Education: Report Card

¶Language students at Columbia University this year will have their choice of three new tongue-twisters. In addition to such old favorites as Syriac (ancient Mesopotamia), Samoyed (Siberia) and Akkadian (ancient Babylon), Columbia is adding Avestan, the language of Zoroaster; Kurdish, spoken by the wandering Kurds of Turkey, Iraq and Iran; and Tagalog, a native language of the Philippines. Total languages now available: 50. ¶ After five years of experimenting, Harvard finally put its General Education "core curriculum" into practice. From now on, each student must take at least one specially designed course in the humanities and the social and natural...

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