Reforming Education - Schooling of People and Their Education Beyond Schooling 0891584269

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Refortning Education

The Schooling of a People and Their Education Beyond Schooling By Mortimer J. Adler with a Foreword by Maurice B. Mitchell What should be done to improve education in America? Why should it be done? The essays in this collection respond to these questions and to others-both contemporary and perennial­ about schooling, curriculum, teaching, learning, and more. Mortimer Adler-well described as a prophet and a reformer­ proposes answers derived from the view that education should aim at the improvement of human beings through the fullest development of their potentials. The educational objectives and ideals he sets forth reflect decades of thought and experience; all are concerned with the problems we face today.

ISBN: 0-89158-426-9

$14.50

Let us engage in the serious business of conducting our discussion rationally and logical­ ly, to discover the truth about points on which we differ.

Reforming Education The Schooling of a People and Their Education Beyond Schooling

Mortimer J. Adler with a Foreword by Maurice B. Mitchell

W estview Press • Boulder, Colorado

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © 1977 by Westview Press Published in 1977 in the United States of America by Westview Press, Inc. 1898 Flatiron Court Boulder, Colorado 80301 Frederick A. Praeger, Publisher and Editorial Director

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Adler, Mortimer Jerome, 1902Reforming education in America. Bibliography: p. 1. Education-United States-History. 2. Education-Philosophy. I. Title. 370'.973 77-85319 LA212.A37 ISBN 0-89158-426-9 Printed and bound in the United States of America

The editor gratefully acknowledges the permissions granted by the publisher and organiza­ tions listed below to reprint in this volume materials by Mortimer J. Adler. American Council on Education. "Liberalism and Liberal Education," in Tlie f:ducational Record, July 1939. Copyright © 1939 by American Council on Education. Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc. "Docility and Authority" and "Docility in History," in The Commonweal. Copyright © 1940 by Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc. Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. "Teaching and Learning," in From Parnassus: f:ssays in 1-fonrr ofJacques Barzun. Copyright © 1976 by Harper & Row. Harper's Magazine. "This Pre-War Generation," copyright © 1940 by Harper's Magazine, copyright renewed 1967, all rights reserved, reprinted from the October 1940 issue by special permission; and 'The Chicago School," copyright © 1941 by Harper's Magazine, copyright renewed 1968, all rights reserved, reprinted from the Sept. 1941 issue by special permission. D.C. Heath and Company. "The Schooling of a People," in The Americans: 1976, Vol. II, published by Lexington Books. Journal of Educational Sociology. "Invitation to the Pain of Learning," in Journal o{ Educational Sociology, Feb. 1941. Copyright © 1941 by Journal of Educational Sociology, Inc. Mount Mary College. "The Order of Learning," in The Moraga Quarterly, April 1941. National Council of Teachers of English. "What ls Basic about English?," in College English, April 1941. Copyright © 1941 by College English and National Council of Teachers of English. Northwestern University. "Are There Absolute and Universal Principles on Which Education Should be Founded?" in Educational Trends, July-Aug. 1941. Copyright © 1941 by the School of Education, Northwestern University. Ohio State University Press. "Adult Education," in Journal of Higher Education 23:2, and "Doctor and Disciple," in Journal of Higher Education 23:4. Copyright 1952 by Ohio State University Press. Social Frontier. "The Crisis in Contemporary Education," in The Social Frontier, Feb. 1939. Copyright © 1939 by The Social Frontier, Inc. Teachers Alliance of New York City. "Tradition and Novelty in Education," in Better Schools, June 1939. Copyright © 1939 by Teachers Alliance of New York City. University ofChicago. "Labor, Leisure, and Liberal Education," inJournal ofH(qher Education, Oct. 1951. Copyright © 1951 by the University of Chicago. "Liberal Education-Theory and Practice," in The University of Chicago Magazine, March 1945. Copyright © 1945 by T!te Unii1ersiry of Chicago Magazine and the Alumni Association of the University of Chicago. University of Denver. "Education and the Pursuit of Happiness," commencement address, May 29, 1976. Copyright © 1976 by the University of Denver.

