General Education: Program Without a Policy; Professional Pressures Replace the Redbook

Amid educational experimentation unparalleled in the last decade, Harvard's most significant venture of recent years is in serious trouble: the General Education program, under pressures from all sides, is nearing a crisis.

"I have sometimes wondered whether the time to stop General Education has come," said Mark de Wolfe Howe last week. His query apparently reflects Faculty attitudes throughout the College, for several members of the General Education Committee have grave doubts that the Faculty would approve the program if asked to vote today.

The root of this questioning and of increasing resentment among the Faculty of the program's protected status is the profound change which the last decade has brought both in the General Education program and in the educational outlook of the College and the nation.

The Redbook--General Education in a Free Society--which was the foundation of the original General Education proposal is virtually a dead letter. Professor David E. Owen, ex-Chairman of the General Education Committee, admits, "One can hardly disguise the fact that there has been departure from the Redbook." Professor Reuben A. Brower, who teaches Humanities 6, puts the matter more strongly: "I remember how the Redbook was cited right and left six years ago, but nobody mentions it now.... Just by quietly not talking about the Redbook, a lot of good things get done."

The Redbook is seldom mentioned, too, in the General Education Committee, although it has been used to prevent introduction of lower level courses in Fine Arts and music. Most of the Committee seems to think that the Redbook no longer applies to Harvard, if it ever did.

Professor Kenneth B. Murdock, chairman of the Committee, feels that the Redbook was a product of the intellectual climate of the end of the war, and that the educational demands of society have changed so much that it is no longer applicable. Further, he points out, the idea of single courses to be taken by every undergraduate is completely opposed to Harvard's strong elective tradition.

The Redbook was also a result of similar experiments at the University of Chicago and at Columbia which captured the imagination of teachers and scholars two decades ago. With the waning of enthusiasm for these two leaders, however, Harvard's program has also suffered. In addition, both the College and the national temper seem to have moved away from the very idea of General Education.

Stress on Specialization

Even before the Sputnik era, emphasis on science and learning taken on their own merits was increasing, and the demand for General Education was on the wane. A similar transformation taking place within Harvard has put more and more emphasis on professional training and scholarship.

The effects of the change in General Education's environment are particularly clear when the lower level courses proposed in the Redbook are compared with those now given. The Humanities course was to be entitled "Great Texts of Literature." "The aim of such a course would be the fullest understanding of the work read rather than of men or periods represented, craftsmanship evinced, historic or literary development shown, or anything else. These other matters ... should be left for special education." It is difficult to contend that recent additions to the Humanities curriculum follow this outline.

"Training in Heritage"

Social Science courses are equally far from the original proposal. "Harvard College should assume a full and a conscientious responsibility for training men in the nature of the heritage which they possess, and in the responsibilities which they must assume as free men for its enlargement and perpetuation." Although a majority of the lower level courses have remained historical, and thus concerned with the "nature of the heritage" the responsibilities implied have not been assumed.

"If the departments have learned the principle of General Education, I think the time to stop General Education has come," says Howe. Again, his attitude is a common one. Although one of the tenets of the old program was that no introductory course for concentrators could be really satisfactory for a non-concentrator, many people, including several members of the Committee, seem prepared to go back to the old departmental basis of distribution, largly because the present program lacks a constructive policy.

The upper level requirement too has changed radically. Instead of the distribution requirement which is the present upper level program, the Redbook suggested that only a very limited group of courses approved by the Committee should be fulfill the upper level requirement. And there was no suggestion that the intention was simply to promote distribution.

No Current Policy

The decreasing significance of the Redbook is not, in itself, a disaster for General Education. But when the aims of the old program ceased to be of importance, nothing took their place. Today General Education finds itself in a position similar to History and Literature--the only way anybody can explain the program is to appeal to old standards which no one believes to be true.

One of the critical problems is the program's relation to the departments. During the early years when there was a great deal of enthusiam for General Education, and the Committee was the central force in guiding undergraduate education, the problem of courses like Social Sciences 1 caused a good deal of discussion, for there was much resentment at the incorporation of a departmental course (Social Sciences 1 was the old History 1) into the program. In the last few years, however, the problem has acquired new aspects.

Most conspicuous, Humanities 6, a course which Professor Brower admits is not General Education in the traditional sense, has taken on a singularly ambivalent character as both an English department course and General Education. It is the only sectioned introductory course, and the enrollment problem has become so difficult that English concentrators were given preference among sophomore applicants last year and this.

In addition to these two specific difficulties, there is growing resentment of the special status enjoyed by History. As long as the Redbook remained the guiding principle of the program, the dominance of one field could be explained. But with the Redbook virtually a dead letter, this preferred status is an additional irritant. The initial ranks of those who did not support the Redbook have been swelled by those who think that the Redbook is simply being used as an excuse for perpetuating the dominance of the History department.

This situation is aggravated by the fact that Social Science 1 has become more and more oriented towards history in the last few years. Professor Myron P. Gilmore, chairman of the History department comments, "I hardly see that Social Sciences 1 has anything of the Social Sciences in it. It's history."

But it is impossible to duplicate Hum 6 and Soc Sci 1 as departmental courses, both for economic reasons and because the staff is not available. The cost of reducing the involvement of the departments would be removal of the courses from the program.

Seminars a Challenge

Pressure to institute departmental courses in the lower level program has increased in the last few years, in part because many departments felt that they had to offer potential concentrators a way of using the General Education program, as the History department does. Proposals to make elementary Government and Economics courses into part of the Gen Ed requirement have been rejected, but the sentiment is still strong.

