The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-06-28

Tn many other instances they will
 be restless and i'll at ease. in the
 relatively sedentary life of study.
 This means that these men will in
 any case require great deal of in-
 dividual attention, both from the
 personnal officers of the college and
 from their teachers. They must be
 treated as mature and responsible
 persons in the classroom and out.
 The implication, therefore, is not
 only for an increased personnel
 service but for small classes, tvtorial
 guidance, and all the other methods of liberal education which have
 proved by our experience with
 honor work to serve the mature students best"'
 Dr. Butterfield revealed that ques-
 tionnaires sent to all men in the
 service showed that over three
 fourths of these boys now plan to return to college, that they are
 about evenly divided on the ques-
 ton of wanting an accelerated pro-
 gram or returning to the old system
 of two semesters with a summer va
 cation, and that there Is an over
 whelming request for smaller classes
 of the seminar type with plenty of discussion. Many suggestions were
 made as to how the college might
 do afbetter job.
 The Wesleyan president also favors increased@ vocational place. ment work. but said that the ex- perience to date of other colleges indicates that the number needing help will not be tremendous. Prob ably third of these men will get their old jobs back and perhaps another third will go directly on to professional or graduate schools. That will leave us with at most 300 men to whom we can offer a serv- ice of this kind, and 1t is likely that only portion of these will really need help"
 Discussing the long future of the college, Dr. Butterfleld said: T am glad to report that Wes- leyan community is in something of a ferment over it's educational programs for the future. Most col- lege communities are; but in many places the ferment is being caused by fear of the future. and most of the thinking is in terms of rather superficial reforms or in terms of adaptation to practical or vocation needs. There is little If any of this kind of motive or thought at Wes- leyan. On the contrary, the com- munity believes deeply in the im- portance and integrity of liberal education and most of the ferment Is at the level of critical appraisal of the ends and means of such edu- cation.
 Such expression of ideas and criticisms is all to the good pro- vided it does not remain at merely verbal and unproductive level. Thus far the major concern of the cam- puS has been with humanities. The reason for such emphasis is that the humanities generally in Amer ican colleges have lost much of their position of primary importance in the liberal tradition. It is not that the comparatively healthy growth of the social and physical CSACAASSo Auc WCoACA1CA t1iC AlulAAtaAi- ities. It is rather that they have been emasculated by their own inner disease of scientific humanism and dillettantism. We must recap ture their fundamental quality and The effort to recapture them, however, naturally tends for the moment to divert attention from the other general areas of liberal education. It is necessary, therefore. that we concern ourselves in the near future more intensively with the role of the social studies and physical sciences in liberal educa- tion. Plans for htis are under way"
 The Presidents report to the trustees also carried a number of departmental reports.