TIPPING THE SCALES

Acting as statistical detective, the Student Council has collected and presented a group of figures, the significance of which constitutes a startling revelation of undergraduate education. The Council, making what is perhaps its most worthy contribution of the year, has unmistakably shown that Harvard is playing unproviding father to its biggest and hungriest child. Although almost half of the college concentrates in the social sciences, less money is spent upon each student in the departments concerned than on each man in less popular fields like Classics and Chemistry. In fact, the budgets of the least-populated fields are too large, so that not only is more money, spent upon professorships and teaching positions in these, but too much is afforded for every concentrator. Such a situation is more than warped; it means that through the denial of sufficient teaching in large departments like Government and Economics prospective concentrators may be forced to turn away, with their real interests frustrated. And it is unnecessary to point out that any restriction of concentration destroys the core of Harvard policy.

If the Student Council is to be complimented for its original penetration into the budgetary set-up, which activity supplements the recent report on the promotions problem, the University is at the same time open to justifiable indictment for permitting the existence of one-sided academic scales. Its first move should be to pour enough gold onto the other side of the scales for a perfect balance. Evenness of distribution of funds based upon the number of concentrators in each field is obviously the only way in which Harvard can guarantee full teaching in departments now over-crowded. In another quarter century the trend to social sciences may have transformed into reaction, which can well be anticipated; but now it is the University's duty to the student to fill fairly the need for redirection of financial emphasis.