Undergraduate Report on the Curriculum
IT HAS BEEN said that college curricula, both in the theory behind them and in their working out, are passing through a very significant transition period. Just what this change is, from what it moves toward what, not many know with certainty. Yet those who have been following the ideals stated so clearly and so frequently by our president can have little doubt as to the chief aim of the curricular adaptations which may be made here at Dartmouth in the next few years. As far back as the memory of the present college generation extends, President Hopkins has been telling of the college ideal to train men for citizenship, to emphasize the tone rather than the tools of life, to cultivate the social mind. The dream is a stirring one, and always leaves us eager for the new richness of learning which such ideals would impart to a college curriculum. Yet always, all too soon, after such inspiration the college work again seems ordinary, technical, a continuation in far too many cases of high school work. It is when this continued commonness of the work we are doing in our fous years of opportunity becomes so clear, that the question is always asked of just what changes could be made in the Dartmouth set-up to bring us nearer to that high ideal of the Administration. And it is then that almost as many theories as there are speakers originate.
Hard as it is to find a general refrain to the chorus of ideas put forth on the improvements logical in our curriculum, there is one which can be detected subtly in practically every opinion. That is, that an urgent need exists for greater freedom in the choice of courses. Moves in this direction have been made in the requirements for the first two years, and they have met with wide approval. There still remains chance for still further development of the idea there, but at present the greatest possibility for its continuation lies in the regulations over the last two years, and the system of majors. Majors were undoubtedly installed with the idea that concentrated effort is more productive than scattered wanderings where curiosity leads. This is certainly true when the productivity is concerned with making money; but here at Dartmouth, as told us over and over again, the aim is not to teach the means of making a living, but rather how to use the living made, and in such a place the unqualified idea of narrowed concentration, it seems to me, sits on an uneasy throne. So often the work done here in undergraduate days has little if any bearing on the work of years to come. Men studying French go into American business, men learning art teach economics, which they've never had a chance to look into under the present plans here, even men taking premedical work find that several of their Dartmouth courses are repeated to them when they get into graduate work. At times like that the opportunities which "could have been" to satisfy curiosities and develop interests never contacted before or after, and which instead were limited and lost, must hurt indeed.
Some may still think that during the college years, which, after all, are as a rule the thirteenth to sixteenth of a man's education, one should be ready to narrow his interests and concentrate his efforts. It seems time a man should be getting ready for a settled place in life. I don't think, however, that this is the undergraduate role, at least not the enlightened one. It certainly isn't in a college which hopes to develop citizens of outstanding, full-bred minds. The freedom to wander where curiosity lies is all too short, even when granted for the four years of college, and the narrowed, calloused living of the professional world starts all too abruptly. Even graduate schools, which have been requiring strict preparation in elementary courses, are realizing more and more the advantages and the future strength to be gained from broadened scope during undergraduate days, and the entrance to law and medical schools is tending to become progressively more flexible. While it is dangerous to feel subtle pulses this way, it does seem certain that the need for concentrated study is realized more and more to belong to the graduate and technical schools and business, while the great, perhaps greatest, problem, of building wise life foundations rests with the liberal college, such as ours, unhindered by worries of strict departmentalized training.
THAT CERTAINLY is the thought that can be found underlying President Hopkins' hopes. A man who is to be able to read the morning paper with intelligence, keep up with the pace of the world, and maintain a level headed social attitude toward it all—a man who is to be a contributing citizen in the modern times—cannot prepare himself best in one college department, cannot hope to find the best all round approach to living in the economics department or the political science or the history or even the philosophy department alone. Roaming through them all is the one way he can find open-mindedness, tolerance, a sense of men as human beings and society as an organic whole.
Yet we still cringe at the words wander and roam. They do give a feeling of lost time, effort spread wide and so wasted. And it is often so. But that need not mean that freedom in college work is bound to mean dallying and loss. Along with the chance for individuals to plot their own work in college would have to go advisory help and methods specially set up to guide men to their own best choices. The College is said to be working toward a part of such machinery in a course of large coordinating scope to be taken freshman and sophomore years. Whatever form this would actually take, it undoubtedly would call for contributions in make-up from all the departments around which the curriculum is tending to pivot—the social sciences, as the sciences of humanity. As such it would give a still wider and far better general outlook on the opportunities for study at college than can be presented in the freshman orientation courses now. And if designed and taught in the proper way it would furnish an intellectual equipment early in the college career which would be invaluable in the later years, and which is so sorely lacking in the present setup until it develops by itself late in college, if at all. It is true of course that a philosophy and way of thinking to which to anchor through college cannot be taught every freshman who comes to Hanover. Yet it does seem perfectly possible that such a general course, designed and executed in an enlightened fashion to develop attitudes and give a wide view of the human sciences, could give each man the equipment to get far more out of college than he can now.
Still no matter how well such an orienting course were worked out, it would not completely fill the needs of men left to choose their college courses largely on their own. Without doubt there would be a call for final help and balance through personal advice and a gentle supervision by older men of the college. It seems to me that a very worth while and practical system of faculty advisers could be used to give Dartmouth something of the same atmosphere that other large and outstanding universities have in their tutorial system. Intimate contact between students and the faculty is all too scarce here as it is. Periodically it flares up under some forced draft, but it rarely occurs spontaneously. A plan to give each member of the faculty a few men of the entering freshman classes to advise and help in the many problems of getting located in the new college atmosphere, and in making the most of the college opportunity throughout the Colll years, would add a very desirable touch to the community. And it might well be the final surety that a new freedom of scope in the rich curriculum at Dartmouth would be used wisely, to achieve the ideals that made it possible and really bring about a college for citizenship.
Senior Fellow
