Page:Catalogue of St. John's College 1945.pdf/6

22 drawing board. There is the theme of measurement which involves the analytical study of the instruments of observation and measurement, the chemical balances, the meter stick, the thermometer, the barometer, the microscope, telescope, spectrometer, and interferometer, the use of scales, gauges, and graphic methods of recording observation. There is the study of concrete materials and situations in biology and medicine which demand the combination of scientific findings, both in theory and in fact; and this in turn demands practice in crucial experiments in the history of science. All this is backed by a solid training in the mathematical techniques and symbolisms as far as differential equations.

This provides the material and intellectual background for the modern study of humanistic and social science. Without this it is empty and romantic. With it one may hope for a generation of competent economists, political scientists, and even sociologists. Social studies at present do not provide an intelligible set of organizing principles; until they do we shall aim the mathematical and scientific work at the point where the medical and humanistic traditions cross; they agree that the proper study of mankind is man.

The proper subject matter for the study of the liberal arts is man and the world, with all that these imply; the medium we have chosen to convey this knowledge and appreciation is the classical books arranged in both a chronological and pedagogical order; the methods of learning and teaching are the liberal arts; the end of the teaching and learning is insight, understanding, and good intellectual and moral habits which provide the basis for human freedom. The following paragraphs will be a description of the scheduled arrangements for doing this in four thirty-week sessions of the college course.

Such arrangements call for two kinds of distribution of the materials and methods of instruction, one according to allotted times and the other according to teaching functions. On pages 40 to 43 the reader will find three listings of the books. The first shows the chronological order for books and authors, beginning with Homer and ending with Russell, Freud, and James. This represents the required readings for the four years and implies further readings in secondary books as well as teaching in methods of reading and writing. The second list shows the division of books into four groups according to the four sessions of the college course. This list also divides the books into three columns according to the classification of the primary symbolic medium in which they are presented, languages and literature, mathematics and science, and those books fewer in number which deal explicitly with the liberal arts and sciences. The third list shows how these books distribute themselves over the conventional array of subject matters as they are studied in the contemporary colleges which follow the elective system. This third list is presented for those who wish to compare and contrast the St. John's program with the ordinary college; they should be warned to assure themselves of a real comparison by using only the selections from the subject matters which a normal student would make in the elective system.

It should also be noted that many books actually fall in several divisions according to subject matter, as on the other hand many books in an elective system are read in almost complete isolation, therefore without background and aid from other books. There is also a general warning that such lists are only diagrams for emphasizing this or that special aspect of the curriculum; for instance there is nothing in any of these diagrams to show the weightings of time or emphasis on special books, nothing to show the weightings that individual students are encouraged to put upon them for their own individual benefit or interests. With these qualifications, which should suggest still others, the lists give a fairly accurate general impression of the curriculum.

The division into four years has an interesting significance. Something over two thousand years of intellectual history is covered in the first two years; about three hundred years of history is studied in an equal or slightly greater number of books in the last two years. The first year is devoted mostly to the Greeks and their special understanding of the liberal arts; the second year contains books most of which were originally written in Latin, and covers the Roman and medieval periods; the third year has books originally written in Romance languages for the most part although English has a large share; the fourth year introduces German works and concentrates on the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. This four-year schedule was not made because of any underlying theory