English Written Here

"Writing is fast becoming the lost activity in the educational process." Last week this statement by able Dean of Admissions Eugene S. Wilson of Amherst College sparked significant action at the annual meeting of the powerful College Entrance Examination Board in Manhattan. Speaking for 15 New England colleges, Dean Wilson had a fairly startling suggestion: add an English essay question to C.E.E.B.'s objective-question tests, the chief divining rod for admission to 287 U.S. colleges and universities. With some misgivings, the meeting finally approved Dean Wilson's urgent proposal. Result: next year, after a decade of multiple-choice questions, the famed "College Boards" will require words as well as Xs.*

Swelling Classes. It was about time. As colleges across the nation are learning, the state of English composition in most U.S. schools is deplorable. A British 14-yearold is often less creative than his U.S. counterpart, but his writing is notably superior. He can often outwrite the average U.S. college freshman, as several studies have proved. He can do so because he practices day after day. U.S. colleges have freshmen who never wrote a single theme in four years of high school.

Why? One reason is the teacher shortage, another the gnat-bitten nature of the U.S. English teacher's job. Instead of teaching young minds how to put meaning into words, he must pressure-cook a stew of abstract facts for easily graded objective tests geared to handle swelling classes. The average U.S. English teacher meets 175 students daily in five classes. Should he assign one theme a week to each class, he would spend four hours a night seven nights a week, plus half the weekend, correcting papers.

Eliminating objective tests in English might be an answer. "Tests reward students who can remember, not interpret," says Dean Wilson. But to President Henry Chauncey of the Educational Testing Service (a C.E.E.B. offshoot), objective tests still seem the only solution for college applicants. Writing in the current Atlantic, he argues that objective tests are more accurate. An essay may be written badly by a good student in a state of fluster, or graded in a dozen ways by as many readers. As a one-shot gauge of college eligibility, says Chauncey, the essay is unfair and undependable.

Concerted Effort. But Chauncey is just as concerned as anyone about composition. He calls for "a tremendous concerted effort" to get U.S. students writing more often and better. The new C.E.E.B. essay question is not in itself a panacea. It will take an hour, cover three pages and not be scored. It will go to three colleges, of the student's choice, which can do what they will with it. But it may at last replace the usual pat "biography" required by colleges, and students will get no help from papa. More important, it may help U.S. schools to find time somehow for putting meaning into words--with clarity, order, thought, vigor.

At last week's meeting, C.E.E.B. also: P: Announced a significant commission on English, aimed at analyzing the gap between achievement in U.S. high schools and requirements in U.S. colleges. Headed by Floyd Rinker, English chairman at Newton (Mass.) High School, the new group is patterned on C.E.E.B.'s commission on mathematics.

P: Reported that Russian will be included in C.E.E.B.'s achievement tests. Russian is now being taught by 96 member colleges, as well as 400 U.S. secondary schools. P: Admitted 50 secondary schools (and 37 more colleges) to C.E.E.B. membership for the first time. Reason: with more curriculums based on college tests, the schools want a voice in running C.E.E.B. P: Heard a prediction from C.E.E.B. President Frank Bowles that the average U.S. college within 25 years will boost requirements by one full year--applying the same standards to incoming freshmen as it does now to sophomores.

*Most of C.E.E.B.'s Advanced Placement Pro gram tests already involve essay and discussion questions, even in science.

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