….. University Heights was overrun by boys so driven to gain admission to medical school, any med school-Southwestern near Dallas, Zurich in northeastern Switzerland-that Hamlet's last words, The rest is silence, were important only if worth five points on a final exam.

In this atmosphere, academic life deteriorated. A biologist named Horace Wesley Stunkard devised a course that he honed into weekly torture. "Protoplasm is a polyphasic, colloidal emulsion," Stunkard began one lecture, "in electrostatic and dynamic equilibrium, the phases of which are reversible." He continued in that vein for twenty minutes, addressing 150 boys, making eye contact with none, in a lecture hall the size of a neighborhood theater. Stunkard was tall, horse-faced, and intense. " I hope you all have taken careful notes," he said "because my guess is that Friday's quiz may have something to do with the nature of protoplasm." He looked up and I could not tell whether Horace Wesley Stunkard was smiling or leering.

Challenged, I fought back with my best academic weapon-memory. The Friday quiz consisted of one Stunkard command. Describe protoplasm. I responded by setting down verbatim the Stunkard lecture. The quiz-section instructor gave me a C.

"I wrote exactly what Dr. Stunkard said," I complained. "Every word."

"So you did," the instructor said. He was slight and pink-skinned, an albino. "And that 's why you got a C. You have to evidence collateral reading for a B. For an A we expect research on your own."

"I'm an English major. You expect me to research into the nature of protoplasm, on the side?"

"You aren't in high school anymore," the little pink man said, "and I don't give a damn what you're majoring in and nether does Dr. Stunkard."

………

From: Memories of Summer: When Baseball Was an Art, and Writing about It a Game by Roger Kahn

Hyperion, Inc. New York, New York. p. 34. 1997. Permission requested

Talking points:

How would you characterize the description of protoplasm taking into account the state of knowledge in 1945?

Would you conclude that the instructional method was effective, or not, based on the single example presented, and considering that the book was published more than 50 years after the lecture?

How do you think courses, instructors, expectations, and science in 1998 compare with 1945?

Have you read other accounts of what it was like to be a student in other times or places? Bring them in and I will post them at this site.