Barzun Discusses Education Trend

"You cannot establish general education successfully on a departmental basis," was the comment of Jacques Barzun, Columbia professor, on the latest developments here, before he participated in a three man panel on "Education in a Fumbling Society," at 7:30 o'clock in the Dunster House Dining Room.

Following the position set forth in his latest book, "Teacher in America," on the mass production method in American pedagogy, Barzun again asserted that the lecture, as such, slanted from the specialist's outlook, has little value in presenting general education.

Later in the evening's discussion John H. Finley '23, Eliot professor of Greek Literature, took issue with Barzun on this point. "Specialization is compatible with general education," he insisted, as he presented the thought of the Objectives Committee, of which he was a member:

No Ivory Tower

Francis O. Matthiessen, professor of History and Literature, declared in the same forum that "too great gulf exists between Harvard and the Old Howard," and that there was a lack of relationship between college education and American community life.

In a personal interview before the meeting at which 500 students appeared, Barzun noted with interest the elimination of tutorial in several university departments, Barzun declared that tutorial work, or its equivalent, is a necessity for college men of Junior and Senior standing. He offered as "the equivalent alternative" a system of conferences and seminars where students could freely express themselves orally and in writing.

Barzun agreed with the Student Council reports on general education that the issue of allotting college budgets to research rather than to teaching was the vital one in connection with the death of tutorial. "To be more than a phonograph," he admitted, "a teacher has to keep abreast of research in his field and do some original thinking."

"But he mustn't be asked to enter a rat-race of publication," he asserted. On the other hand "no one lauds the professor who parrots what he learned in college thirty years ago from his old undergraduate notes."