'Dream College' Educational Plan Receives Praise of Harris, Hunt

Two professors recently joined in praising plans for the revolutionary "dream college" to be erected in western Massachusetts. Seymour E. Harris '20, Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Political Economy, and Herold C. Hunt, Charles William Eliot Professor of Education, both hailed the new institution as an important development in American education.

Harris, lauding the financial aspects of the proposed college, said that the plans for lowering costs provided a plausible answer to the problem of rising tuitions. "The planning committee has hit upon an awfully good way to provide an inexpensive education," he stated.

The planners have gotten rid of a lot of unnecessary costs and a great number of unneeded activities," he continued. Harris particularly favored the economy afforded by trimming staff personnel, courses, and departments. "Students will be paying $1000 for a $2000 education," he observed.

"I'm all for experimentation in education," Hunt asserted, commenting on the new college's no-lecture system. "The testing of other and new means of schooling is the greatest contribution America is able to make to the science of education."

Although Hunt felt that "basically, the idea of self-education is sound," he warned that "a lot depends on the student body chosen." For instance, the typical Harvard student "would get by" under such a system, he said.

Hunt had some reservations about the proposed program of completely individual research. "Education is a matter of interaction as well as action; a student can be left to his own resources only so long," he stated. "Interaction has not been provided for."

"I wouldn't trade the new college's plan for anything Harvard has yet," Hunt concluded, "but I will look with great interest at the results of the program."