When General Education courses were created in 1946, faculty members expected the curriculum to eventually become mandatory for all students. But nowadays the only Gen Ed class everyone takes is Gen Ed 105, "The Literature of Social Reflection," taught by Agee Professor of Social Ethics Robert Coles '50 and widely considered one of Harvard's easiest classes.

General Education courses, established in May 1946, were envisioned as a broad overview of science and Western literature.

The General Education course structure was developed in 1945-46 under Benjamin F. Wright, chair of the Committee on General Education, who hoped to spawn a curriculum of mandatory "basic knowledge" courses in three areas: humanities, natural sciences and social sciences.

Classes offered in the fall of 1946 included an analysis of "classic texts from Homer to Shakespeare as the sources of a tradition in Western thought," a look at Greek epics and a survey of the evolution of the novel "from Don Quixote to War and Peace," according to Crimson articles on the subject.

Courses in Western civilization, political theory and biological science were also planned.

Today's General Education curriculum is divided among freshman seminars, which are restricted to first-years; house seminars, with strict enrollment limits; and a few general lecture courses, which are open to all students.

These courses can be taken only as electives. But they do offer a focused sampling of courses in multiple disciplines.

"It's like the grin of the Cheshire Cat--the cat's gone and only the grin is still here," says Anthony G. Oettinger '51, a member of the Committee on Non-Departmental Instruction. "It's a pale shadow compared to the heyday under [then-president James B. Conant '14]."

The Core's Influence

The days of focusing solely on the development of Western thought and civilization are long gone. Today's courses cover a much wider variety of topics, places and ideas.

Much of the change can be traced to the establishment of the Core Curriculum in 1979. The Core is divided into six categories--foreign cultures, literature and arts, historical studies, social analysis and science.

Students must take eight Core courses, usually ones unrelated to their fields of concentration, in order to graduate.

Core courses now offer the general, non-specialized classes which Wright hoped would characterize General Education, Oettinger says.

"Courses that would be aimed at people who were not specialists, I think, is a common thread with the Core," he says.

With its original role usurped by the Core curriculum, General Education took on an entirely new identity.