CATHARSIS AT CAMBRIDGE

The appointment of the Committee on the Objectives of a General Education in a Free Society begins another significant phase of the reorientation of educational effort at Harvard University. The committee will undertake to plan for the tremendous demands that a post-war America will make upon the nation's educational system. The scope of the planning will include, in addition to the colleges of the nation, the secondary schools and adult educational programs with particular emphasis upon the elements of a general education and the social and economic factors influential theron.

In the days when most Harvard men were graduated into Wall Street or Dad's office, the College's function was that of training Cardinal Newman's "gentleman"--he who "carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast." But since that day, our nation has come to know many things--the glitter and disillusionment of World War I, the shoddy decade of demoralization that followed demobilization, the years of leanness and social waste, the present conflict. As we have learned the lesson, so has Harvard realized that its most important duties are those of serving the national community, of jolting the national conscience, of fulfilling its larger responsibiliies.

The Nieman Fellowships and the scholarships awarded union leaders were instituted to permit working newspapermen and labor leaders an opportunity to refurbish their skills so important to the community. Of even greater significance is the present step. Advances in college education affect directly only "the comparatively small minority who attend our four-year colleges." Great progress has still to be made in the secondary schools and adult education if the average American is to partake of greater cultural opportunities. An inadequate secondary school system can handicap the university greatly in its efforts to prepare its students; similarly, a mass incomprehension of the liberal humanism and democracy fundamental to our civilization endangers the continued existence of that civilization. As President Conant has noted, it is time to take stock of our educational system. And we must begin at the beginning.