Princeton University - Bric A Brac Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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SOCIAL SCIENCES By H. Hubert Wilsoia, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Politics One of the virtues of Princeton education is the relative absence of artificial barriers between departments and disciplines. The result is that students discover early in their work here that there is no true dichotomy between the humanities and social science. Both are Concerned with man, his achievements, -his limitations, and his potential. In economics, sociology, and politics the effort is made to convey a sense of the wholeness of the Culture and the contribution to understanding that is made by various emphases and approaches. Thus the student of society finds a background of history, philosophy and literature indispensable to the analysis of phenomena which for convenience have been classified as political, or economic, or sociological He discovers that the Professor H. H. Wilson, Department of Politics Professors C. G. Sellers, Jr., G. B. Turner, R. D. Professors J. B. Whitton, A. T. Mason,W S Carpenter, Challener, Department of History Professors R. C. Snyder, R. W. Van Wagenen, Department of Politics Department of Politics

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Professor A. Mendel, Chairman, Department of Music Professors J. B. Reese, W. Thorp, R. R. Cawley, M. Kelley, Department of English Professor E. B. Smith, Chairman, Depart- ment of Art and Archaeology story. He has, quite literally, 'Ldrunk delight of battle with fhisj peers, far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. And always what he has so gladly learned, he as gladly teaches. The highest good for him is to be able to make a wise choice. He subscribes to the Socratic doctrine, Know thyself, but is sure that no one can do this who has not first known all sorts and conditions of men and a wide variety of situations. The humanities are for him not only a vvay of life, but the way of knowing life. Resolved at all costs to liberate his own individuality, he is content with doing nothing less for his students. For, above all else, he has discovered that learning is a shared process of selffdiscovery in which he who gives most receives most. Professor P. K. Hitti, Chairman, Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures

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Professor R. A. Lester, Chairman, Depart- ment of Economics and Social Institutions Professor W. Ebenstein, Department of Politics Professors M. Levy, G. Patterson, Deliartment of Economics and Social Institutions great novelist may provide those brilliant intuitive insights into human -behavior which cannot be -obtained by more prosaic scientific measurements. In reverse, from a study of -social science comes awareness that poets, painters, sculptors, and musicians through their own media express concern with the great issues that challenge the student of society. Classic works in all fields of artistic and literary achievement are commonly expressions of concern for perennial dilemmas of living men. The sculptor seeking to express the anguish and striving of The Political Prisoner is not isolated in intent from the scholar tracing the historic origins of the Fifth Amendments protection of the individual against selffincrimination. It is perhaps the unique responsibility of the social scientist to make explicit the contemporary challenge to traditional democratic, humanist values. Today all our institutions, traditions and aspirations are threatened, both by a rival political and ideological system, and by -the imperatives of technological development. The social sciences can equip students to deal with these real issues and real problems. They may provide understanding that the flexibility and freedoms extant in our society today reflect ideas and institutions evolved under totally diiferent physical and psychological circumstances existing a century ago. We are today shaping the kind of society this will be fifty or a hundred years hence. It is a legitimate and proper concern for the social scientist to point out dis' Professors F. W. Notestein, W. E. Moore, G. W. Breese, Department of Economics and Social Institutions