taking a course for the first time...
...Though the Chinese characters add but decoration to the tongue of his malice, his Italian, French and Persian excursions contribute ecstatic lines to the last poem written about humanity as a whole...
...Harry Roskolenko is the author of a recent book of poetry entitled "Notes From a Journey...
...The most uninterIIpP*' ff*ag people aa both talkers and sources of information are college professors 1 tJctnrUsj' in alanir.....nil In my entire academic career as a student I had only two I greeVvtefff Khool instructors who made any attempt to do an adequate job of teaching I and fit* Stme number of undergraduate teachers...
...The blame can be placed on many Shoulders as Dr...
...He has bequeathed, in studied, nonsensical attitudes, bits of treason and racialism, mixed in with his holy conception of money, usury and the banks...
...hair pogtry lay it, Pound hMiebtaaJd even more as a poet We certainly cannot forget the fascist politics ho aaav"a7'ptraoii«e,w>rttteu V^wtd - over twenty Ire yaaraago...
...In other words a man may be primarily interested in doing research so that he grudgingly teaches —and that is precisely the way he teaches—because the college or university must have a tangible reason for paying him a steady salary...
...Tead's and none reaches the printed page at a more important time in the life of American higher learning...
...only through boredom can be wisdom attained...
...Tead points out...
...Studded with enormous quantities of literary and historical asides, Pound's new work assails all and everybody—from the poor soldier standing outside, guardAmerica's gift to the modern world, to any number of known personalities, including, freely, many comments about ' Yidds...
...At the moment the big racket in most large schools is to list some famous men as giving the course then have this man meet the class for the opening lecture and from then on turn over the class to a graduate assistant or someone else not so prominently listed in the school announcements, • • e DR...
...Pound's essential humanism still hungers in many disassociated linos, his lean verbiage sparkling like so many suns within a small cloud...
...A classroom 4 may merely be the excuse for paying a research man...
...I Dr...
...He is not learning the methods of scientific investigation or the purposes...
...The gist of his opinions and those whom he quotes would seem to be that we learn not by imitation but by application...
...The only absolute necessity for success in college teaching is the possession of the Ph...
...When a poet can write this, his personal tragedy is even greater than the tragic loss to his country: Cassandra, your eyes are like tigers, with no words written in them You also have I carried to nowhere to an ill house and there is no end to the journey...
...But he can still celebrate Whitman...
...Teed in his excellent little book tnafeef this fact—the poor quality of college teaching—very plain...
...2.75...
...Continual reference to notes and refelling of old jokes which were never funny in the first place have made college classrooms about as thrilling as wakes...
...Whereas dynamicism and Are are two most necessary qualifications for a teacher, these qualities may actually be frowned upon in many colleges...
...The contemporary associations that Pound injects with ease, rig this adventure in poetry in his favor...
...It is only after four years of painstaking, effort that college faculties manage to kill that curiosity and lay it forever to rest...
...By Ezra Pound...
...The Spaulding Lectures at Yale have always been distinguished for their apt presentation of a pressing problem in the field of higher learning...
...The hesitant, repetitious,* uncertain, timid mutterer more nearly describes the average college lecturer than any other description...
...moral, social and politicaj disenchantment, these cantos, written by Ezra Pound while imprisoned at Pisa, awaiting repatriation and trial, express the essence of his ideas about money, particularly the notions preached by apostles of socialcredit...
...Whether the applicant for the teaching position has the personality or strength of voice to impart knowledge to someone else is a matter which seems to be . completely beside the point...
...New Directions...
...Yet the comic touch is much too pre* clous, and I quote: ] and in this war were Joe Gould, Bunting and cummings as against thickness and fatness...
...From -attendance at faculty meetings in a number of schools, from association wffJi teachers and from the repeated complaints I have heard from students, I am of the opinion that we have allowed college teaching to sink to an almost irredeemably low level...
...For in his psiritten as Chairman of the Board •of Higher Education in New York City he hag ample opportunity to hear of ' the inadequacies of teaching on the eeUeff level...
...The high-priest of anti-usury supplements his lament by adorning these fascinating cantos with at least five languages...
...If "Marxism" set back a generation of poets, who easily gave their spirits to the straight-jacket of economic d«t«ruu)J*m and gpogJldSd...
...Lampooning as the tragic clown, Pound's scope of tragedy includes many a fancy scoundrel, hung and unhung, almost as an echo of his inner voice...
...118 pp...
...All students are curious when they come to college...
...Re has sympathy for Basil Bunting, a friend and pacifist...
...For example, in science —this is an instance quoted in the book -—a student in a laboratory who merely learns how to follow detailed directions in a manual is not learning anything but how to follow detailed directions...
...When men and poets are split down the center of their vision, the view becomes grim yet beautiful...
...James Bernard Kelly is Chairman of the Physics Department at Hofstra College at Hempstead, New York...
...for odd gentry of history and art...
...But none is better done than Dr...
Vol. 32 • March 1949 • No. 10
