But it would be equally unwise to recruit students chiefly on the basis of taking part in something "experimental." The "experimental" has, for many, the implications that discipline is unnecessary, that the arts offer a way of life which can elude normal obligations and limitations, that the educational community should be set up in opposition to the society as a whole. Such utopian and Bohemian aims are not part of the New College proposal.

It's not difficult to see what colleges the Report is talking about. According to Shannon McCune, "we don't want more than the usual quota of screwballs." But New College is not planned as a roost for "greasy grinds" either. Its students, according to McCune, should be "young men and women of imagination and curiosity--in many fields."

Whatever they are like, the first batch of New College freshmen will face an experience markedly different--in means, though not in its purpose from their friends at more conventional institutions.

No Language Requirement

The language requirement has been eliminated in the conviction that students who take a language on compulsion and without aptitude gain too little from the experience to justify what it costs them and the college.

One of three courses in the first year will be in physical science, "designed to put the student in the position of working as a scientist." It will not be a survey, nor will it simply talk "about" science. All students will perform some of the operations of science, "and so acquire experience which can form the basis for a general understanding of scientific method and history."

Though The New College Plan itself remain an unexplored possibility, the Presidents of the four sponsoring institutions show enthusiasm. "We are all eager to have the project explored more fully," said Richard G. Gettell of Mt. Holyoke, "and have high hopes that what started as a gleam-in-the-eye may, before too long, become a reality." Charles W. Cole of Amherst said that "were New College created, it would have a tremendous impact on existing institutions and on the whole problem of creating new ones."

Because "changing a curriculum is like moving a graveyard," as McCune put it, the Committee early decided to make a fresh start with The New College Plan, rather than attempting to introduce any "major departures" in the sponsoring institutions. But New College, as President Cole remarked, is expected to suggest important changes at the Four Colleges.

Institutionalized Gut?

However, even with a fresh start, New College will find it hard to inspire the style of life" which could make the College a great place to learn. It is easy to imagine students paying lip service to "intellectual excitement" while actually looking on New College as an institutionalized gut. Student seminars tend to bog down if students fail to do thoroughly the reading required for vital discussion.

Furthermore, the much talked-of independent study, no matter how carefully introduced, could become a farce; students might interpret freedom from rigid course requirements as freedom from serious work. The New College planners are men of high professional standards, but their task is a difficult one: to create an intellectual "style of life" that is genuine in an atmosphere of independence.

If the New College idea is attempted, as it should be, the educational rewards could be significant. If not, the Plan itself, as Professor Barber put it, "ought to keep faculty committees in agony for years."