In assigning definite figures of "historical" size, the Faculty did not cut any department. Where there were inconsistencies, it added.

It was also determined that the average length of a permanent appointment is 34 years: that the average age of appointment to an associate professorship is 34 and the average retirement age 68. The figure 34 was then divided by the number of permanent positions for each department. The result is simply the number of years between appointments to a department.

By this method a department whose "historical" size is 34 permanent members appoints a new one every year, regardless of whether none, one, or ten members, has retired during the year. A department of 17 permanent members appoints a new one every two years; a department of two every 17 years; etc. In case of sudden death or excessively premature resignation or retirement, a "call appointment" is made, which does not affect the periodical replenishment of the staff.

The new system won favor with the administration of the University and with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for three reasons. First, it makes possible long-range budgeting by the departments and the Faculty. Second, after it has had time to take effect, it protects a department from having suddenly to replace a large portion of its permanent staff in one year or in two or three years because of bunching of retirements or deaths. And finally, it gives a man who wants a permanent appointment to any department an exact date on which to expect a vacancy to occur.

Two Big Hitches

But the system has two disadvantages, neither of which the University considers compelling at this time. Whereas a large department, which makes a permanent appointment every two or three years, can bring in outstanding scholars from all over the country whenever they turn up, the smaller department, with appointments only every five to ten years, has nothing to offer such men if they happen to be looking for permanent positions in a year when no appointments are scheduled.

The other disadvantage to adherence to the system is rigidity of the structure and distribution of the Faculty. The rapid growth in social relations is an example of a field which has not been given an allotment of permanent appointees comparable to its size.

Fine Arts offers the best example of the opposite trend. Before the war, Fine Arts averaged 2.7 percent of all concentrators; for the past three years it has averaged .9 percent, a decline to one third its former size. But it has nine full and associate professors, just as it did ten years ago.

In the twenties; the solution was easy: add more men to departments which attracted more students. But in the twenties the University was constantly expanding. The Houses were being built. Enrollment was going up. Wealthy graduates were endowing chairs and putting Harvard in their wills.

Now the College has decided to admit approximately 1,100 freshmen each year, which limits its enrollment to about 4,300. Tuition has had to go up to meet rising costs. Large fortunes are not being made with the same astonishing speed. Expansion is no longer the answer. There must be found some means of distributing the present Faculty to satisfy changing needs.

To attempt to accomplish this goal by office standards would be unsatisfactory the budget of a department were determined some combination of the number of its contractors and of students in its courses, the great variety which Harvard offers, and which considered by many one of its greatest strength would suffer drastically--if not be too destroyed. Also the next vacancy in any department could be summarily cancelled given to another department, instructors assistant professors could have no sense security at Harvard, and they would be quite to snap up permanent positions elsewhere.

Each department requires application of afferent standards. Courses in the Social science seem to demand less personal contact between student and professor. History, Government and Social Relations courses fill New Lecture Hall, Hunt Hall, and the ground floor Lecture room of Radcliffe's Longfellow Hall.

Course Size: Cause or Effect?

The rest of the College--the Natural Science and Humanities--operates with much small courses, and therefore much more personal attention. But which came first, the chickens the egg? Are Social Sciences courses inherently more adaptable to large lecture halls of other courses? Or is it merely that the great popularity of Social Sciences and the operatively small variety of courses of automatically make Social Sciences course large.

Are there only a limited number of course possible in any given field? Or do department merely split up the accessible knowledge their fields into the number of courses which their teachers are capable of giving?

If the answer to the first of each pair questions is completely affirmative, there no need for flexibility in the Faculty. But less the second questions can be answer definitely to the negative, a certain amount sensitivity to student box office demand necessary.

There are three choices: to continue with the present system, and investigate its results after another decade; to make appointments as vacancies appear and as many needs arise; or to find some system which retain the consistency of the present methods but allow for reasonable flexibility and sensitivity in apportionment of permanent, had paid instruction to fit the demands of times.