Humanities B
Humanities B was the precursor to today's Art Hum and Music Hum courses. It was introduced on September 23, 1937 as a companion to Humanities A, a literature course. It existed, however, on a more tenuous basis; while Humanities A was required of all Columbia College freshmen, Humanities B was considered experimental. Debates raged among Columbia educators as to whether art and especially music could be imparted in the same general way that students were grasping great texts in Humanities A and to a lesser extent the early iterations of Contemporary Civilization. Although it was eventually turned into a requirement, it was split into Humanities B1 and Humanities B2, for art and music respectively, in order to be more manageable.
