BIXLER TO SUGGEST NEW TYPE CURRICULUM AT COLBY COLLEGE

In line with his idea that "small colleges should follow some distintive plan," Julius Seeyle Bixler, now professor of Theology at the Divinity School, will suggest on entirely new type of curriculum, when he takes over the reigns of Colby College as its president in July.

It will be a unified program, built around history and the social sciences, with "man and his environment" as its guiding light, and will emphasize history, and philosophy as the interpretation of history.

Elective System Modified

His aim will be the gradual modification of the elective system. "One of the evils of a college education at the present time," he points out, "is its diffiseness. The elective system was good in so far as it was designed to encourage freedom, but it has been abused to such an extent that we have lost a sense of unity in our work. To my mind, we must go back to one central idea for a curriculum."

Under his leadership, students will "wrestle with the problems of Democracy; find out how it rose, how we got into the present mess, and in what direction the way out lies."

Asks Social Utility

Professor Bixler feels that colleges should now set aside their own plans and ambitions and devote themselves to the needs of society. He points with pride to the example set by his own college, when it offered its newly-constructed campus to the government as a training area for air man.

"This is not to say," he warned "that colleges should submit blindly to the current social opinion of the moment. They should gear their work to the needs an ideal society. It is their job to be always critical of society as if is at present, and to teach an educated group of men and women who shall be able to judge their environment, and change it for the better."

As for the accelerated program: Colby already has instituded a 12-week summer session, and Professor Bixler feels that, as far as it is possible, the arrangement may be permanent. If, without sacrificing anything vital, we can arrange to get enough into a shorter time, "we will find that there is nothing sacred about the traditional four-year period."