THE WALLS COME TUMBLING DOWN

To say that modern life is a very complex affair is even more true than it is platitudinous. This complexity has confounded governments when they have attempted to regulate human relations. It has also confounded scholars and professors. So vast is the mass of knowledge today that no one dares to face the whole of it; and the result is that scholars have taken refuge in specialization. More and more have they drawn into their tight little corners of specific knowledge, completely curtained off from the rest of the room.

There has been a growing conviction among educators of late--a common conviction which has almost assumed the proportions of a trend--that this process has exceeded its proper limits. Even Mr. Hutchins and Mr. Conant, who are more comfortable glaring at each other across a ring, stand united on this point. Specialization, so they say, has gone too far when each separate field loses its meaning. Scholars have lost the true perspective; they no longer perceive the vital relations between the individual branches of learning. Education has become a meaningless chaos of information.

The epochal report on education released today wishes to controvert this tendency. There have been previous attempts in its direction, including Harvard's roving professorships, Chicago's divisional organization, and Yale's Institute of Human Relations. But these often amounted to administrative palliatives; and the suggested concentration in areas at Harvard is one of the most coherent steps yet taken to cut across departmental lines.

As such, it must, in general, be lauded. But not in unqualified terms, for it must be also recognized that there is a sacrifice involved. This sacrifice is a firm grasp of a particular subject. The proposed system tends away from a complete comprehension of a single field, tends toward the "broad knowledge of little depth" so feared and hated by the English Civil Service Examiners. Its danger is rank superficiality.

In the final analysis, this question resolves down to two comparatively irreconcilable theories of education. The one favors a deep, firmly rooted, but extremely limited knowledge. It leans toward vocationalism. The other favors a broader and more integrated type of learning. It admits less depth in a particular department, but argues that an examination of all the possible approaches within a wide area to a specific problem, and a consequent understanding of the relations between these different approaches, outweighs the loss. If it is admitted that the objects of formal education are to train the intellectual powers and to further the cultural development, then the second seems definitely superior.

But the practicality must also be considered. This plan creates, as never before, a staggeringly heavy load for tutorial. The tutorial staff must correlate the diverse courses which each student takes, must point out to him their relations and their bearing upon his chosen problem. If it fails in this, education becomes even more of a chaos of disconnected subjects. Required are tutors with a broad but keen grasp of the whole area themselves, and these may be difficult if not impossible to find, especially among the younger men.

In fact, the practical difficulties may dictate a compromise with the principle. For the present at least, it may be better to proceed cautiously with the area idea, and to advance generally on the basis of the combined fields of concentration plan. That this advance would be on solid ground is fully demonstrated by the success of a combination such as History and Literature. The emphasis and the trend from specialization is the same. Ultimately, when all the implications have been realized, and when a capable staff has been trained, the area system may conceivably flower forth in its full glory.