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Why a Foreign Language Requirement?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

William R. Parker
William R. Parker*
Affiliation:
Indiana UniversityBloomington
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Extract

This essay concerns a situation in more than 800 liberal arts colleges, though some of its points apply elsewhere in American education. The question posed—why a foreign language requirement?—has fresh relevance because the 1930–1950 trend of dropping this requirement for the Bachelor of Arts degree has very recently been reversed.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , April 1957 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1957

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References

* Reprinted by permission from College and University (Winter 1957).

1 The statistics and some of the other facts in this essay are drawn from the fourth revision of “Foreign Language Entrance and Degree Requirements,” PMLA, lxxi, pt. 2 (Sept. 1956), 49–70.

2 Arkansas State College, Chatham College (Pennsylvania), Detroit Institute of Technology, Fairmont State College (West Virginia), Mary Manse College (Ohio), Norwich University (Vermont), Middlebury College (Vermont), University of Minnesota and its Duluth Branch, Ohio Northern University, University of Redlands (California), Stetson University (Florida; but see n. 5, below), Stillman College (Alabama), Virginia State College, and Williams College (Massachusetts).

3 Calvin College (Michigan), Middlebury College (Vermont), Pacific Union College (California), and Stanford University (California).

4 The Wesleyan institutions in Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, and Texas all require languages for the B.A.; those in Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, and West Virginia do not.

5 In some institutions (e.g., St. Benedict's College, Kansas) foreign languages are required of all candidates for the B.A. except Physical Education majors. In some other institutions (e.g., Stetson University, Florida) Education majors are solely excepted. In still others (e.g., Texas Western College) both Education and Physical Education majors are exempted. When the U. S. Air Force Academy opened in July 1955 it was announced that cadets would have a choice between a foreign language and a course in aircraft design, but in March 1956 it was decided to require an intensive course in French or Spanish of all cadets.

6 B.A. degree candidates must choose between mathematics and foreign languages at Hamline University (language requirement dropped 1950) and Princeton University (dropped 1947).

7 A more or less official statement on “Values of Foreign Language Study” appears in PMLA, LXXI, Sept., Part 2, 1956, xiv.

8 See “The Problem of Time,” PMLA, lxxi, pt. 2 (Sept., 1956), xviii–xix.

9 In what follows I am indebted to a very sensible and illuminating article by Frank H. Bowles, “The Past, Present, and Future of Admission Requirements,” College and University, xxxi (Spring 1956), 309–327.

10 In 1913, out of 306 institutions studied, 89 per cent had a modern foreign language entrance requirement; in 1922, out of 517, it was 70 per cent.

11 For the situation state by state see PMLA, lxx, pt. 2 (Sept., 1955), 52–56.

12 Most of them will, actually, permit promising students to enter with a “deficiency” to be made up in college, sometimes without credit. There are 12 institutions which have no formal language requirement for the degree but do require languages for entrance.

13 Examples are Bryn Mawr, Goucher, Skidmore, Sweet Briar, Wellesley, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, and Yale. Of 217 institutions lacking an entrance requirement, and queried in 1954, one fourth replied that at least 78 per cent of their freshmen offered 2 or more high school units in foreign language.

14 In 1956 there were 1,318,700 graduates of public and private secondary schools in the continental U. S., and 714,966 first-time college freshmen (U. S. Office of Education statistics). The percentage for 1955 was 52.1. NB. These figures have been brought up to date.

15 Among them John Bartky, W. W. Brickman, Marion L. Brooks, Oliver J. Caldwell, Hollis L. Caswell, Herbert G. Espy, Paul R. Hanna, I. L. Kandel, Earl J. McGrath, Robert Ulich.