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Show Harvard's Suggestions Two years ago Harvard University Uni-versity appointed a committee of twelve to survey the field of education and report a program for the improvement of high school and college education. The committee, headed by Dr. Paul H. Buck, has submitted a 267-page report entitled, "General "Gen-eral Education in a New Society." So-ciety." It advocates widespread post-war changes for the university, univer-sity, including the abolition of free elective system, greater emphasis em-phasis on general education and drastic revision of Harvard tutorial tu-torial plan. The educators suggest greater emphasis on general education at all levels of instruction and decry the trend n recent years to stress special educatoin, such as vocational and trade subjects. The committee recommends that fifty percent and preferably sev-enty-fve pere cent, of student time be devoted to a study of general education in the high schools. A "core curriculum" is suggested, sug-gested, to be built around English, Eng-lish, science and mathematics and the social sciences. High school students, whether they intend to go to college or not, would be required to take half of their time in the three areas listed and encouraged to use twelve of the sixteen high school units in courses along general educational lines to avoid narrow nar-row specialism. Space is not available to give further details of the recommendations recom-mendations of the committee, which believes that an undue emphasis has been placed on special education. This is the contention of a number of educators, edu-cators, especially those connected connect-ed with liberal arts institutions of learning. They maintain that the first requirement of an educated edu-cated individual is an understanding under-standing of the general filed of knowledge. This, they contend, permits free and intelligent thinking and provides an intellectual intel-lectual leadership which cannot be equalled by the specialists and technicians. |