The Humanities Curriculum In American And Canadian Universities And Its Enlightenment

The fulfillment of material life has led more and more people to turn their attention to the “human” itself,and gradually recognized the importance of “human”.As the main place for talent cultivation,colleges and universities are charged with the impo-rtant mission of transporting high-level talents to the society.College courses,espec-ially humanities courses in colleges and universities,as an important carrier to achieve the mission,play an irreplaceable role in the process of talent cultivati-on.However,there are still some problems in the current humanities courses i-n colleges and universities,especially the humanities curriculum setting in coll-eges and universities should be attached more attention.This paper mainly uses the literature research method,case analysis metho-d and comparative analysis method,teases out the historical evolution of the humanities curriculum setting in U.S.and Canadian universities,and selects two Harvard University and Toronto University of Canada as cases.By applying comparative analysis,the paper vertically compares the situation of the humanit ies curriculum setting in the two universities in different development periods,and explores the general laws of their development;horizontally compares the similarities and differences between the current two universities in the humaniti-es curriculum.By combing the historical evolution of the humanities curriculum in the two universities,this paper makes a comparison and analysis of the humanities curriculum objectives,the current humanities curriculum structure and the huma-nities course content of the two universities.The conclusions are as follows: t-he humanities curriculum goals of the two universities are centered on the stu-dents,pay attention to the accumulation of students’ humanistic connotation an-d pay attention the training of the "world nature" talents.The goal of HarvardUniversity is more clear,and more attention is paid to the change of students’ identity;The current humanities curriculum structure of the two universities is relatively perfect,and the humanities courses are both divided into five fields.However,the total number of humanities courses is different,the Harvard Uni-versity humanities curriculum being more balanced,and there are great differences in the structure of University of Toronto humanities curriculum;the two universities are rich in humanities courses content,and the humanities courses i-n Harvard University have a special introduction to the United States,and the curriculum is more native and more national.The main implications of the hu-manities curriculum setting in universities are as follows: universities should at-tach importance to the form of "bottom-up" in the reform of Humanities Curri-culum and give full play to the leading role of well-known universities;the g-oal of Humanities Curriculum in universities should pay attention to the overal-l cultivation of students’ abilities in all aspects;the humanities curriculum stru-cture of universities should be laid particular emphasis on the basis of gradual improvement;the content of the course should be emphasized on classical lite-rature,and the nationality and international character of the course should be t-aken into account.