least some group of living things. Such an interest would be a source of
constant enjoyment.

Your Committee recommends that the courses proposed by the biologi-
cal science departments be adopted as a requirement for graduation for
all students entering the College in the fall of 1945 and thereafter.
Normally these courses should be taken during the freshman or sophomore
year. We also —— that the courses immediately following the course

in General Biology be reduced from five-hour to three-hour courses.

 

Your Committee does not feel that it should recommend a required
course in a physical science or in general physical science. The latter
does not seem to be practically possible, nor does it seem to be so es-—

sential for all students as does the course in general biology.

V. Western Civilization

The following report of a special committee, selected by the Conmit-
tee on Curriculum, contains a proposal concerning which your Committee
wishes to submit a recommendation:

1. ALL students in the College shall. be required to have ob-
tained already or to obtain in the freshman and sophomore years a
knowledge of modern civilization in the West such as would be of
college standard.

The requirement shall be broad enough to insure that anyone
passing it successfully will have demonstrated understanding of at
least the basic characteristics of the present society of which he
is a part and of the cultural heritage of that society. It will
emphasize not only the growth and nature of Western institutions as
such, but also, as of equal importance, the rise and content of the
Christian and the Democratic idea that has emerged in the West.

The historical scope to be included will be limited in time,
say, from the later Middle Ages to the present. "This span of his-
tory has", as the University of Iowa Committee say of their proposed
requirement in the same direction, "a large measure of continuity
and unity. Ib is an era of civilization particularly pertinent to
the present. It should be comprehensive in the sense that it brings