On the other hand, the Committee also strongly implied that the actual science learned--the facts about atomic structure or vertebrates--was a by-product, albeit a welcome one. What the committee primarily desired was that the student gain "an insight into the principles of science, an appreciation of the values of the scientific enterprise."

The Committee obviously did not mean to pretend that a man who knew no physics could call himself educated only if he knew some biology. Rather, it hoped that either of the science courses it described would give the desired "insight." In both courses, it said, the actual science covered was to be "chosen to subserve the major aims of the course."

From the first, however, there were differences between the General Education program that actually found its way into the course catalogue and that recommended in the Redbook. In 1946, when lower-level Gen Ed courses were first offered on an experimental basis, there were two Soc Sci courses and three Hums, in addition to the two recommended Nat Scis.

Hardly Surprising

Such developments are hardly sur-surprising. The unwieldy size of a course required of all students, differences among students in ability and preparation, disagreements among faculty members over methods of presentation and the exact selection of the "great books" and significant scientific problems to be covered could all be expected to encourage the proliferation of lower-level Gen Ed courses beyond the four originally contemplated.

The Redbook itself even recommended something similar in the case of the physical science courses. Here, it had suggested, there should be two sections, one fast and one slow, to allow for differences in ability and prior preparation.

These departures from the exact specifications of the Redbook in both the Humanities and the Social Sciences did not necessarily represent deviations from its basic philosophy. The alternate lower-level Soc Sci and Hum courses were originally intended to cover the same material. Thus, only one of each could be counted for credit.

Of the courses added over the years, however, several (most obviously Hum 6, Soc Sci 4, and Soc Sci 8) make no pretense of covering the material originally recommended. They may well be excellent courses, better taught and more interesting than those lower-level courses which come closer to the Committee's ideal.

But placing them on the list of courses satisfying the lower-level Gen Ed requirement is a certification either that Hum 6 and Soc Sci 8 are sufficient to impart an understanding of a student's cultural heritage and the development of Western political institutions or else that such an understanding is not really very important, in which case it becomes rather difficult to defend the lower-level Gen Ed requirement at all.

But if standards for the lower-level courses in the non-scientific areas have undergone a process of gradual disappearance since 1945, those in natural sciences have suffered through the even more debilitating process of official reinterpretation.

Teaching Nat Sci General Education courses is not an easy job, and it early became an unpopular one among science professors. Of course, the Redbook did leave the Nat Sci instructor a somewhat complicated job.

In a Hum or Soc Sci, the lecturer talked about a book, a writer, or an idea, and, when he was finished, his students were expected to know about the book, the writer, or the idea. But, according to the Redbook, a physics professor lectured on elementary particles, and, when he was finished, his class was supposed to understand "the scientific enterprise." Understandably then, critics of the Nat Sci program have been divided into those who wanted courses which taught about science as a discipline and those who wanted the undergraduate to learn more about the elementary particles and less about the enterprise.

Bruner Committee

In 1959, the Committee on Science in General Education, headed by Jerome Bruner, called for courses that would "communicate knowledge of the fundamental principles of a special science," and that would also "give the student an idea of the methods of science as they are known today." How much this differs from the concept of the Redbook committee is made clear by the following sentences from the Bruner report:

The conception of the General Education course in Natural Science as commonly derived from the Report of the Committee on the Objectives of General Education in a Free Society has, we believe, led to misunderstanding and a certain alienation in the scientific community at Harvard. Insofar as it is clear that the principal object of a General Education course in science is the teaching of science itself rather than its historical, social, or philosophical implications, we believe that the present misunderstanding and alienation can be diminished.