To familiarize students who were not in Cambridge when the report of the University "Objectives" Committee was made public with the contents of the Report as it applies to Harvard, the SERVICE NEWS today reprints in part the lead stories in its July 26 issue.)

"General Education" courses are the Committee's answer to the educational dilemma which it sees in the contemporary college. Designed for specialists by specialists in an age which demands specialization, too few of the courses now offered in the college curriculum are of use to non-concentrators who get their glimpse of other fields with but one or two course units in each.

Capsule of Proposed Curricular Changes

While Dean Buck has said that the Report of the General Education Committee, which he headed, must "stand or fall as a unit," the proposals for changing Harvard College's curriculum can be boiled down to the following essence:

I. Three General Courses to be required of all undergraduates.

A. The humanities: "Great Texts of Literature"

B. The Social Sciences: "Western Thought and Institutions"

C. The Natural Sciences: "The Principles of Physical Science" or "The Principles of Biological Science"

II. Three other courses to be elected from a larger group in which most existing college departments would be represented. (Thus seven, counting English A, of the 16 courses required for the degree would be of the "General Education" variety.) None of these courses to be in the student's field of concentration, only one to be allowed in his area of study.

III. English A to be limited to two class hours per week during the first term of the Freshman year, and to be continued in connection with general education courses (rather than given separately) during the second term.

IV. Tutorial to be reserved for candidates for honors in their Junior and Senior years, with occasional exceptions for particularly gifted Sophomores.

Distribution Not a Remedy

Introductory or survey courses may be ideally suited to prepare the concentrator for the advanced courses in which he can really come to grips with his field, the Report continues, but they usually immerse the non-concentrator in a mass of details without demonstrating the essential nature of the discipline.

Neither the existing nor a new increased distribution requirement will meet the demand for a broad cultural basis, the Committee feels. What is needed is a new type of introductory course of greater depth, designed explicitly for those who will not continue in the field. A minimal number of these courses must be compulsory to ensure some "fixity of aim with diversity in application," the Report states.

Specifically, the Committee proposes that six of the 16 courses required for the degree be of the "General Education" variety. Three of these, one in each of the basic Areas, would be required of all undergraduates and would normally be taken in the first two years at college.