LAW SCHOOL'S 7-YEAR PLAN, STUDENT COUNCIL REPORT ANTICIPATED GENERAL EDUCATION IDEA

In an interview with the SERVICE NEWS this week, James M. Landis, Dean of the Law School, claimed for the School's Seven Year Plan anticipation of many of the elements in the proposals of the Committee which reported on "General Education in a Free Society" August 1.

Writing in the New York Times in September, 1940, shortly before the Seven Year Plan first went into effect, Dean Landis cited the disadvantages of college concentration for the Law student. To remedy the existing situation, which he said did not provide graduate students with a common background, Dean Landis proposed a "rearrangement of the existing relationship between the professional schools and the colleges."

Seven Courses Required

Seven College courses are required of men enrolled in the Program: History 1, Government 1, Economics A, and at least one course in each of the following subjects: English literature; Latin, Greek, or a modern language; Philosophy or Mathematics; and a laboratory course in one of the natural sciences.

Central to the Seven Year Plan is the re-shuffling of the four-three pattern of legal education normally followed. Three years in College, then three in Law School, and a concluding year in College form the Plan's solution to over-specialized pre-Law training.

Said by some to herald an interlocking of all colleges and their graduate schools, the Seven Year Plan has several disadvantages. Instead of escaping the restrictions of concentration, the student merely postpones them to a later, perhaps loss convenient time. Two degrees hang in the balance. The Seven Year student misses his Senior Year, perhaps the most important one for social and extra-curricular activities