SCIENTIFIC FIELDS GAIN AS HUMANITIES SUFFER DROP

Enrollment in the humanities took a sizable drop this fall while the scientific fields were making corresponding gains, concentration figures revealed yesterday.

Released by Reginald H. Phelps '30, the tabulation shows also that this year's undergraduates are continuing the trend of recent years toward greater specialization in fields of concentration.

Greatest nosedives recorded were in the Economics and Government departments, both of which have declined steadily of late. Economics remains the most popular field, however, but only by a hair, for whereas Government went down only 23, from 230 to 297, the flight from Economics amounted to 71 men, with a slump from 372 to 301.

History Takes Sharp Drop

History, after annual increases reaching 287 Harvardmen last year, suffered a sharp drop of 19 students this fall. Philosophy likewise incurred a sudden decrease, losing 12 men after hovering around 50 for the three years previous, and the same phenomenon occurred in the field of Classics, which slipped by 10 from its usual level of 38-40.

The largest increase in enrollment was found in the field of Biology, where there was a 29-student rise from 106 to 135. A further movement toward the sciences was shown in Geological Sciences and Architectural Sciences (a new field created last year), the former receiving an increment of 11 men, 64 to 75; and the latter of ten, 11 to 21.

A comparison of these figures with last year's is not wholly accurate, as the 1939 group was issued after all transfer students had chosen their fields, where as at present 51 in that classification are still undecided. That their choices should alter to a great extent the figure for any one field is improbable, however.