From the Detroit Free Press 1920:
The Harvard Faculty has done the cause of American culture solid service by demanding that all students who concentrate in English or in ancient or modern languages shall have a good working acquaintance with the English Bible and with twelve plays of Shakespeare when they appear for their final examination. Without this knowledge there is to be no graduation.
The announcement setting forth the requirements laid down is significant and fully interpretative of the action of the faculty. It says that the Bible and the plays of Shakespeare are works of literature without which an adequate appreciation of English letters is impossible, and it adds:
"The King James version of the Bible is one of the great monuments of English prose, but any standard version, ancient or modern, may be used. The plays of Shakespeare as foremost among the masterpieces of the English tongue are indispensable to all students of literature. Moreover, the language of Shakespeare, like that of the Bible, has become part and parcel of our familiar speech."
Considered purely from the educational standpoint, the fragmentary knowledge of the text of the English Bible possessed by tens of millions of Americans is a deplorable, almost appalling, thing. And the widespread lack of knowledge regarding even the relatively best known of the plays of William Shakespeare is absolutely pitiable. Altogether the prevalent and, we fear, growing ignorance of the contents of the Bible and the works of the bard of Stratford is responsible for a large amount of superficiality and flatness of outlook among present-day Americans, and it is refreshing to find the oldest institution of higher learning in this country taking so firm and thoroughgoing a stand in behalf of these fundamental masterpieces of the language.
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