ATTACK ON DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION
Otto, Max C.
Attack On Democratic Education LIBERAL EDUCATION, by Mark Van Doren. Henry Holt. $2.50. Reviewed by Max C. Otto SOMETHING ominous is on foot in the field of public education. Attempts are being...
...are teachers from which every wise and witty man has learned what he knows...
...Our mind desires to be the human mind...
...And this is but one example...
...Attempts are being made, some openly, some secretly, to take over the educational procedure in the United States and make it subservient to an academic, military, or business group...
...Those unfortunates who are unable to understand that true freedom is to possess a mind made free through the study of the permanent truth enshrined in "the unkillable classics," the people who do not appreciate the value of this intellectual freedom, or lack the mental endowment to achieve it, can still do the innumerable jobs which have to be done to keep things going and in the doing of which real education is not required...
...Animals are unconscious of their ignorance...
...Clifton Fadiman has stated in print that if this book is not widely read it is because we are an ignorant people and are too lazy to learn...
...Nor should there be any doubt where the rest come in...
...It would be wrong to say...
...In Chapter II, which is to define "The Educated Person," quotations from Pascal, Rousseau, William James, Alexander Meiklejohn, Cardinal Newman, T. S. Eliot, Scott Buchanan, John Dewey, Robert Hutch ins, Jacques Barzun, Alfred North Whitehead are strung along, as if these men all agreed with each other and with the author's pattern of education...
...It most of all desires to be free of the individual who was born possessing it...
...5) that in a time of crisis the mass of men turn for help to the professors...
...All talk of doing anything intelligent about these situations by lifting the educated person above his environment, into a super-individual mind, strikes me, to speak plain, as pretentious nonsense...
...What ground is there for proclaiming (p...
...Unless those who have interests at stake, which includes the vast majority of the American people, wake up to this fact pretty soon, they may presently discover that one of the great instrumentalities for advancing the democratic way of life has passed into anti-democratic hands...
...For myself, I see but one hope of overcoming the complex difficulties which threaten civilized mankind —large scale unemployment, wages and housing below the level of decent subsistence, antagonism between races, unjust taxation, national monopolies and international cartels, and so on and on—I see but one solution, and that is for young men and women to be trained to deal directly and scientifically with the' social practices that have to be reformed...
...Not thai...
...A large part of the difficulty is due to the author's technique of speaking both for and against this and that current educational practice, and when confronted by a choice between them, taking refuge in a paradox...
...that he is against emphasis upon scientific studies, but it would be equally wrong to say that he is for it...
...He even professes to believe that in its own field "it should put an end to discussion for a hundred years...
...angels know without difficulty...
...We need not stop to inquire whether the implied concept of human nature has any basis in fact or even makes sense in view of accredited psychology and anthropology...
...The scriptures tell us that "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life...
...In fairness to Mr...
...The struggles of ordinary men and women to make what they can of their lives in terms of the means they have available, their problem of increasing the daily allotment of the bare necessities of a decent existence, such matters do not intrude...
...Civilized living demands a variety of abilities and dexterities, but there is one educational commandment: Seek ye first the kingdom of great books and all these things shall be added unto you...
...The classics of our world, the great books...
...The whole thing would be bewildering if one forgot that it is all a play in a poet's mind, not to be mistaken for an acted drama and least of all for the reality of human experience...
...On the contrary, he advocates "one set, and only one set, of schools for all people...
...149...
...Well, on that score there should be little doubt...
...Education with an intellectual design is liberal education...
...Mark Van Doren's book, Liberal Education, seems to me part of the anti-democratic undertaking...
...The letter may purport to give life where the spirit kills...
...Nevertheless, a core of doctrine is detectable, and it is suggested in such statements as these: "Seeing man in a middle position between animals and angels lights up his dimensions as nothing else does...
...The answer should be self-evident...
...And is it supposed to be "disciplined reason" which strings together sentence and half sentence quotations without regard to the contexts from which they are borrowed...
...If he means its particular kind of discussion, why only for a hundred year...
...Daily experience teaches us that the reverse is also true...
...This is no easy task...
...Thus making declarations with abandon, prancing from quotation to quotation, festooning the discourse with an excess of his epigrams and oracles, Mr...
...it is his deliberate intention...
...The proposed educational scheme is designed primarily for an elite few...
...Van Doren puts on a picturesque performance, and disappears into the wings at least with this final flourish: "It is the love of truth that makes man free in the common light of day...
...The search for a curriculum is the search for one that is worthy to be uniform and universal...
...10, 11, 67,110, 148...
...Or the doctrine may be summarized in two sentences...
...110), belongs in the same category, so does the dictum that until we agree "everywhere in America" to "plant the classics at the center of the college curriculum . . . we shall lack the right to say that liberal education exists among us" (p...
...The one intolerable thing in education is the absence of intellectual design...
...The prime occupation of liberal education is with the skills of being...
...while man, "the middle creature," is "conscious of his ignorance, knows with difficulty...
...We have therefore to determine if we can what this educational proposal actually comes to...
...But all questions of aims aside, how can any thoughtful reader think of this book as a contribution to educational philosophy...
...Van Doren it must be said that he looks upon the study of the "great books" as the best preparation for taking care of the harassing problems that will be more acute than ever after the present war activity has ceased...
...Consequently, neither do the school disciplines intrude which are directly concerned with such predicaments...
...And the task set down for education is "to give its essential arts work to do in every room of the house...
...He cannot unless he is overawed by the sheer number of assertions and fails to notice that they are not backed up by evidence...
...The word "freedom" occurs prominently in his theory...
...And after all readers of The Progressive are chiefly interested in the significance of this educational theory for our common life...
...This seems to me the social significance of the proposal, although there are statements which, taken in isolation, run counter to this interpretation...
...pp...
...But everything depends upon what is meant, not merely on what is said...
...Only then will the house become a civilized habitation, with light and warmth uniformly distributed...
...The mind itself desires to be free—free from the animal within, from the enigma without...
...The assertion that freedom naturally comes to "those whose dignity deserves it" (p...
Vol. 8 • April 1944 • No. 16
