GOVERNMENT

At a time of such striking social disturbance as the present, with the consequent increase in enrollment in the field of the social sciences, the results of the "Crimson's" conference of concentrators in the Government Department merits more than passing notice.

The concentrators' opinion that the department is the poorer for a lack of a group of outstanding elder men is important, but not sufficient cause for real concern. First, however regrettable such a lack, it is a fact, which could only be corrected by the importation of a number of men from the outside--a solution impractical for financial reasons. Second, the paucity of elder men of recognized stature is considerably compensated for by the further finding of the students that the department is fortunate in its number of younger men who combine to a gratifying extent the qualities of both scholar and teacher. As time passes, these men will themselves constitute the group the department at present lacks; meanwhile their comparative youth ensures close contact and sympathy between faculty and students. Were the lack of 'elder statesmen' the only ground for criticizing the department, Harvard might feel fairly satisfied with is instruction in government.

Far more significant is the concentrators' almost unanimous opinion that the method and scope of teaching in the department is seriously in need of revision. Too much emphasis is laid, they feel, on political theory: they approach, it is felt, is too analytical, too scholastic, in the strictest sense of the term. The department treats too exclusively of the art of government, paying too little attention to its practise. In courses as in tutorial work--throughout the whole work a student does in preparation for his final examinations--the outside world is far too often regarded as a scientist regards an atom, rather than as a living and ever-present reality, the understanding of which is one of the purposes of studying government.

Such a criticism must not be regarded lightly. The government department of America's oldest and most respected university has a clear responsibility to society, particularly at the present time. Specifically, less emphasis should be placed in the future on political theory as such, and more on the metier whereby the theory is put into practice: far more adequate means should be provided for the study of public administration. To be sure, this field is a comparative newcomer in university courses, but its newness does not excuse Harvard's falling behind the times in a realm of ever-growing significance.

Fundamentally important for the government department to realize is that the man who concentrates in government today does so not so much because of curiosity as to what government is -- and what past thinkers have interpreted it to be--as because he wants to know how it works, what and why are its present failings, and how they may be corrected in the future. The government department should regard the modern world not as incidental to the study of government, but as at the back of the entire course of study. What a man says is not so significant as the spirit in which he says it: the department should shift its method of attack from theoretical to practical, from analytical to synthetical; the spirit behind its approach should always be to contribute towards a better understanding of the modern world, and the most feasible means--judged from past precedents--of curing some of society's ills.