A Pluralistic University: William James and Higher Education Pamela Castellaw Crosby

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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

A PLURALISTIC UNIVERSITY: WILLIAM JAMES AND HIGHER

EDUCATION

PAMELA CASTELLAW CROSBY

A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2008

The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Pamela C. Crosby, defended on June 16, 2008.

______Jeffrey A. Milligan Professor Directing Dissertation

______Peter Dalton Outside Committee Member

______Jon C. Dalton Committee Member

______Emanuel Shargel Committee Member

Approved:

______Gary Crow, Chair, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

I dedicate this work to Dr. Donald A. Crosby, my husband, best friend, soul mate, and the one who introduced me to William James.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to express my sincere appreciation to the members of my dissertation committee for their guidance throughout the dissertation process: Dr. Jeff Milligan, for teaching me to be an independent scholar, yet providing me with the direction and support that I needed when I stumbled and veered off course; Dr. Jon Dalton, for treating me as a junior colleague while at the same time offering me his ongoing mentorship; Dr. Peter Dalton, for teaching me what outstanding teachers do both inside and outside the classroom; and Dr. Emanuel Shargel, for kindling my interest in issues relating to social philosophy of education and to the university. I also want to thank Dr. Cynthia Wallat for making me feel a part of the Florida State community when I first came to campus— offering me the use of her office, inviting me to teach a class with her, and giving me confidence to apply to graduate school. I am most grateful also to Dr. Victoria MacDonald for teaching the class that was to mark the pivotal point in my directed course of study and research: History of Higher Education. For their ongoing patience and help in so many matters, I want to thank the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies staff members Amy McKnight, Mary Peterson, Natasha Blankenship, and Jimmy Pastrano. In addition, I want to acknowledge the professional expertise of Dr. John Tyndall, Manuscript Clearance Advisor, whose wit and wisdom helped to make the last stages of the dissertation process a productive and pleasant experience. Finally, I want to express my deepest appreciation to the staff of the Hardee Center for Leadership and Ethics in Higher Education, not only for their friendship, but also for teaching me what exemplary professionals in higher education do for students and their colleagues in order to build a nurturing intellectual community: Dr Jon Dalton, Director (and fellow Co-editor of the Journal of College and Character); Aurelio Valente, Associate Director; David Eberhardt, Research Associate; and Chris Rindosh, Research Associate.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract………………………………………………………… ...... vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM ...... 1

CHAPTER 2: HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM ...... 11

CHAPTER 3: THE PHILOSOPHY OF WILLIAM JAMES ...... 28

CHAPTER 4: PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION—THE CULTIVATION OF THE WHOLE PERSON ...... 47

CHAPTER 5: THE PRAGMATIC TEST—IMPLICATIONS OF JAMES’S THEORIES AND PROPOSALS FOR EFFECTIVE PRACTICE ...... 85

REFERENCES ...... 113

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 122

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is to examine and assess critically how William James envisioned the mission of the university. The mission of the university, for James, is to educate students to become whole, distinctive, and flourishing persons who contribute to as well as benefit from a pluralistic society. A flourishing person for James is one who has high and distinctive ideals and goals and devotes her greatest efforts to achieving these aims while testing their usefulness in ongoing experience. The most important role for a university, therefore, is to guide students to choose ideals for themselves, provide them with the best means to realize these goals, and help them critically to examine the consequences of attaining these goals. This argument for the mission of the university is firmly grounded in James’s philosophy. To know something concretely for James is to become familiar with its many relationships, that is, its connections and disconnections. To understand the meaning of concepts or abstractions is to ask how they function, what is their use, how they make a difference that leads to further fruitful action or thought. To begin to understand a person as fully as possible is to seek to know that person in as many dimensions of that person’s experience as possible, which includes an appreciation of the inner complex life comprised of many kinds of emotions, anticipations, memories, desires, interests, and values. James conceives of a “significant” life as a life devoted to lofty ideals, goals, and aims. Worthy goals and aims help individuals to strive toward human excellence and cannot be imposed from the outside but must be truly their own. A worthy ideal (a) compels persons toward new directions; (b) demands their attention and dedication; (c) involves struggle; (d) alters lives in meaningful ways; (e) is valuable according to its consequences in experience; (f) is feasible; and (g) is compatible with others’ pursuits of ideals. James proposes at least two ways that colleges and universities can help young people pursue their ideals. The first way is to insure that there is meaningful and purposeful interaction between exceptional adult leaders and students in students’ active engagement in learning. The second proposal James presents is the integration of pluralistic biographical, historical, philosophical, and literary components with basic courses in order to emphasize excellence in all human endeavors.

For James, a major threat to the university mission of helping young people to pursue their interests is the increasing layers of bureaucratization as a result of mounting specialization and professionalization that force faculty and administrators to treat subordinates in their organizations, not as persons of value in themselves, but as a means to promote their own interests. Institutional intellectualism (a term coined in this study) is the institutional version of an intellectual outlook in philosophy that is unaware of its failure to take adequate account of the concrete world and its complex interrelations. James’s solution to the problem of the misuse of abstractions is always to appeal directly to human experience and to continue to test practices and policies in the light of worthy goals and aims.

