Increase in Honors Candidacy Reported by Faculty Committee

Outstanding in the report compiled by the Committee on the Choice of Electives is the fact that at the present time more Harvard undergraduates are candidates for honors than ever before. The figures also show that the trend noted several years ago, the decrease in the number of men concentrating in English and the concomitant increase in the number concentrating in Economics, has reached a significant point, Economics having replaced English at the head of the numerical scale.

English Drops Lead

Two years ago the English Department held a margin of 124 students over the next largest field, Economics. Last year the lead had fallen to 35. Now English has been superseded, there being 23 more concentrators in Economics than in this division of the field of Modern Languages. Economics now counts 417 members against 394 for English.

The combined field of History, Government and Economics is by far the largest in the College, with 775 members of the three upper classes enroled. It has shown a gradual though steady gain since 1926. Below the divisions of Economics and English ranks as the third largest field History, with 233 concentrators. The combined field of Modern Languages, containing the Romance Languages, German and English, numbers 634 men, a decided drop from its 1926 total of 776.

Fine Arts Shows Gain

Among other large fields showing gains over the previous year, the departments of History and Literature, the Fine Arts and Bio-Chemical Sciences, are outstanding. Fine Arts has risen from the tenth to the sixth largest field in two years. Government, Mathematics, Philosophy, Psychology and the Romance Languages all show losses.

Out of a total of 2,370 concentrators, 35 percent, 830 in number, are now candidates for honors. This is an increase of 3.7 percent over last year and 6.7 percent over the previous year. Mathematics shows the highest percentage of candidates for honors, with 55.3 percent of its students enroled as seeking the degree with honors. History and Literature rates second with 48 percent honors seekers, and Government third with 42 percent.