Speakers on G.E. Agree on Policies Of New Program

Norman Birnbaum, teaching fellow in General Education, called General Education "the hope of education at Harvard" at the Adams House Forum last night.

The aim of general education, he said, is "to create spiritual heroism in the individual in the face of a mass culture."

Philip H. Rhinelander '29, secretary of the committee on General Education, said that democracy has "a commitment to free inquiry." General Education, he said, works towards a "cultivation of the critical attitude necessary."

All the speakers were agreed on the principle of General Education. But methods and intensity of teaching, were a point of dispute.

Neil J. Smelser '52, Rhodes Scholar-elect, called for more reading in the G.E. courses and more rigor in the lectures. A student, he said, "often comes out of a lecture only aware that a given historical event was caused by a number of things."

"You have to recognize the limits of time, though," Phillippe E. Le Corbeiller, professor of General Education, said. He said the student must understand the scientific and technical forces that have completely changed his way of life.

Calling for a decrease in reading and less complicated lecture material. Burton D. Hersh '55 declared that the freshman is forced to "gluttonize," and "finds himself lost in a maze of interrelated ideas and jargon."