Surrounded by Victorian fireplaces, mammoth sky-lights, and an unused swimming pool, the administrators of the University's three Regional Studies Programs are guiding almost 70 carefully selected graduate students through investigations that seem curiously out of place in the elaborate Gold Coast surroundings of 16 Dunster Street. For not only are the programs on East Asia, the Soviet Union, and the Middle East--among the newest at the University, but they are also dramatic illustrations of the interest of American higher education in the revolutionary area stretching from Egypt to Japan, and from Lithuania to Siberia.

All three programs, leading to a Master of Arts degree, attempt to give each student a broad background in the history and culture of his area, extensive language training, and an understanding of the forces at work in the present day. In a sense the program tries to get behind the headlines without studying the headlines, and the modern orientation often leads students back into early periods of history.

The programs are kept small--none can admit more than 20 students each year to the two-year program--but the small number of students is no indication of the great variety of courses open to these potential area specialists. In the East Asia program, for example, there are 51 possible courses scattered through various departments--History, Government, General Education, Fine Arts, Anthropology, Economics, Social Relations, and Far Eastern Languages and Literatures. It may seem a big jump from "Advanced Mandarin Conversation" to "The Representation of Nature in Europe and Asiatic Art," but to the East Asia student, the gap merely shows the great distance he must span to became truly well-versed in his area.

Seminars, Integration

In addition to the multitude of courses available in other departments, each program also offers its own area seminar. Also, in all three fields there are post-doctoral students and experts pursuing research of many kinds, and although technically there is no contact between the M.A. students and the researchers they are bound to influence each other in many ways. Seminars, special courses, and informal acquaintance all provide chances for integrating those in Regional Studies with more specialized scholars.

Visiting experts are also a great source of information about a region. Last year in the Middle East program, for example, a labor delegation from Iran passed through Cambridge, and gave the students the first non-governmental view of the country they had seen. "It was refreshing to get their viewpoint," recalls Richard N. Frye, associate professor of the Middle East Program. "They gave us an impression of the country vastly different from the usual reports."

In a sense, the whole idea of regional studies which cut across many disciplines is an attempt to get away from usual reports and one-sided knowledge. Graduates of the program may go into the government, private business, or further academic training, but whatever field they finally enter, they should bring to their work a broad understanding of an entire region--not just a century, or a country, or a king.

War Impetus

The demand for broad knowledge about an area comes directly out of the Second World War. Total war required total information, and the government was forced to bring together some experts who had lived in a country, and knew the language, others who knew the history or the economy, and others who understood geography and military techniques.

"After the war we saw the need for pulling all of this together in the universities," declares William L. Langer, Coolidge of the Committee on Regional Studies. "The need for integrating our knowledge of an area-became extremely important," he says.

As chairman of the committee which sets policy for all three programs, Langer has a good perspective on Regional Studies. "Our area programs are not intended to be comprehensive in the sense of giving a complete and finished understanding, but they do give a pretty good over-all view of language, history, and the general problems. They have all worked very well."

The East Asia program is the best example of an area program that has evolved directly from the war, and it has also, as Langer says, worked very well indeed.

Second World War Harvard bore little resemblance to its Ivy League counterpart. For the armed services took over the Cambridge area, and with them came their various training programs. One such study group was the Army Special Training Program (ASTP) on China and Japan. In this course, selected officers and enlisted men were sent to the University for intensive study in those fields.

Saturation Course

Since the graduates of this course were needed desperately by the Army for duty in the Far East, speed was a necessity. The students had to spend as much as six hours a day studying the languages, and experts on the economy, history, geography, and culture of the areas fired lectures at the students as quickly as they could assimilate them.