When in Doubt, Bull

If the most popular of the liberal arts is the art of snowing the grader on exams, how should the grader respond? Last week this question cropped up in the first examination of examinations at Harvard in 25 years. The answer given by William G. Perry Jr., director of Harvard's Bureau of Study Counsel, is that snowbound student bluebooks should be divided into two classes. "Bull" is opinion without supporting facts. "Cow" is facts without understanding. If the grader has to make a choice between these two sharply-drawn categories, says Perry, he should take bull every time.

According to Perry, "bull in pure form is rare; there is usually some contamination by data." But even in its purest form, bulling "expresses an important part of what a pluralist university holds dear, surely a more important part than the collecting of 'facts that are facts,' which schoolboys learn to do."

Unlike the cower, says Perry, the buller is close to being "in a strong position to learn content rapidly and meaningfully, and to retain it. I have learned to be less concerned about the education of a student who has come to understand the nature of man's knowledge, even though he has not yet committed himself to hard work, than I am about the education of the student who, after one or two terms at Harvard, is working desperately hard and still believes that collected 'facts' constitute knowledge."

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