A New Life of the Mind

U.S. schools and universities are under constant pressure to train students for the practical demands of a technological society. To Robert M. Hutchins. this vocation- oriented approach to education will end up by making man the slave of his environment. In a new book called The Learning Society (Praeger, $4.50), Hutchins, head of California's Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, argues that the classic goals of liberal education, rather than practical training, provide the path to intellectual freedom for mankind.

The onetime boy-wonder president of the University of Chicago, Hutchins, now 69, defines education as "the deliberate, organized attempt to help people become intelligent." By that standard all past and present forms of schooling, in his view, stand condemned as "nonhuman, inhuman and antihuman." Today the goal of U.S. society, and thus of its educational system, is technological progress--which means to Hutchins the exaltation of manpower over mankind, and the relegation of men to the status of servants of their culture.

This goal, however, has a fundamental logical flaw: the relentless pace of technology makes training for specific work useless. "The more technological the society is, the more rapidly it will change, and the less valuable ad hoc instruction will become. It now seems safe to say that the most practical education is the most theoretical one."

Hutchins argues that Americans have failed to distinguish between training and education. He is frankly skeptical of the spread of new computerized instruction techniques, and--a bit pessimistically--foresees the day when a child may be able to graduate from school without ever facing a teacher in person. The lack of personal contact leads not only to the ultimate dehumanization of a process aimed at humanization but also to a loss of fundamental skills. Reasoning, he says, cannot be taught by machine.

Never a man to treat his targets with undue respect, Hutchins also charges that the nation's universities have, in effect, forsaken their original purpose, succumbing to the temptation of government-provided research grants. Instead of providing students with a liberal education, many universities have shriveled to repositories of "vocational certification, child care and scientific research." His solution is three different kinds of advanced schools. One would be a practical, research-centered institution composed of "those scientists or other workers in the knowledge industry who are interested merely in piling up data or in carrying out the missions of government departments." Another would serve as a training school for those who want to be technicians or businessmen. The third would be the true university--an intellectual sanctuary for all those willing and able to lead the pure life of the mind, pursuing wisdom for wisdom's sake.

Reflecting on Experience. This would not necessarily be an elite minority. Despite the scepticism of anthropologists and teachers, Hutchins is convinced that all men are equally capable of absorbing a liberal education, through which men will eventually be able to recognize their common humanity. In the future, he maintains, everyone must be allowed access to the same kind of liberal education that once was reserved for the children of wealth and privilege. Only then will man be equipped "to understand his experience and reflect upon it in such a way as to be wiser than he would otherwise be."

Ironically, Hutchins' idealism is grounded in the belief that technology will eventually give men the time to learn. While conceding that greater leisure has yet to spawn a rebirth in intellectual activity, Hutchins predicts that by the 21st century, U.S. society will have achieved "the learning society," in which every man is educated not to fit into a system but to discover the richness of life. When the highest priority of a culture is given to living wisely and agreeably, education will at last come into its own.

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