Word: general
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...immediate difficulty is the actual process of exemption. Harvard's program is unique, and it would be virtually impossible to get a national testing program. The tests would have to be written, administered, and graded by the General Education Committee or the Advanced Placement Office, and neither would especially relish...
...there is a problem of policy which will probably prevent the solution of the mechanical difficulties: a large group connected with General Education feels that the program is really a three-course venture into liberal education, and that to issue an exemption because a student had once had other liberal education would be ridiculous...
...fundamental question, therefore, is whether compulsory "liberal" education should be part of the Harvard curriculum. Concentration has long been a part of the College, not as a necessary evil, but a positive good; to make General Education the first step in the creation of a liberal arts college, or even a compromise with that end would be a radical and undesirable change. Rather, General Education should be what it was designed to be: a liberalized distribution program which recognizes that its participants will never study the areas of human knowledge in toto, and tries to impart a general understanding...
...Professor Murdock has pointed out, the "redbook"--General Education in a Free Society--on which the General Education Program was founded, said that the proper place of such instruction would ideally be in the schools. The situation has not changed in this respect, despite thirteen years, and it might be wise to try letting the schools fulfill their job. If sixty students come in with sufficient preparation to become sophomores, it does not seem unlikely that quite a few students have studied enough in one area to gain placement into more advanced courses in that area than the elementary level...
...impressive reasons the General Education program has consistently refused to systematize its concessions to the well-prepared or the student with special plans. With the exception of the long-standing Nat Sci exemption, the requirement has no provision for unusual cases. No doubt the reasons are always good, but the cumulative effect is inevitably disquieting. The isolation and stasis which seems to be infiltrating the program are discouraging signs; nothing could be further from either liberal or General Education than a compartmentalized offering of three courses which refuses to integrate itself with the rest of the College...