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Robert Maynard Hutchins VOLUME III, NO. 49 DECEMBER 6, 1950 MEN WITH IDEAS: ROBERT MAYNARD HUTCHINS IT is generally believed that Dr. Robert M. education with almost anybody—getting in a few Hutchins, Chancellor of the University of licks on the nature of man whenever possible. Chicago, has been engaged in a great controversy And it is really his statements about the nature of about Education—what it is, and what it ought to man which get him into trouble with his be—ever since 1929 when he left his post of Dean colleagues in education. of the Yale Law School to become President of Dr. Hutchins believes—along with Plato and the University of Chicago. Dr. Hutchins and his Aristotle—that man is a rational animal. various supporters, and his various antagonists, it ("Animal," in this case, does not mean a Darwin- is true, speak and write a great deal about Huxley-and-Haeckel kind of animal, red in tooth education, but it seems a good idea to propose, in and claw, and lately emerged from the primeval the interest of clarity, that the real argument jungle, but a Greek kind of "animal." You could between them is not primarily about Education, say that when Aristotle used the phrase, "rational but about the Nature of Man. animal," he meant a "soul-that-thinks," for the After all, what you think is the proper philosophers of the Greek tradition of metaphysics education for a human being ought to be held that there are many kinds of souls—humans determined by what you think a human being is. being rational souls.) Thus Dr. Hutchins, Conceivably, Dr. Hutchins will approve our effort regarding the human essence as a reasoning to set the argument about education in a new essence, also believes that education is first of all context, in the interest of education itself, as well an appeal to reason. Education may involve other as in the interest of clarity. He might even prefer things, but basically it is an appeal to reason, and to argue about the nature of man with his there is no education without an appeal to reason. intellectual and academic opposition, and would, It may be that one explanation of why Dr. perhaps, so argue, if he could get the opposition Hutchins has been so bitterly attacked in some to enter the arena on this basis. The trouble with quarters is that he demands that people reason this, of course, is that Dr. Hutchins, along with with him about education, and he is a pretty good Plato, is more or less alone in holding that the reasoner. Reasoning, moreover, is difficult. It nature of man is something that can be discussed requires, as he so often tells us, discipline of the intelligibly. He believes that once a measure of mind. A man who believes in reason and tries to working unity on this subject has been established, practice the life of reason can never disregard the the discussion may go on to the "practical" strenuous requirements of impartial thinking. But problems of education, such as how to improve a man who does not believe in reason, or who man's natural endowments, or, at least, how to believes in reason only some of the time, and provide the conditions for their optimum when it is convenient to his argument, can always development and use. But unless there are others call the whole discussion off at any point by who think that the nature of man is a subject with claiming that that "point" rests upon a higher sufficient unity to be discussed, how can you authority than reason. Dr. Hutchins always replies develop a useful argument about it? that every point must make its peace with This, really, is Dr. Hutchins' dilemma. He has reason—that, whatever the facts are, we still have had to argue about education as a kind of second- to live our lives as whole men, to reason our way best topic for debate you can start an argument on through decisions as moral intelligences, and that MANAS Reprint - LEAD ARTICLE 2 any "point" or "fact" which interferes with this While it has not yet made the list of the Hundred task must either be abandoned or made amenable Great Books, it perhaps ought to, for a book to reason. And this is the argument that the which can persuade thousands of people to begin specialists of departmentalized learning resist and to read the Hundred Great Books, and to meet resent. with other people to discuss what they contain, comes very close to being a Great Book itself. Dr. Hutchins made his first major declaration of faith in 1936, with publication of The Higher Dr. Hutchins is a man with ideas—the great Learning in America, after he had been President ideas in the great books—and he is also a man of the University of Chicago for seven years. The with a program. Through his connection with the following paragraph from this book reveals his University of Chicago, and with the help of others, central interest and purpose: he started the Great Books Foundation, devoted If we can secure a real university in this country to assisting local discussion groups that read and and a real program of general education upon which investigate the meaning of the Great Books. its work can rest, it may be that the character of our There are now some 35,000 active participants in civilization may slowly change. It may be that we Great Books Seminars throughout the United can outgrow the love of money, that we can get a States. It is fashionable, in some educational saner conception of democracy, and we can even circles, to exhibit a contemptuous or superior understand the purposes of democracy. It may be that we can abandon our false notions of progress and attitude toward the Great Books program, the utility and that we can come to prefer intelligible reason given being that it is not a program for "the organization to the chaos we mistake for liberty. It is masses." There could be no greater mistake. It is because these things may be that education is true that the Great Books are not for people who important. Upon education our country must pin its are not hungry for knowledge, but it should be hopes of true progress, which involves scientific and technological advance, but under the direction of added that no one ever got any kind of an reason; of true prosperity, which includes external education without being hungry for knowledge. goods but does not overlook those of the soul; and of Actually, Dr. Hutchins is the Nation's most true liberty which can exist only in society, and in a society rationally ordered. vocal opponent of the division of students into the masses and the classes. Here is his comment on a What will such an education be based upon? prevalent view of the educational needs of Dr Hutchins proposes that "a real program of American youth: general education" would start with . in the report of the President's Commission those books which have through the centuries on Higher Education, presented by men who have the attained to the dimensions of classics. Many such deepest democratic convictions, we are urged in the books, I am afraid are in the ancient and medieval name of democracy upon a course that divides the period. But even these are contemporary. A classic population into the mass and the elite. The mass, we is a book that is contemporary in every age. That is are told, since they are not really capable of being why it is a classic. The conversations of Socrates educated, should not be allowed to clutter up existing raise questions that are as urgent today as they were educational institutions. Two-year community when Plato wrote. In fact they are more so, because colleges will be established for them. They should go the society in which Plato lived did not need to have to these colleges because everybody should go to them raised as much as we do. school as long as possible. But they should not be This is what Dr. Hutchins believes, what he educated because they are not capable of it. The two- year community is therefore a kind of waiting room, teaches and practices. We shall not say much or housing project, in which the young are to be kept more about The Higher Learning in America, out of worse places until we are ready to have them except that it is at least a fourteen-year-old classic go to work. on education, for it is still very contemporary. Volume III, No. 49 MANAS Reprint December 6, 1950 3 The doctrine that educational opportunity should The determination of which facts are of primary be open to all is the great American contribution to importance is a function of reason. Nor is there the theory and practice of education. But you will any reliance upon irrational authority. Authority notice that the opportunity that should be open is educational opportunity, not the opportunity to spend which is arrived at by means of reason is the only two years doing anything that occurs to you in a place authority which all men can learn to respect in erroneously denominated a college. The advocates of common. As Dr. Hutchins wrote in The Higher the two-year community college either keep silent Learning: altogether about what its curriculum is to be or say that it is to be whatever the students would like to .
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