Bay is afraid that political science has taken an exclusively functional approach. "I object not to a functional approach, but to a functional approach that has no normative reference beyond the range of data it seeks to order and make use of," Bay said.

The ultimate aims of politics or social analysis have "become transformed from a focus on man's needs and potentialities to a focus on systems maintenance," Bay said.

The educational system has institutionalized this shift. In fact, social scientists today "are carefully trained not to discover this," Bay added.

Bay concludes with the warning that "unless we learn to cultivate better our powers of substantive as well as formal rationality, and our courage to teach with candor what we know to be true, or just, our present foreign policies will remain without effective challenge."

THIS FERMENT in political science has also affected the process of regeneration, the educational system that turns out new political scientists. Are the minds of young political scientists being trained properly?

"Social Science and Social Consciousness," by Robert Engler, Professor of Social Science at Sarah Lawrence College, appearing in Roszak's book, contends that the graduate student's mind is being strangely perverted.

"Good undergraduates," Engler writes, "are generally intellectually more open-minded and alive than all but the best of graduate students, a commentary not on graduate genes but on graduate systems."

Emulating their betters, graduate students' "attraction to status and income often leads them to display cynical and opportunistic approaches to their studies and ultimately to their careers.

"Competitive zeal and junior gamesmanship and grantsmanship become their equipment for survival and success in the academic marketplace."

The end result, Engler writes, is that "Idealism comes to be deprecated," whether it be "about learning or about the society."

George Greenburg, a third year graduate student in government, vocalizes a number of complaints about the Harvard graduate program.

His greatest concern is with the requirements and grading of general examinations. His criticism is stimulated by a deeper concern. "There's something dreadfully wrong with this profession. If we can have a better government department here, maybe this will help," Greenburg said.

"Political science is supposed to be value-free but you tend to become committed to the system you are studying." Consequently, "American political scientists don't like to rock the boat."

"I don't have that much of a stake in the system now," Greenburg observed, "but I might in ten years." Graduate education is "a real socialization system."

Doubt about the nature of political science is at the heart of academic criticism. But what sort of political science should be adopted?