But in addition to departmental pressures, the entire College is changing its attitude toward the fundamental ideas of Gen Ed. The most recent manifestation is the Freshman Seminar program. Called by one member of the General Education Committee "advanced work for specialists," the seminars are directed toward far more specialized work than is normally done during the Freshman year, and are in direct opposition to the General Education program. "I feel that the fate of the General Education program depends a great deal on the fate of these other experiments," says Howe; "you can't have both."

In place of the long-standing assumption that a student who has just arrived from school is not prepared to choose his field of concentration, the Seminar program seems to support the hypothesis that a student is fully capable of doing upper level work and entering a field, not merely during the Freshman year, but before it begins. (The members of Seminar groups were generally selected during the summer.) Many Seminar members are taking three courses in one field, and the science seminars are so specialized that the Committee classifies them as "not normally open to Freshmen."

The seminar program also suggests how much the influence of the General Education Committee has diminished during the last decade. Ten years ago the Committee would surely have been extensively consulted during the planning of such a program; this year it was presented with the accomplished fact, and told, in effect, that if it did not permit Gen Ed credit the entire Freshman year experiment would probably collapse.

A few years ago such action would have been strongly resented, as was President Pusey's appointing Rev. George A. Buttrick to teach an upper level Gen Ed course without consulting the Committee. The most conspicuous sentiment this fall was one of slight confusion.

Accompanying the growing emphasis on specialization is a personnel problem which the Natural Science program has felt for some years. But even now, as it seems possible that distinguished scientists will take greater interest in teaching Gen Ed courses, the difficulties are becoming more acute in other fields.

The Nat Sci program is one of the virtually insoluble problems of General Education. The most important difficulty--that there is not the remotest agreement on what, correctly speaking, ought to be taught, is one which is coming into other areas, as the personnel problem has. While the rest of General Education has been received with general approval over the last decade, Nat Sci has not. One of its founders admitted last spring that the program as it stood was a failure.

Attempt to Revitalize Nat Sci

The Bruner report of last spring, despite its inability to define the aims in a manner narrow enough to be within the reach of a one-year course, brought a fresh outlook to the program, and, apparently as a result of either the report or pleas by members of the Committee, several prominent natural scientists have become interested in Nat Sci--Edward M. Purcell, professor of Physics, is teaching half of Nat Sci 2, and George Wald, professor of Bio-chemistry, will teach a lower level course next year. Nevertheless, it is clear that prominent scientists can give time to the program only at considerable personal sacrifice, and it may be unduly optimistic to expect that the present improvement will persist.

The basic difficulty is the same in Social Sciences and Humanities. Now that the initial glamor of General Education has worn off, and with the rising significance of departments in the College, successful professors are increasingly reluctant to spend their time on non-departmental work like General Education.

Murdock feels that this is the greatest threat to the Gen Ed program. He was pleased when the Corporation abolished joint appointments (like summer, because he felt that it would both reduce the chances of getting men who were not qualified members of their departments and cut down the feeling in certain areas that a few individuals were responsible for the department's work in General Education.

Outlook is Uncertain

But minor changes in title will not solve the problem, and unless general Faculty support can be obtained, he is afraid that the program will virtually collapse. One of the great fears Murdock holds, in common with many other members of the Committee, is that Harvard will acquire a faculty of General Education like that which the Chicago and Columbia experiments created. Such a division, he feels, would be disastrous not only for the program but for the College as a whole. Others of the Committee agree with him. They recall what happened at Chicago when two faculties were created: complete scism between general education and the rest of the curriculum. It is not a situation many people want to see duplicated at Harvard.

The future is entirely unclear. A great deal will depend on who is selected to replace Murdock, who will retire soon. Unless the new chairman has both Murdock's prestige and his interest in General Education, there is little chance that the program will survive the competition which other experiments will give it over the next five years.

Of equal necessity, however, is a new definition of aims, for unless the program can find a policy to build on there is little chance it can find the unity to oppose further departmental strife and build the Faculty's interest in preserving Gen Ed.

There are rumors that a major study is in prospect, one comparable in scope to the Redbook. If such a report is written, and approved by the Faculty, perhaps General Education will experience a rebirth of interest and participation. But the present temper of the Faculty is so disposed toward special study and specialization that it is doubtful that a new report which created a program as broad and diffuse as General Education would be approved.

New Policy Needed

The demand for a new policy is really a demand for a concrete statement of what General Education is trying to do. The Redbook, impractical though it may have been, presented a clear educational policy. When courses multiplied, the Redbook lost its meaning, and General Education is now feeling the results. Unless a new and meaningful policy can be formed, Faculty members will continue to think that the departments can do the job of General Education, and the program will lose whenever a decision must be made.

The obvious policy is interdepartmentalism, for this is the most significant and conspicuous aspect of the present program. Even this will have to be maintained in the face of strong opposition, however, for, as the Freshman experiments indicate, there is much sentiment toward making the college experience a completely specialized one.

Even among many who would like to see the General Education requirement eliminated, there is feeling in favor of the program. Professor Brower, who feels that the job can be done by the departments if they are carefully supervised, says of the committee, "It has fulfilled a function that nothing else has fulfilled--someplace where people think about what is happening to the average undergraduate."

"Princeton," Woodrow Wilson wrote half a century ago, "is a place to find a vocation, not learn one." The crisis in General Education is the test of Wilson's ideal at Harvard. If the program cannot survive, Harvard will lose its greatest claim to liberal education.MARK DE WOLFE HOWE