Proposed Government 1 Revisions, in Line With General Education, Die in Committee

Two years ago General Education stopped being just another department in the College. In line with the policy of sacrificing highly technical assortments of fact before the altar of overall widespread knowledge, the general education influence crept into other fields, notably the social sciences.

The influence made its mark in the complete revision of two of the three basic technical social science courses, History 1 and Economics 1. But the third such course, Government 1, has thus far retained its aloofness from the trend.

Late in 1948 the Committee on General Education appointed three groups, one to study the outmodishness of, and to recommend revisions of, each of these courses. In March of 1949 History 1 was revised and incorporated in G.E. as Social Sciences 1. In June of 1950 the technical intricacies of Economics 1 were cut down drastically and the course became a far broader study of economical problems and issues.

To date, the question of a similar revision of the basic government course has been completely shelved.

From a largely "memory course," History 1 thus evolved into an overall view of the importance of history through a study of the development of "Western thought and institutions."

The Economics 1 revision was described by Arthur Smithies, chairman of the Department of Economics, as providing a course that "will educate every student to have a point of view about economic issues rather than merely the tools for higher courses in the field." Much of the purely technical material was dropped from the course to be taught instead by the tutorial program of the department.

Smithies' committee expressed the opinion that the new system was far superior because it had found from long experience that great quantities of the purely technical material taught in the elementary course was quickly forgotten and had to be reprovided later.

No Government Changes

The Government 1 committee also cut very deeply into the possibility of revising its course, but, as yet, nothing has come of it. The committee was originally composed of Charles R. Cherington '35, associate professor of Government, William Y. Elliott, Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science, Merle Fainsod, professor of Government, John W. Gaus, professor of Government, Arthur M. Holcombe '06, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, Arthur A. Maass, assistant professor of Government, and Robert G. McCloskey, assistant professor of Government.

Gaus acted as chairman of the committee. Elliott and Holcombe present the two halves of the course, "The Development of the Concept of Constitutional Government" and "Modern Government," respectively.

The first half of the course is, actually, the broader of the two, but involves, in general, a highly concentrated study of political theory. A principal student complaint is that the lectures are "over our heads." The second half is as factual as a straight civics course.

Possible G. E. Incorporation

With an eye to revision of these and any other faults contained in the course, the committee, among other suggestions, requested that Elliott prepare and present to the department a program for revising Government 1 into a broader full course, and that either this course or Social Sciences 2, "Western Thought and Institutions," be required of government concentrators. It also suggested that the department explore the possibility of incorporating the course totally into the G.E. department.

The reason for the lack of any resulting change was explained recently by Gaus--the theory being almost exactly opposite to that of the Economics committee. "If the theories and informative data of Government 1 were presented in a more general manner," he said, "the kit for advanced work would be deficient of tools. A general education in government would only prolong the concentrator's materialization as a competent political critic."