Education: Hope or Despair?

• Share

(2 of 2)

Philosopher Joad especially deplores the technological-democratic tendency in education, which "seeks to enable a man to acquire a living rather than to acquire a life worth living." He advises "a return to . . . classical-humanism ... I would suggest that every student, whatever other subject he may be studying, should take . . . a compulsory course in the history and problems of philosophy, supplemented by the history of scientific ideas . . ."

The Round Men. "Such a course . . . would give the power of concentrated thought. This has a special relevance at the present time, when an increasing number . . . are subjected to conditions which render the practice of concentrated thought impossible . . . Secondly, it would have the effect, historically claimed for it, of turning out 'round men' ... It would so polish and refine their minds that they could 'get up' any subject of which they might subsequently stand in need, while the possession of a perspective and a sense of relative values would fit them for high administrative posts . . .

"Finally," Joad concludes, "such a course has been known to give men a serenity of outlook. It may not in our present age be the best dividend-payer from the purely utilitarian standpoint, but this at least may be said of it, that it sometimes enables men to despise the wealth that it prevents them from acquiring."

When the critics had all put up their pens, some thought Sir Walter still held the intellectual field. He had carefully rejected all the pat answers, just as carefully decided that only the Christian world-outlook is universal enough for a university. Yet such Christianity must look more eagerly toward the future's addition of ideas and events than toward the past's tradition of them. Sir Walter's hope for the universities is that Christian teachers and students, seeking "new symbols" for old values, may "play the role of a 'creative minority,' from which the whole community may gradually take colour."

To many, such hope seemed perilously near to despair, but it was hope enough for Sir Walter. Last week, while still heading the government's University Grants Committee, he was busy preparing for his new job as first principal of St. Catherine's, a new college "based on the Christian faith and philosophy of life." Sir Walter's hope was considerably fortified by the faith of others, notably of King George VI, who gave furniture from Windsor Castle for St. Catherine's, and last week offered its principal the use of Windsor's Henry III Tower for his new lodgings.