Whether classics or contemporary works of literature would most affect the declared attitudes of high school seniors in urban areas towards certain moral values was the subject of this experiment in New York City. Two teachers each taught one course in contemporary literature and one in the classics. The students taking the classics course read "The Odyssey,""The Inferno,""The Book of Job," and "Hamlet," while the contemporary literature students read "The Plague,""Giants in the Earth,""Arrowsmith," and "Lord of the Flies." Before and after the courses, students in the four classes were given the Robert Havighurst and Hilda Taba "Student Beliefs" test that measured attitudes toward responsibility, loyalty, friendliness, moral courage, and honesty. No significant differences existed between the scores of students in the two types of courses with regard to responsibility, except at at the 10 percent level. The adjusted means for the courses indicated that students reading contemporary literature had higher scores than those reading the classics. It was concluded that modern works are at least as effective as classics, if not more so, in affecting students' moral values. (Author/LH)