To Strengthen the Sciences

In its 1945 Report, the Committee on General Education indicated a sincere concern for giving the generally educated student a fundamental comprehension of the natural sciences. Yet, partly through implication and partly through direct statement, the Committee withheld an important tool for the adequate presentation of the scientific method.

The Committee admitted that "all we can hope for in the entering student is some instruction in elementary algebra and plane geometry," and then went on to say that "a specific level of proficiency in mathematics is not at present required for admission to Harvard College, nor do we propose that it be."

Now mathematics is the tool of the natural sciences, and the fact that the Report neglected it to the extent it did indicates that the Committee was not fully prepared to put general education in the natural sciences on a footing with the other two divisions. The program in natural sciences is set up with such a low standard of achievement that a man can leave the College knowing a little high school algebra and plane geometry, having an idea of the biological developments through history, and nothing else. It is possible to graduate from Harvard with no conception whatsoever of the physical sciences; and yet perhaps more than any other force over the past 150 years the physical sciences have shaped the form of our lives.

The statement of the Committee on General Education concerning mathematical preparation implies that Harvard should also require no specific mathematics requirement for graduation. This closed door policy evoked by the Committee is indeed unfortunate in modern times when an understanding of the present goals of science is intimately tied up with the powerful concept of the calculus--discovered by Newton over 300 years ago.

It is perhaps too much to hope in the College's present situation that an introduction to the concepts and techniques of the calculus, as well as a grounding in the methods and goals of the physical sciences be required of any man who pretends to call himself generally educated. However, if General Education is really concerned with man as a "responsible human being and citizen," some such change must be made eventually, and present steps in that direction may be suggested.

"The claim of general education is that the history of science is a part of science," the report tells us. This is undoubtedly true, and it is also true that the report does show a concern over the presentation of the scientific method. However, in the leap from report to practice, history gained the upper hand, and method was somewhat lost in the shuffle. A first step towards putting the natural sciences in a modern perspective would be to remedy this situation.

Science, to a greater extent than other disciplines, carries its past along with it. Whereas in humanities, for instance, the ideas of Plato are of considerable relevance today even though they are not included in the work of modern theorists, this is not the case in the natural sciences. Modern quantum theory contains a great deal of the older work of Newton, Laplace, Poisson, Hamilton, Jacobi, and Bohr. Indeed, a present concept of the physical truth is but a modification, reforming, and improvement of older ideas.

The natural sciences should, therefore, institute courses which examine some particular field of general relevance in modern science using past developments to lead up to the central problem of concern. In physics, for example, a course in particle theory could be used as a specific standpoint from which to develop an understanding of the modern scientific method which has a far more general application than the subject immediately at hand. Similar courses in biology, chemistry and physiology can easily be envisioned, and they would serve a purpose beyond their theoretical value. They would enable the Committee on General Education to obtain the services of some of the great scientific experts on the Faculty who are not sufficiently interested to teach a survey course but who might be extremely interested in presenting their particular specialty to the non-scientist.

The present natural science courses would be retained in this system until the new courses proved successes or failures. The existing exemption for science concentrators should also be kept for the time being, but if these courses prove successful, science majors should be brought into them. Their presence will increase the discussion and interest in the courses; and certainly the physics major should become acquainted with techniques of biology, and the biologist should have an understanding of the physical sciences.

These courses should emphasize an understanding of the modern with an awareness of the past's relevence and an approach to general methods and concepts through the specific. It is hoped that these courses will introduce such essential tools as the calculus where needed and that ultimately they will lead to a far stronger appreciation of science and what it means today than is generally given at be present time.