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UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA

11

In this work of a continually tentative reconstruction of the curricu-
lum, however deep the impact of present needs, we would not and we
could not scrap the past. There it is a living thing and a daily part of
our lives in the currents of the present world. We carry the past in our
bodies and minds. The past is deep and rich in intellectual and spiritual
treasures in the curriculum of the college. We cannot throw out the
past. Nor can we avoid the admission of the present world which
presses in upon us in new and strange ways.

The several faculties of the University, or their committees, have
during these two years been resolutely grappling with the content and
organization of the curriculum. On the basis of these several studies
and the discussions of the Administrative Council of faculty repre-
sentatives, we are considering the provision for two years of funda-
mental, though not uniform, courses throughout the three divisions of
the university. The curriculum of these two years would be composed
of courses in the humanities, natural sciences, and the social sciences
as a threefold and life-wide introduction of the student to himself, to
his heritage, to his world, and to his special interest and aptitude.
With diversity in choices, according to individual variations, interests,
and aptitudes, within each of these three major divisions of study, but
with a fundamental acquaintance with all three, the student, it is
hoped, will have a better intellectual foundation from which to approach
his held of major concentration, the vocation or profession through
which he is to work, and the world in which he is to live.

On top of these two fundamental years would come the divisions of
major concentration with more and more concentration in a school or a
division, in a vocation or a profession, in a group of departments or a
department, and on through the highest reaches of graduate study.

In the first two years we would frankly have duplication in funda-
mental though not uniform courses, duplication that is not duplication
except in the analogous sense that we are human personalities and have
great fundamental common needs. All students are, first of all, human
beings in need of the development of a more complete and rich per-
sonality. Second, all students are to follow a vocation or a profession
in need of this foundational testing of interests and this broader intro-
duction to thought and culture. Third, all students are to be citizens
of a democracy in need of a more adequate understanding of their
responsibility for a truer mastery of our manifold civilization.