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM

Introduction The purpose of this research is to examine and assess critically how William James envisioned the mission of the university. The mission, for James, is to educate students to become whole, distinctive, and flourishing persons who contribute as well as benefit from a pluralistic society. A flourishing person for James is one who has high and distinctive ideals and goals and devotes her greatest efforts to achieving these aims while testing their usefulness in ongoing experience. The most important role for a university is to guide students to choose the right goals and ideals for themselves as particular individuals while helping to provide them with the best means to achieve these goals and to examine the consequences of achieving these goals. A superior university, therefore, is a pluralistic university that values and nurtures diverse points of view and specific abilities of faculty and students. Two practices in higher education that James proposes for helping students to form, reach, and test their ideals are (a) the creation of a learning environment where there is extensive meaningful and purposeful interaction between students and exceptional adult leaders and (b) the implementation of a curriculum of diverse subjects and topics that are presented within a broad humanities context. The barrier to formulating worthy ideals and performing useful actions in achieving and assessing these ideals is the misuse of abstractions or concepts in a way that neglects attention to relevant experience (this is also James’s criticism of many philosophical arguments). The misuse of abstractions can be in the form of policies, practices, and disciplines, as well as of instruments of measurement. James’s solution to the problem of the misuse of abstractions is always to appeal to human experience directly and to continue to test practices and policies in the light of worthy goals and aims. The approach used in supporting this study incorporates three areas of research. First, this study shows how James’s pluralism, radical empiricism, and pragmatic theories of meaning and truth underlie as well as strengthen his critical assessment of higher education in the context of his general argument against the misuses of abstractions. This philosophical analysis helps to articulate and expand on James’s theories of education, which are often vague and unsystematic. Second, this study draws upon various lectures, essays, and other works of James, as well as biographical and historical works, in order to integrate his philosophy, his ideas on education, his

proposal for effective practices, and historical accounts of his teaching experience. Third, this study presents a sample of relevant contemporary research in the areas of student success and overall well being in higher education that help to demonstrate how James’s ideas on education can function in practice, and it introduces some possible criticisms of James’s ideas that suggest further research that might build upon, apply, and/or modify those ideas. These three areas of research form the conceptual framework used to guide this study. Rationale James did not develop a systematic philosophy of education. His ideas on education were, on the whole, directed to a popular rather than an academic audience and were often sketchy and non-technical. The historian of higher education Lawrence Veysey in his landmark book The Emergence of the American University, writes, “James’s more profound and original thoughts on the university were in the area of criticism of institutional ritual and seemed to have stemmed from his personal temperament rather than his pragmatic philosophy” (Veysey, 1965, p. 115). This study, however, argues that James’s philosophy of education is firmly grounded in James’s radical empiricism, pluralism, and pragmatism. As a result, the primary contribution of this study is to provide a systematic articulation of James’s philosophy of education in light of his philosophical thought. Additionally, there is a need to show the relevance of James’s philosophy of education to daily education practice by indicating how James, a consummate pragmatist, applied the principles of his philosophy and philosophy of education to his own teaching. The recollections of students and colleagues who describe James’s teaching styles, the kinds of interactions with which he was involved with students both inside and outside the classroom, and his teaching philosophy help to enhance and flesh out his thoughts on education. Combined with these spheres of research is a sample of studies that demonstrate how the basic core of his ideas and proposals for good practice has been validated by today’s research in student development and success. Although quotations taken from James’s essays and books often appear in research in many fields today, including, but not limited to, philosophy, religion, sociology, psychology, educational psychology, and philosophy of education, his writings on education are not, to any large extent, the subject of contemporary scholarship in higher education. Yet, James’s criticisms of the vices of large scale institutions and their detrimental effects on teaching practices foretell what researchers are now discovering in their studies on highly effective educational practices in contemporary colleges and universities.

