LIBERAL EDUCATION FOR LIFE TODAY
Fries, Horace
Liberal Education For Life Today VITALIZING LIBERAL EDUCATION: A Study of the Liberal Arts Program, by Algo D. Henderson. Harper & Brothers. $2.50. Reviewed by Horace Fries ANTIOCH COLLEGE is a...
...It takes to task the traditional approach of our historians for neglecting this crucial fact...
...For the same reasons it is a book for educators, and we have a right to hope they will read it...
...Only in this way can the student be really prepared to earn a living in a changing technological society and at the same time become aware of the social or spiritual values and problems which center in any particular vocation...
...One is that the liberal college must exploit the social environment of the student as a part of the subject-matter of his liberal educational training...
...The focal point for the college program, we are told, "lies in the vital problems of present-day society, since finding a better way of life is first of all a matter of solving these problems...
...But the entire program is dedicated to the aim of education for the good life...
...It is an antidote for the nausea which Progressive readers must experience upon reading these other "back to normalcy boys" in liberal education—however disguised their pills may be in pink sugar coatings of noble sounding morality...
...In this way we can correct in the liberal college the unwilled and unguided "vocationaliz-ation" of liberal courses which sneaks in under the guise of specialization, and explicit vocational education can thus be broadened and liberalized by having its efforts directed to include the social, economic, and cultural implications of earning a livelihood...
...Although the book is not about Antioch, it reflects the ideas which give life and social relevance to this college...
...ANTIOCH COLLEGE is one of the few institutions of higher learning which combine an experimental philosophy with a radically progressive social view...
...The solution of one problem always creates more problems...
...Although hardly presented in a scintillating style, the ideas are both vital and profound...
...Only in this way, too, can worthy "cultural" values of art, religion, and morality become vital aspects of American culture...
...Reviewed by Horace Fries ANTIOCH COLLEGE is a revolutionary college...
...President Henderson, like many other educators who lean away from this reactionary "classical" theory towards some variant of "progressive education" based on the philosophy of John Dewey, is thoroughly aware of the numerous shortcomings of current educational practice, including that of progressive education...
...It recognizes that although the only source of ideas and values we have lies in our cultural heritage, yet the principles of selection from the past and the principles for reshaping this heritage to make it more fruitful lie in the field of present-day social problems...
...Proponents of this latter approach to education are vociferous both in their criticisms of the educational status quo and in promoting their own remedies which include an almost exclusive concern with "great books," largely of centuries past...
...It is a book for laymen, both because of its clarity and because of the social importance of what it says...
...but the problems are points of attack, and each effort at definition and solution tends to raise the general level of culture...
...Indeed it is these only incidentally to being a practical and constructive social program for liberal education...
...In Vitalizing Liberal Education its president, Algo D. Henderson, presents a revolutionary educational program...
...Perhaps for readers of The Progressive the best service the reviewer can perform is to call their attention to a critical analysis and contrast of these two opposing philosophies of education as represented by President Henderson and Mark Van Doren...
...A second basic proposal is to undermine the chasm which separates vocational education from professedly "cultural" studies...
...Thus it is in direct contrast with the numerous variations of the "Hutchins Program" where the appeal is to divine revelation and metaphysical "Reason...
...Only in this way can the rich materials of liberal education be made relevant to the life of the student and to the political and economic difficulties of the day...
...If he is less clamorous in making these criticisms and in the claims for his own approach, it is in part because he knows that no single person or elite clique has the answers...
...Boyd Bode of Ohio State University...
...that on the contrary, the answers must be worked out progressively and cooperatively by means of the broader application of the experimental approach...
...One of the 13 chapters of the book in particular, "The Search for Higher Values," bears directly on this basic educational issue of our times...
...Thus it is both an antidote and a refutation...
...WE shall mention only two of the basic proposals...
...But President Henderson's book is more than an antidote and refutation...
...Hence the necessity of social planning and of educating students for a collectivistic enterprise which will promote, rather than inhibit the development of individuality and creative personalities...
...It appears in the Spring number of The Antioch Review (IV:L12-121) as "Liberal Education for Today" by Prof...
...It is not a banner-waving program, but one which shows us, to use the author's own words, how "evolution based upon intelligence can be substituted for revolution based upon force...
...This requires a degree of critical and guided participation by the student, while he is in school, in political, economic, labor, and management activities...
...It is a refutation of the arrogant claims these classicists make that they and their philosophy of education alone are concerned with the higher values of life and can adequately handle them...
...To this end we must "control and direct change" by means of scientific understanding...
Vol. 8 • August 1944 • No. 33
