The College Scene

Towards the end of his Freshman year, each undergraduate arms himself with a copy of the course catalogue and, with aid of an adviser, plane the remainder of his college career. Before him lies a vast range of 400 courses and thirty-one distinct fields of concentration. Into one of these a student must channel a large part of his academic efforts. After four years of study he will emerge a product of Harvard education, a product that is intended to leave college with the basic tools for success in a specialist society and also to retain a broad base of general knowledge. This is the avowed purpose of the system for concentration and distribution of undergraduate studies.

The program, a result of widespread objections to President Eliot's system of free electives, was designed to eliminate the opportunities for poor planning and overspecialization that characterized Eliot's regime. The new system, instituted by President Lowell, intended to turn out broad-minded graduates as well as scholars and proposed to make a place for the man aiming towards a general education. It hoped to achieve this goal through a prescription of form, a planning of student programs within certain set limits.

Concentration and distribution rules are intended to provide the basic framework that will guide a man towards a well-rounded education. The regulations will set the pattern of studies, but each individual must plan both the type and sequence of courses that comprise his education. This system places the burden of proof with the student. It requires that he choose his courses wisely and be carefully tutored in the ultimate objectives of concentration and distribution. The undergraduate who is carefully advised and sets up a precise balance between general and specialized courses can often realize the full value of the current program. For the man that receives little help in planning his curriculum and loses sight of the ideals of the system, concentration and distribution may fail in its purpose.

The Cum Laude Cause

Such a student, lacking guidance, can easily become confused by the wide range of concentration requirements and specialize to an extreme degree. He can dispatch his general courses in a single year, spend the rest of his college tenure concentrating in a single field, and graduate textbook technician, without the large store of general knowledge the system hopes to offer. If this man were a candidate for honors, he would be inclined to place a heavy value on concentration under the existing system. Charged with extensive preparation for General Examinations, the undergraduate often feels bound to take the maximum number of courses in his field. A brilliant man can thus unconsciously sacrifice the principles of the curriculum to the cause of Cum Laude.

The rules for distribution hope to produce a class of capable, liberally educated graduates by infusing a wide area of general knowledge into undergraduate, programs. Poorly advised students often choose their distribution from a large group of specialized courses designed primarily for concentrators. These men root through introductions, to the Astronomy of the Solar System, Elementary Anthropology, or the Tacties and Techniques of Field Artillery with little idea that distribution was designed to dispense a knowledge of the important principles in modern society. In the area of Social Sciences, many students again pick large lecture courses that offer an introduction to the field and not an evaluation of its influence on the world.

The Alternative

If the wide leeway in student planned programs actually results in a number of everspecialized, narrow-minded graduates, the fault for such an error does not necessarily lie with distribution formula. It functions only as a shell and is gauged to give each man an important role in his education. While some students may suffer from this responsibility, others can find the experience both maturing and challenging. The alternative, a system calling for more rigid prescription of the curriculum, might prove unsatisfactory and could turn instruction into a production line, the College into a factory. It seems impossible to stimulate 5000 minds by sheer dictum.

The current General Education experiment deals in the same values envisaged by the concentration and distribution program. It places a number of courses introducing the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences at the service of the College. These wide surveys are an attempt to coordinate the type of course offered for distribution with the ideals of the system. At present General Education lies buried under the mass of specialist courses. As a theory it hopes to present a constructive solution to the problem that has haunted American education for half a century.