This is the problem, and these are some of its roots. There are ideas which suggest solutions.

Laboratory work in the Natural Sciences courses would help. The "red book" called for it as a way to illustrate the precision and experiment which characterize the approach of many sciences. Most Gen Ed courses now try for this effect through demonstration sections and problem sets, notably inadequate tools. If the lab space could be made available laboratory work might improve all the lower-level Nat Sci courses which to not require it. This could happen only if the method were carefully though out. The endless lab writeup of the Physics 1 variety should be avoided, but a good lab would add some of the rigor which many scientists feel the program now lacks.

More radical is another solution, proposed by a high administrator. He suggests that the science concentrator's exemption from a lower-level Natural Science course be discontinued. He contends that if the scientists had to teach their own students in these courses, they would take a greater interest in them and in General Education as a whole.

Red Book Against Exemption

Historically, that exemption was put into the rules during Faculty debates on the program, and it represents a concession to win the support of the sciences for the program generally. There is no basis for the exemption in the "red book," which argues, contrarily:

It frequently happens that even the student who concentrates in a science is preoccupied with his specialty to such a degree that he fails to achieve a view of science as a whole and of the interrelationship of the special fields within it. A general education in science needs to be provided for the future scientist or technologist as well as for the general student. One could scarcely insist that all students of history or literature should learn some biology, for example, but that the prospective physicist or chemist need not do so.

The time argument enters in here, too, for the science concentrator already has many hours of lab in his first years, and would be pressed to fit another course in. One Physics concentrator derided the scheme, asking, "Why waste another course on science?"

David Owen, acting chairman of the Committee on General Education, objects to the revision on these grounds, and feels also that it would not achieve its intended effects. "Instead of entering Gen Ed courses with enthusiasm," he comments, "scientists might just make them more technical if science concentrators took them."

The significance of this proposal, aside from its practical difficulties, lies in the attitude it conveys. It suggests that the science departments huddle together to protect their own, and take a unified stand on questions dealing with General Education. The Committee has not found this reaction from other areas, where courses can always be arranged on an individual basis, and no defensively departmental attitudes appear.

The whole argument leaves unanswered a broader question--the whole problem of science instruction of the non-concentrator. Whether this is to be achieved through a Gen Ed course or courses, or by some other means, modern civilization requires a man to have an understanding of some of the greater problems of the sciences that may bring his destruction, and a satisfactory means of providing it in Harvard College must be found. The lower-level offering is now adequate, but impending retirements may threaten it soon. The upper-level courses are insufficient.

In 1951 Owen, then chairman of the Committee on General Education, wrote:

One of the critical tests of a successful general education program is that of an adequate course in the natural sciences. The difficulties appear to lie partly in the attitude of many scientists, who have been unable to interest themselves in the problem of teaching their subject to the non-scientist.

Owen was speaking in general terms, and he noted that President Conant's leadership (he taught Natural Sciences 4) had minimized this problem here, but his words are relevant now, and perhaps have more significance four years after Conant's resignation.

No Immediate Solution

No immediate solution presents itself. The whole problem seems as much one of tact and politics as of abstract principles. A select Faculty committee has been appointed to investigate the entire subject of science instruction for non-scientists, and its findings, hopefully promised for next spring, will be awaited with considerable interest.