Education Goe's to War II

It is rapidly becoming the fashion of the times in colleges like Harvard to speculate upon the future of a liberal education beneath the pressure of a specialized society. The war, of course, has intensified such speculation. President Conant, ex-Dean Donham, numerous other authorities and experts, and Mrs. Roosevelt have taken a whack at the problem. One of the most recent, as well as one of the best whacks, was taken by the Student Council Committee on Curriculum and Tenure in yesterday's report. Yet from all these source a common danger begins to become apparent. The battle of words for "the preservation of a liberal education" is safely won, but the ranting continues to rage and center about this slogan. The symbol is being mistaken for the problem itself, and the all-important "how is scarcely mentioned.

This danger is amply illustrated by the glib way in which the Council's report, after a detailed analysis of the problem, dismisses with a statement the suggestion that proposed courses on Great Authors, and American Thought and Institutions, be made compulsory. Though the Faculty recently voted to establish these courses on an elective basis, there remains a large Faculty block in favor of their being required. To cram these courses down the throats of all students is contrary to every concept of a true liberal education. It is to set up as absolute one interpretation of a problem that is at best highly contestable and contested. There has never been an agreement among experts as to whether the essentials of the humane tradition lie in a common broad and necessarily superficial survey, or in the experience and technique that come from exploring all angles of a single problem. Whichever the answer, it is certainly more in the liberal spirit to allow the individual to make his own choice between the Council's proposed test tube culture courses and the latter method.

To shift these two potentially valuable courses from the available to the required side of the fence would be to cross the line from an advised to a dictated education. By creating the impression of an apparent breadth and by denying the stimulation of individual choice, actual specialization might result. And added to this is the danger of a too oft-repeated phenomenon, that when a course becomes compulsory, its standards gradually sink.

The attitude behind the Faculty's refusal to make compulsory the courses on Great Authors and American Thought and Institutions shows an attempt to transpose a concern for the future of liberal education into sensible action. But this attitude is too far from unanimity, as the Council's suggestion shows, to allow for complacency.