The Master of Arts in General Studies

Abstract

T HOSE who read Quest for Wisdom in the February Harpers will recall the experience of nine carefully chosen journalists who spent the year I938-39 in advanced study at Harvard University. The most interesting aspect of this record of their experience is the fact that they did not enroll in journalism. Neither did they confine their work within any other single department. Each set for himself a field of interest and chose whatever courses and reading supported that interest, often drawing that support from a variety of departments. The case of Mr. Hopkins, the author of the article, will serve for illustration. Long interested in the problems of unemployment and dependency in their relationship to the stability of government, he found it necessary to draw upon the fields of political science, economics, history, and sociology to aid him in obtaining an understanding of these problems. This report in Harpers suggests an answer to mature persons who feel a need for further academic work but find that the somewhat artificial boundary lines which lead to advanced departmental degrees only partially serve them. A somewhat similar development seeking to individualize graduate work is now in its third year of operation at the University of Oregon. Since it is wider in application than the Harvard experiences of Mr. Hopkins and his fellow journalists and involves an actual attempt to make generally available the sort of training they found most useful, it is perhaps timely for a report on this development. In the spring of I 937 there was established at Oregon a new degree called the Master of Arts in General Studies. The purpose was not to displace the departmental degree but to meet the needs of teachers, accountants, government workers, ministers, housewives, and others who wish to continue their studies beyond the undergraduate level but whose interests cannot be satisfied by the Master's degree in education, business administration, or in subject-matter fields. A committee of seven,' appointed to administer the degree, first concerned themselves with a tentative statement of standards. Each was aware of real dangers which con-