STAMPEDE

Statistics--especially those found in the vicinity of University Hall--have a depressing habit of being dull and uninformative. Now and then, however, a set of facts and figures can be gathered that tells an interesting story; and, incredible though it may seem at first glance, such is the case in the realm of undergraduate concentration and distribution.

Over a period of years--since, for example, the early 1900's--there has been a surprising tendency for the popularity of a certain class of subjects to remain stable, while that of others fluctuated violently. Within the latter group, it has often occurred that two fields have not only fluctuated, but have done so exactly in inverse relation to one another--indicating, obviously, a tendency of undergraduates to stampede hither and you. As popular as Economics is today, it was even more attractive to students in 1910; at that time the enrollment of Ec. A surpassed that of every other course in the college. During and after the war, it became the fashion to concentrate in English, doubtless because it offered an escape from everyday life; and as a result, as many as 27 per cent of the student body flocked into that department. Only temporarily snowed under, Economics enjoyed a renaissance in the years of the depression, and today is again the most popular field in the college.

These facts are of more than academic interest, for they suggest a fundamental weakness in the Harvard scheme of education. Like English and Economics, Government, History, and the Romance Languages have proved to be stampede departments. Of course, there are many rational explanations; their prestige and quality vary from time to time, and changing conditions in the world at large are necessarily reflected in the college curriculum. More important, however, is the fact that a large number of floaters, men with no particular interests, decide to follow the crowd and concentrate in whatever department seems most popular at the time. That the current popularity of Economics is largely a fad has been the contention of President Conant for several years, and in view of the history of concentration he is probably right.

That the situation is serious is obvious: overloading of tutorial staffs, lowered intellectual standards, strained budgets, and charges that Harvard "starves" a particular branch of study, result. To offer a solution is far more difficult, for floaters always have and probably always will exist. But certainly it should be possible, through more conscientious Freshman guidance and through the establishment of broader survey courses, to provide those men capable of choosing their best field the information which they need. Broad knowledge of little depth is eminently desirable for most men at the Freshman level, for with certain exceptions, only those Sophomores who have acquired a bowing acquaintance with a large number of fields can be expected to choose wisely a subject for intensive study. Some fluctuation in department popularity is inevitable, but there need not be in the future recurring stampedes of the sort experienced in the past.