General Education System Enlarged For Next Year; Conant Takes Class

After six months of what he termed "successful experience" with small classes, Provost Buck announced plans yesterday for the rapid expansion of the General Education Program to more than twice its present size, and outlined eight new courses to be given next, year--all but one of them designed primarily for Juniors and Seniors. He also disclosed that elementary courses in the Humanities will be open next year to any Freshman or Sophomore who wishes to enter them.

Eight New Courses

In addition to the eight full coursers already listed in the catalogue under General Education, three full and five half courses will be added to the 1947-48 curriculum. General Education classes will continue to be optional next year, Buck said. "but ultimately it is planned to make elementary courses in General Education required." Advanced courses will always be elective, he added.

The present program grew out of the University report on "General Education in a Free Society," which was published in 1945. The first General Education courses were given in the fall of 1946, under the direction of Benjamin F. Wright, professor of Government and chairman of the Committee on General Education.

Miller to Give Course

Among the new courses to be offered in the fall is a survey of "Classics of the Christian Tradition," which will be given by Perry Miller, professor of American Literature, and is intended "to offer an introduction to the Christian spirit as in has been expressed ins come of its greatest expositors."

All but one of the new courses will be closed to Freshmen and not ordinarily open to Sophomores, but the present General Education classes will be enlarged, and elementary courses in Humanities will have unlimited enrollments.

A complete list of the new courses in the General Education Program:

Humanities 11a. Classics of the Christian Tradition, (fall term).

Humanities 12a. Great Artists (fall term). Professor Koehler. The works of a few great artists.

Humanities 13b. Types of Art: The Representation of Nature in European and Asiatic Art (spring term). Associate Professor Rowland. This course will treat a series of types or themes common to all art; portraiture landscape figure painting, and still life.

Social Sciences 11a and 11b. History of Far Eastern Civilization (fall, and spring terms). Associate Professors Reischauer and Fairbank. "To give the non-specialists an understanding of the great civilization which grew up in Ancient China."

Social Sciences 12a and 12b. Human Relations (fall and spring terms). Professor Donham and Associate Professors Lombard and Homans. "A Study of the habits and skills important to men in the varied and changing circumstances of their everyday life."

Natural Sciences 11a. The Growth of the Experimental Sciences (fall term). President Conant and Assistant Professor Fletcher Watson.

Social Sciences 13b. The Impact of Science on Modern Life (spring term). Professor Mather. (Follows Natural Sciences 11a). "A critical examination of the function of science in society and its implications for human welfare in the social transformations of the twentieth century."

Social Sciences 3a and 3b. The Institutions and Thought of Western Society (fall and winter terms). Associate Professor Romans and Assistant Professor Rostow. Limited to Freshmen and Sophomores.