CONTENTS

Foreword, by Maurice B. Mitchell Introduction, by Geraldine Van Doren

IX

1

PART ONE. EDUCATION IN AMERICA-PROBLEMS AND PRINCIPLES

1. 2. 3. 4.

This Pre-War Generation The Chicago School Liberalism and Liberal Education Are There Absolute and Universal Principles on Which Education Should be Founded? 5. Tradition and Progress in Education 6. Education and the Pursuit of Happiness

PART

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Two.

LIBERAL EDUCATION AND SCHOOLING

Labor, Leisure, and Liberal Education Liberal Education-Theory and Practice The Schooling of a People Liberal Schooling in the Twentieth Century What Is Basic About English?

pART

THREE. TEACHING AND LEARNING

7 9 27 47 61 75 91 101 103 121 127 153 165 181

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Teaching and Learning The Order of Learning Doctor and Disciple Two Essays on Docility Education Beyond Schooling-The Task of a Lifetime 17. The Great Books in Today's World 18. Invitation to the Pain of Learning

183 193 211 221

Notes Bibliographical Information

281 283

241 257 275

FOREWORD

Surely there cannot be a better time to assemble and publish the collected writings of Mortimer Adler in the field of education. The issue of educational reform is again at one of its cyclical peaks. Cries for a "return to basics" are accompanied by the insistence that every young scholar be prepared to "do something for a living." Defenders of the liberal arts and so-called progressive education are hard to find. There are those who would have us close the schools altogether. Dr. Adler's opinions, in the midst of this current flurry of concern, will not please everybody, but they will certainly provoke discussion and constructive thought. He has been known to declare that pain and work are essential ingredients in the learning process, and has described a fine adult education program as one in which everything is over everyone's head. His conviction that humanistic studies are basic to happiness establishes the ground on which future struggles for educational reform will be endured. My own introduction to Mortimer Adler took place a quarter­ century ago. Since that happy day I have read-or tried to read­ everything he has ever written. He taught me to deface his books by scribbling in the margins and underlining at will. In the process I came to appreciate the vigorous way in which he approached some of the most difficult areas of educational thought. Later, working more closely with him at Encyclopaedia Britannica Films and at the encyclopaedia itself, I was even more dazzled by the unity he could bring to a wide array of learning problems. He is unique and I have learned a great deal from him. In addition to the fine timing of this collection of articles and speeches, there are two other reasons to applaud this particular publication event: the publication in recent months of Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Biography (Macmillan) and the completion and publication this year of Great Treasury of Western Thought, edited with Charles Van Doren (R. R. Bowker). Together with Reforming

IX

Foreword

X

Education, these provide added insights into the life and mind of one of the most remarkable men of this century. Maurice B. Mitchell Chancellor, University of Denver

....

Reforming Education

INTRODUCTION Geraldine Van Doren

THE ESSAYS

The essays in this collection respond to questions about schooling, the curriculum, teaching, learning, and more. The questions are both perennial and contemporary. Some of the essays are related to particular occasions: "Education and the Pursuit of Happiness" and "The Great Books in Today's World" are two examples. Others, like "This Pre-War Generation" and "The Schooling of a People," address themselves to particular problems that are unique in this century. But all of them are concerned both with what should be done to improve education in America, and why it should be done. It is the latter concern that informs the essays and gives them their life. Three of them were written in 1976 and others were written almost forty years before. Some of the older pieces deal with problems that still have not been solved, or that have found wrong solutions. All of them represent years of thought and together they represent Mortimer Adler's thinking about what is true about education, what is true about America, and how the two fit together. Adler is uncompromising in his adherence to quality and to democratic principles, but his views run counter to the mainstream. Trends in American education in the past fifty years are claimed to have served democracy, but in Adler's view they have failed to do so. All of his suggestions for change aim at making American education serve democracy better. Yet, he is charged with not doing so. The

