OUT OF THE PAST

It is clear after a year's trial that worldly fortune has not been an ardent suitor of President Conant's American Civilization Plan. As tangible evidence of the Plan's success, there were only eleven hardy undergraduates, who filed in to take the Bliss Prize examination last November. True, it has made some striking contributions: a notable reading list in history, a series of brilliant lectures, a group of earnest scholars who have enriched the Harvard community. Yet it has had meagre success in the attainment of a primary goal, which was to lure students into the realms of extra-curricular study, to inoculate them with the virus of self-education.

However, such grand vistas have been opened in the educational landscape by this scheme that every effort should be made to preserve these, even at the expense of painting over other original aims. There are three separate and distinct aspects to the American Civilization Plan. First is its extra-curricular nature. This looks toward the inculcation of a habit of self-education in students, toward the provision of a "key to future education" which would make learning a life-long process. Second is its subject matter. This is American history in the broadest sense--cultural, scientific, and economic as well as political history, all brought into a unified and correlated whole. Third is its position in the field of education. The Plan seeks to bridge a number of academic departments, to break down the water-tight bulwarks separating the independent and specialized compartments into which the modern academic world has divided itself.

By sacrificing the first aim, the last two can still be salvaged. As a purely voluntary scheme, the Plan has failed because students refuse to take time off from their other college activities, curricular or extra-curricular. But it could be made to work if it were taken off a voluntary basis, if an inducement were added to lure students into its fold.

Such would be the provision of a half credit for work in American Civilization scattered over a whole year. This would not involve creating a course in the ordinary sense of the word, for work could still be conducted on an informal basis: through discussion groups, seminars, and personal contact between counsellor and student. Alternatively, there could be established a degree requirement of Knowledge of American Civilization--a requirement parallel to the present one in languages. This suggestion might be crucified by cries of Nationalism and Chauvinism, but it is obviously neither of these when considered as an attempt to provide college graduates with a keener appreciation of the contemporary American scene.

The extra-curricular aspect was a vital part of the original program, and it must be abandoned with regret. But the transcendent importance of the other two features makes this course an economical one. Wisdom to judge the present comes mainly from knowledge of the past; which is to say that Americans can use their institutions more intelligently if they realize how these originated and developed. On the other hand, learning, which has tended in recent eras to fall into tiny, unrelated pieces, has meaning only when it is a related whole. Thus an American Civilization Plan which still teaches history in its broadest form and still bridges academic chasnis would remain a brilliant contribution to the educational firmament.