Major changes in the goals and techniques of undergraduate education, including a compulsory "General Education" course in each of three broadly defined areas, are recommended in the report of the University Committee on the Objectives of a General Education in a Free Society which was made public this week.
Culminating over two years of research and discussion by twelve of the University's leading educators, the long awaited report analyzes the academic alterations demanded by the failure of contemporary high-school and college education to foster a sufficient sense of unity of tradition and objectives amid the diversity of opinions, abilities and vocations characteristic of American democracy.
Faculty consideration of the Committee's proposals is expected to begin in October. The discussion should terminate in a vote which will determine the fate of the plan at Harvard.
Not intended for public announcement until next Wednesday, the Committee report was spread over front pages in New York and Boston Monday in a press scandal that set the University Press, which is handling publicity for the book, on its ear.
When Benjamin Fine, New York Times education editor, blasted the story over two columns on page one of the Times and the Boston Herald, other pagers threw the release date out the window and climbed one the wagon. Preliminary editorial opinion from the press seems entirely favorable to the report, though hot debate is expected among local and national educators.
Proposals Face Thorough Discussion
By no means a fait accompli, as some press accounts tend to suggest, the proposals for revision will undergo concentrated examination and sharp controversy before they can become a part of the College program. Most of the opposition is expected to arise from specialists in a verity of areas.
Faculty consideration will come in October, and the proposals, after discussion, will be referred to the Standing
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