2

Introduction

reciprocal relation between his educational principles and the ideals of democracy are made clear in this collection. The essays were chosen from both published and unpublished materials, the latter most often lectures, and have been changed very little from the original versions. The few changes were made with the author's approval and are indicated in the short introductions I have written to each essay, along with information about previous publication. The author also gave invaluable advice about the selection of essays. The p.rinciples of selection-relevance, impor­ tance, and quality are three of them-developed after the fact. The ordering of the essays is mine, but again with the author's approval. I claim no credit and will accept no blame for it. The essays ordered themselves and they speak for themselves far better than I could manage. THE AUTHOR

Mortimer Jerome Adler, philosopher and educator, was born in New York City on 28 December 1902. His careers as philosopher and educator are inseparable. Adler writes of himself toward the end of his autobiography, Philosopher at Large (Macmillan, 1977), "I would like my reputation as a philosopher to rest on the books I have written since 1963." There are five of them. Four, he tells us, were based on Britannica Lectures he gave at the University of Chicago; all of them were written in the light of discussions with his associates at the Institute for Philosophi­ cal Research, and they all draw on earlier work, some of it much earlier. In addition, they cover a range of philosophical subjects: the theory of knowledge in The Conditions of Philosophy; the philosophy of man in The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes; ethics in The Time of Our Lives; politics in The Common Sense of Politics; and the philosophy of mind in Some Questions About Language. One point in all this is clear. The author is a generalist. That is important. The answer to why it is important will be found in these essays. Adler's schooling began at P.S. 186 and De Witt Clinton High School in Manhattan. After a brief period as a journalist, he entered Columbia College in 1920, where in due time he was awarded a Ph.D., his first academic degree. The peculiar circumstances attend­ ing that fact are explained in Philosopher at Large. His career as a

Introduction

3

student was not ordinary, and if, as he says, he was an objectionable student, "in some respects perhaps repulsive," it was not for ordinary reasons, for he also reports his "ferocious pertinacity" as an under­ graduate. His autobiography records the development of his educa­ tion as well as his thinking about education, a rough outline of which is given in the very first chapter. The importance of that subject in his life is thereby affirmed, and later developed in that book, as well as in this one. When Adler attended Columbia two men were teaching there who would have a lasting, profound, and thoroughly creative influence in his life: F. J. E. Woodbridge, who taught him Aristotle, and John Erskine, who formed the General Honors Program in an effort to reform undergraduate education. In Erskine's seminars students read and discussed the so-called classics of Western litera­ ture. Adler gives the course a "pre-eminence among all the educative influences that good' fortune has conferred on me. " Eight years later, after Robert M. Hutchins became president of the University of Chicago, Hutchins enlisted Adler to help him adopt similar reforms there partly because Adler had described Erskine's course to him. Adler said it was ''a college in itself-the whole of a liberal education or certainly the core of it. " In a sense, John Erskin� and his General Honors Seminar are a guiding spirit or muse of these essays and of their author. The General Honors Seminar at Columbia, with the help of Adler, Hutchins, Scott Buchanan, Stringfellow Barr, Mark Van Doren, Clifton Fadiman, and others, influenced changes in the curriculum at several colleges, St. John's College and the University of Chicago among them. "Though John Erskine and Columbia had done the pioneering work ten years earlier," Adler writes in his autobio­ graphy, "Hutchins and Chicago were to become, in the public mind, the promulgators and promoters of 'the Great Books Movement' in liberal education." The books and methods of the course were also used for seminars in continuing education. Adult seminars begun at Cooper Union in New York were later established by Hutchins and Adler in Chicago. This, in turn, led to other developments in Adler's life as well as in education. One of them was the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. It was founded by two members of the original Chicago great books seminar, Elizabeth and Walter Paepcke. Be­ cause of them Adler became and has remained closely associated with

4

Introduction

the program of seminars at Aspen. Adler also became an associate of another member of the Chicago seminar. William Benton, a friend and classmate of Robert Hutchins, a trustee and vice-president of the University of Chicago, and the publisher of Encyclopaedia Britannica, deplored the difficulty of finding the texts required for discussions in the seminar. One thing led to another and Adler became involved with Benton in the production by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. , of the Great Books of the Western World. Seven years of wor,l