A LIBERALIZED CURRICULUM?

In connection with the liberalization of college requirements, Dean Hawkes of Columbia University brings out an important point in saying that the development of "a keen sense of values, moral, social, esthetic," is the duty of the college to its students. He believes in the inculcating of judgment rather than "the handing down of formulas and dicta from the teacher's desk." The reason for the intellectual level of colleges being higher than twenty years ago is attributed by Dean Hawkes to the difference in the collegiate educational methods. Today colleges are breaking away more and more from traditional requirements and considering rather the needs of the individual.

Certainly a college has failed if the student has been unable to knit together all the various facts and the intangible atmosphere of his four years into a philosophy of his own. It is only the tying up of all he has learned and the unity necessary to understanding that can give any value to a college education. Yet Dean Hawkes seems to be carried away by his conception of an ideal college. While the completely liberalized curriculum which he advocates allows full freedom to the individual, it also puts too much dependence on the individual. It was to remedy this educational looseness that the present system of education at Harvard was built up.

The ideal is almost impossible under a liberal educational method, since it would require in the first place a Utopian selection of students. Since there is a very human need of driving of some sort, definite educational standards are best for the majority of students; which, however, are not so rigid as to permit no leniency. In other words as far as actual practice goes, a fairly standardized system of requirement which prevents educational confusion and provides a spur, at the same time allowing exceptions in cases of special ability or needs, comes nearest to attaining the college ideal.