Search

The article focuses on social sciences in Southern college and universities. The Fourth Annual Conference on Teaching and Research in the Social Sciences in the South which convened at Vanderbilt University, April 30 and May 1928, was thoroughly representative of the South and southern educational institutions. Its members hailed from 14 Southern states including Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas and from 31 or more educational institutions which included all but two of the state universities, besides many of the private institutions. There happened to be present also representatives from two institutions outside the southern field, namely the University of Oregon and Harvard University. The story of the experiments with the Orientation Course that have been and are being made at southern educational institutions constitutes an interesting and instructive chapter in the history of education. These courses admittedly make no systematic effort at introduction to the social sciences though problems selected involve use of material from all fields and enable instructors to give students some idea of the nature of these disciplines.