GOVERNMENT, HISTORY DEPARTMENTS LEAST AFFECTED BY WAR CONDITIONS

This is the first in a series of articles to appear during the coming week discussing the effects of the present war on the departments of concentration, their courses, enrolment, and Faculties.

Proportionately least affected by the war crisis are two of the departments with the greatest number of undergraduate concentrators, Government and History. The great range and flexibility of requirements in both these departments have permitted the retention of business as usual to a much greater extent than in such fields as Chemistry, Economics, or even the Classics. War has touched each of them, however, affecting both students and Faculty.

More concentrators are registered in Government than in any other department, and History stands only behind Economics and English. In November with 287 concentrators, Government had 11.1 per cent of the total, while History with 263 had 10.2. From 1940 this showed a drop of 22 men for Government but no appreciable change for History.

Faculties of both departments have been radically shaken by the war. In History six men have left, four because of the war, and in Government five more. William Langer, Coolidge Professor of History, Donald McKay, associate professor of History, and John Fairbank, Faculty instructor in History, are now working for the Office of the Coordinator of Information in Washington and Barnaby Keeny, instructor in History, has volunteered for the Army. Professor Samuel Eliot Morison and Instructor Bradley Thompson are the other two.

The History department has obtained two replacements. Professor Packard of Amherst has taken Professor Langer's place for the second half year, and Professor Steiger of Simmons has taken over the duties of Dr. Fairbank for that period.

By doubling-up on teaching assignments, the History department has not only been able to prevent decreasing the number of courses offered undergraduates, but to allow the addition of courses on the Development of Modern Armies, 33b, and The Background of Anglo-American Constitutional Liberty, 43b.

The Government department's staff of 32 has suffered the, at least temporary, loss of five members because of the war, and a corresponding reduction in the number of courses offered. Associate Professors Rupert Emerson, Bruce Hopper, and Merle Fainsod and Faculty Instructor Lincoln Gordon have been called to government work in Washington and Teaching Fellow James King is now in the Army.

These slicings have caused the curtailment of several half courses which these specific men taught, but the department has attempted to counter this by adding two courses connected with the war. Public Personnel Administration, 42, a half course, and Inter-American Relations, 11c. Fifty students are enrolled in the latter and nine in the former.

Reductions in the number of students in Government have been slight except in graduate work. A number of undergraduates have left to enter the armed forces and at least one has taken an administrative position in Washington.

History Loses 10 Seniors

Accelerated graduation of 10 Seniors in February chiefly accounted for the History department's drop to 250 concentrators, while the Government department remained static at 287. In actually, the Government department lost four Seniors and two Juniors who were replaced by the shifting of six Sophomores from other fields.

Neither department has made any change in its concentration requirements beyond the University wide acceleration. The Government department beads cited their low minimum prerequisite of four courses in the field and the absence of a Junior Divisional as making any alterations unnecessary.

Not revealed in statistics of student and Faculty changes is the course emphasis resulting from the need to assimilate individual courses to current affairs. Government I, for example, has revised its syllabus for the second half year to include such topics as Civil Liberties in Wartime