Area Distribution To Prevent '45 Successors From Over concentrating

In order to eliminate the problem of overconcentration, a dangerous threat to Harvard's Hberal tradition the Faculty last year adopted a plan which insures that a student has a well distribution program of courses.

Beginning with the class of 1945 all their will be expected to distribute their course the three broad areas created by the Faculty. These are the areas of Natural science, Social Studies and Arts, Letters and Philosophy. They comprise all the courses Listed in the catalogue public speaking and composition courses and the military sciences.

Students were warned by Dean Leighton, chairman of the Committee on Distribution, that the classification is necessarily somewhat arbitrary. "Its purpose is not to set up absolute distinctions between subjects, or sections, or areas, but to arrange the course offerings conveniently according to a general plan so that students can intelligently choose their total programs of study.

The "sections" he referred to are subdivisions of the "areas," and contain from one to nine courses apiece. The total program of each student must contain selections from four of the eight sections and all three areas must be represented.

"The Intention of the rules," said Dean Leighton, "Is that every student shall have some acquaintance at college level with certain representative studies essential to a liberal education and that every student shall at the same time have full opportunity to become as thoroughly versed as possible in some one branch of learning."

The new requirements are not expected to hit many students, except those who are fanatics in their field. The chemist who spends four years in Mallinckrodt, never penetrating the recesses of Emerson, will be wiped out. Harvard men will continue to learn a little bit of everything, and so spread the gospel of liberal education after graduation.