Economics 1 has regained the top spot in course enrollments this year with 640 students. Humanities 5, last year's leader with a whopping 699, has fallen back into second place with 535.

"The Principles of Economics," a perennial Lowell Lecture Hall giant, gained more than 60 students from last year, and has had to double-up on its section men in order to bear the load.

Harold F. Wilkinson, head section man, attributed the course's popularity to "the growing interest in and awareness of economic questions in world affairs. "Look at the gold outflow problem," he said. "If you take Ec 1, supposedly you learn the explanations."

Third on the list as usual is Math 1a with 499. The appearance in fourth place of the occasionally given English 151, The 19th Century Novel, with 464 students, is a complete surprise, revealing the demand for a course of this type.

The English department has been criticized in the past for its lack of courses. In view of the interest in fiction, however, "we are going to give more attention to the situation than we were able to last year or the year before," reports Walter J. Bate, chairman of the department. In a move to expand this year, the department has revived English 181, Narration in the English Novel, to be given in the spring.

Soc. Sci. 8 has displaced Soc. Sci. 1 as the most crowded of the basic Soc. Sci.'s. The psychology course, which established some sort of record this year when 800 applied for admission, enrolls 425, while Soc. Sci. 1 has 408.

Gov 1a and Nat Sci 5, George Wald's "experiment," are next with 385 and 340. Interestingly enough, Gov. 1a has been in the top ten only since 1960, when the Department transformed it from Constitutional Concepts to Modern Government.