Universities: In Pursuit of Independence

"Leibniz was doubtless the last man who knew everything," mourns Amherst Philosophy Professor Joseph Epstein. The death in 1716 of that encyclopedic German mathematician-philosopher symbolizes the time when the knowledge explosion began forcing universities to abandon the ambition of teaching every student everything, and made them narrow down to what be came the "required courses" of modern schools. Now, all over the U.S., colleges and universities are scrutinizing the value of these lock-step requirements and, to a surprising degree, are dumping them in favor of letting students form their own education patterns.

Much of the move toward more free dom of choice for students comes from a recognition that thousands of college freshmen, better trained in their high schools, do not need many traditional basic courses. The idea, says Harvard's Director of General Education Edward T. Wilcox, is that the freshman year no longer need be like an army's basic training, with "all incoming freshmen treated alike in large, required courses," but can offer "new, upper-level courses —a series of options." Changes are motivated, too, by the realization that a student who pursues subjects that deeply interest him is likely to learn more. As Notre Dame Senior David Sauer puts it: "Only a challenge of my own can turn me on."

The liberalization works out in three forms: abandonment of many required basic liberal arts courses; expansion of independent studies by undergraduates, sometimes omitting classes altogether; and widespread dropping of grades as barriers that keep students from taking courses outside their specialties.

"Every Reasonable Program." Amherst is a leader in redesigning curriculum; next September it will drop all core courses required since 1947 and supplant them with only three one-semester courses in natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, retaining a language and physical education. The Yale faculty voted last month to abandon its system of requiring a certain distribution of courses in various fields; next year's college bulletin will say that "every reasonable program" proposed by students "will be approved." Smith will also loosen its distribution rules.

Independent study, in which students work out their educational goals with an adviser, then pursue them individually, is proliferating. Most spectacular are Ford Foundation-financed experiments at Allegheny, Colorado and Lake Forest colleges, in which some 25 students on each campus are spending their four years in such study. They are examined on their understanding of liberal arts at the end of their sophomore year, on their major field as seniors.

Harvard is saturated with various forms of independent study at all levels. Its seniors work alone on deep-probing theses. Juniors and sophomores have for many years taken closely supervised tutorials that involve no class work. Even freshmen are allowed to take ungraded seminars in which they develop their own study projects. And next fall Harvard (which has been vacillating between stressing electives and required courses ever since President Charles W. Eliot dropped nearly all required courses in the 1880s) will announce a swing back toward more electives for general-education freshmen.