Theoria - DISA

Not the ordinary so-called comprehension test, but the ability
to read in a limited time (say three days) and discuss, both orally
and in writing, a whole book previously unfamiliar to the student.
Students unable to do this should be required to spend a preliminary
year reading and writing under the individual supervision
of tutors (say one for every 25 students). I do not think that this
year should be under any existing language department, for it
would be too much to expect the department to resist making
it a preliminary year in the study of its own literature and
language. It should be a reading and writing year (reading
rather than study). The reading should progress from the familiar,
that in which the student is already interested (any subject, not
necessarily literature), to the unfamiliar and more difficult, so
that by the end of the year the student should be able to tackle
text-books of university standard in unfamiliar subjects. The
writing practice too should be utilitarian in its aim. By the end
of the year the student should be expected to write clearly,
directly, vigorously and grammatically on subjects that he knows
and understands, not on what he imagines, and should be able to
distinguish between the statement and its illustration. Students
who can read intelligently and write precisely will be of more
value to the department they enter, and will make a better
showing in all their examinations. Style will arise gradually out
of the personality of the writer and his mastery of his material.
PROF. COUTTS : Students of the physical sciences do not need the
style of a Meredith, but they often lack the terseness and clarity
required for the presentation of their data; it is desirable that
they should acquire the technique of simple expression before
starting their scientific studies. Concurrently with the latter,
their most important task is to improve their facility in the
language of mathematics, which is the essential medium of
expression for the greater part of their work.
PROF. DURRANT : My own impression is that students have in
general an inadequate command of language for any but the
most narrowly technical ends. In the study of English, the chief
problem is, of course, to improve the student's command of his
own language. As far as other studies are concerned it seems
likely that more attention to the language used would reveal
many unexamined assumptions and would contribute much to
the advancement of those studies. But students are so illiterate
as a class that more direct attention to language in special classes
seems to me necessary.
PROF. FINDLAY : Students in Natal use language in a rather bald
and childish manner : perhaps they ought first to be trained to
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