Beer Says College Should Not Expand Present Size

Samuel H. Beer, chairman of the Department of Government, yesterday stated that he opposed any future expansion in the size of the undergraduate body.

In his department, the professor of Government said, the staff could not greatly increase its present size without corresponding damage to its capacity for teaching and scholarships.

The College has already overextended its physical base, he continued, and should now consolidate its position rather than consider the possibility of increasing its present size. "We need another House; we need more money for professors; we need more scholarship money in the graduate schools. I am against expanding, even a little," he told the CRIMSON.

Beer said he would oppose any further increased enrollment even if Harvard should raise the money necessary to finance such a program:

"It comes down to a sociological law, that says University numbers cannot be increased beyond a certain point, without impairing quality, and I feel Harvard has already reached that point. This sociological limit represents the fundamental problem beyond salaries, Houses, and scholarships," he continued.

The approach to expansion must first be made on the graduate school level, he pointed out. "We depend upon the graduate school to handle our tutorial and sections. If the College is to expand, then our programs in the Graduate school must also expand. And yet we cannot increase the size of that program without seriously diluting its present quality."

Danger to Tutorial

There is a limited amount of time a department can give to its graduate students, he noted. The Government Department purposely only accepts between 15 and 20 graduate students at one time, so that it can do individual work with each one. Any expansion program would force abandonment of this practice, he noted.

Already, Beer pointed out, his department is understaffed in proportion to the number of students it handles. But an increased undergraduate enrollment would necessitate increasing the size of the department beyond a manageable size.