Suchergebnisse

Canadian universities have not been as enterprising as their American neighbours in seeking out new ways of serving the community; but they have deviated far enough from the straight and narrow path of academic scholarship to develop a sense of guilt for which atonement may be offered by devoting a part of their resources to the promotion of graduate studies.In the United States we find a desperate effort being made to save the M.A. degree from the fate which has befallen the B.A. degree, by applying truly heroic remedies, such as insistence on serious qualifications for admission to candidacy, on "graduate standards of attainment," on "proper use of spoken and written English," on "a reading knowledge of at least one foreign language … as indispensable background and not merely as a tool for research." A candidate should have obtained "an average grade which places him in at least the first third of his class" and "due attention should be paid to those qualities known as personality and, in particular, to moral character."A sense of guilt may be a very potent force, but it requires rationalization. Various reasons have been assigned for promoting graduate studies in Canada. Professor Brebner contends that an increased output of scholars, retained in Canada, could be employed in "the creation of Canadian culture." In so doing they would solve what Professor Brebner considers ought to be "the most urgent problem for Canadian post-war planners," namely "how to make Canada so cordial and attractive a place" that Canadians "who excel in any field" will be content to live and work there. It is nearly fifty years since American universities set about the task of meeting "needs for the satisfaction of which approximately 300 out of a total of some 500 advanced students at the time considered it necessary to go abroad." Canadians have continued to pursue graduate studies in other countries, but it is possible to argue that young Canadians cannot rely as much as in the past on the opportunities offered for advanced work at British and American universities.

About twenty-five years ago, the fields and methods of the different academic disciplines concerned with the study of man and his works, and the relations between these disciplines, were a favorite theme of discussion. At that time, the so-called social sciences were experiencing a spectacular expansion in scope simultaneously gaining depth through the constant refinement of their methods. Increasing division of labor in research focused attention on marginal areas, giving rise thereby to several new specialties which threatened to encroach upon already established disciplines. These sometimes heated discussions were, as a whole, a healthy sign of the progress made by the new science of man, which then went through the growing pains of its adolescence. They also meant a staking out of claims between professional groups, a search for new labels and standards, and a reshuffling and re-naming of college courses and text books. This process of reorientation resulted in the organizational structure within which both research and teaching in the American institutions of higher learning have been carried out ever since. Once the demarcation lines had been drawn, however, interest in problems pertaining to the logic of science decreased; and the scholars in the different fields settled down to putting in practice what had now been defined as their proper task.

Singer, Milton (U of Chicago, I11), THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN NON-WESTERN STUDIES, A. Amer. Acad. Polit. Soc. Sci., 1964, 356, Nov, 30-44. The involvement of the soc sci's in non-Western studies has been growing despite instit'al & intellectual conflicts between area & disciplinary studies. The process of instit'al adaptation is illustrated by the postwar development of nonWestern studies. The intellectual conflict springs from the fact that the definitions & classifications of major world areas do not correspond to the definitions & classifications in any soc sci discipline. The several disciplines have a diff'1 proneness to area studies, & the problem of integrating them for study of a particular area has no simple, uniform solution. Evidence is presented to show how the study of non-Western societies & civilizations is generating new & fertile hybrid disciplines in anthrop & is giving a comparitive & internat'al dimension to the other soc sci's. AA.

An account of what McCann-Erickson & other market-motivation res agencies have found in their inquiries concerning the public's reactions to William Lundigan & what changes they have suggested in Lundigan's appearance & behavior during his TV commercials so as to increase sales of Chrysler Corp autos. J. A. Fishman.