James’s unique gifts of insight and expression helped to connect nineteenth century intellectual thought to emerging outlooks of the early twentieth century. James’s ideas have also been instrumental in linking theoretical concepts to practical applications, an essential bridge between scholarship and practice in the field of education. In fact, his thoughts have influenced so many different fields that his imprint on American academia and society may never be fully grasped. The fact that all of his major works are still in print confirm the enduring contribution he continues to make to intellectual life (Viney & King, 1998, p. 266). James, for example, was a pioneer in demonstrating how the study of psychology can offer insight for research into student motivation and cognition. He delivered lectures to teachers, beginning in 1892, on the art of teaching, based on his research in the field of psychology and learning, and these lectures were later published in the widely read and influential Talks to Teachers (1899/1958b). His Principles of Psychology (1890/1950) is still acclaimed by historians of psychology as a ground breaking and monumental work. James’s psychology lab at Harvard, established in 1875, was the first psychological laboratory in the U.S. (Palmer, 1996, p. 34) and some say the world (Myers, 1986, p. 6). His works also influenced young people indirectly in many ways. For example, his call for a national conscription for youth to serve their fellow human beings, “Moral Equivalent of War” (1910/1977a), is credited with inspiring the founding of the training camp for the Civilian Conservation Corps, which in turn served as a model for the Peace Corps, VISTA, and Americorps—and, subsequently many national service organizations that exist today (Gower, 1965, pp. 410–482; Corporation for National and Community Service, n.d.; Roland, n.d.). Another example of James’s influence on education is the creation of the William James Foundation, which offers financial support and guidance to budding entrepreneurs from thirty colleges and universities nationwide in their efforts to apply James’s socially responsible values in establishing new businesses (William James Foundation, n.d.). Not only did James’s numerous public lectures and published works dramatically shape the course of philosophy, psychology, and religion in his time and beyond his time, but he was also known as an exceptional educator. Generations of Harvard and Radcliffe students who went on to become highly influential in their own right considered him to be not only a brilliant scholar, but also an unusually powerful influence on their personal as well as their scholarly and professional lives. James’s writings on education largely pointed to the increasing specialization and professionalization in the German and American universities in the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries. He argued that these conditions were leading to a state of bureaucratization that tended to corrupt and distort higher education. Such proliferation of rules, titles, splintered and isolated departments and programs, technical language, and reliance on narrow perspectives, he observed, drove administration, faculty, and students farther and farther from direct experience and its relations to the everyday world. Especially troublesome for James, these policies, procedures, and practices can become so fixed in the system that individuals with exceptional gifts but whose distinctiveness is not consistent with established roles in the institutions are ignored or rejected. Furthermore, the institution can become so focused on ways to run the organization efficiently that it neglects substantive content of ideas, theories, and proposals. James’s views on higher education, as well as his experiences as a teacher, his philosophical theory that underlies his views, and the reports on contemporary studies in higher education today are relevant to the fields of philosophy of education, higher education, student development theory, moral development theory, effective practices in higher education, educational policy studies, educational psychology, history of education, and philosophy in general. Framework Informing this study is research in the areas of James’s radical empiricism, pluralism, and pragmatism; his theories on higher education of his day and biographical information that support how he applied these theories in his practice; and the implication of these theories based on studies in college student development theory, moral development in college students, and other types of research in college student success and well being. Three areas of research provide the framework for this study. The Interpretation of the Philosophical Ideas of James’s Radical Empiricism, Pluralism, and Pragmatism James’s philosophy is centered on the belief that reality must be taken as what it manifests itself to be in our experience, and although he recognizes that abstract categories aid us in seeking order and intelligibility in the universe, he insists that these categories only help us to interpret experience; they cannot take the place of direct experience itself. To think that they can is to succumb to what James calls vicious intellectualism. In order to avoid vicious intellectualism, we must (a) ascertain and clarify the meanings of our concepts and (b) test the claims to truth in which our concepts are involved. To assess the meaning of particular concepts

we must ask What is their function? How do they operate? What is their value in helping us to live useful lives? In trying to determine the truth of any claim about the world that incorporates these concepts we must make use of five criteria of truth: personal experience, social experience, consistency with previously established beliefs, logicality, and simplicity. James’s pluralism is grounded in his argument that no one theory or set of theories can adequately explain the experienced world. He especially attacks theories which advance or imply what he terms a “block universe,” or closed system where everything is internally related to everything else and there are no adventitious, contingent, or external relations. James argues instead that while relations among things do exist, each thing is unique and resides in a world where both connections as well as disconnections are present. James’s radical empiricism emphasizes that these connections and disconnections are as much matters of direct experience as the things themselves. In addition, unlike empiricists such as Hume, who claim that experience includes only impressions of sensation and reflection, James says that experience that is relevant to knowledge of the world also includes such non-sensuous things as emotions, memories, anticipations, causal relations, effort, and appreciations. James’s Philosophy of Education The mission of the University for James is to educate students to become unique whole and flourishing individuals. A superior university recognizes that students are persons in the broadest sense who seek to live happy, meaningful, and enriching lives, goals that include more than pursuing productive careers. As a result, they experience the world physically, emotionally, and rationally. Universities should recognize that in addition to an exterior life of students that can be observed, measured, and tested, students also possess an inner life of emotions, anticipations, values, and ideals, as well as rational judgment. Thus in order to seek to have a deep understanding of the meaning of student, James points to the importance of considering what the student experiences in her day-to-day world. In keeping with the understanding of the complex experiences of students both as emotional and purposeful beings, as well as rational and physical beings, two primary roles of higher education are (a) to guide students in formulating their own high ideals, goals, and objectives and (b) to help provide the means for them to actualize and test these ideals in their own experience. This is a challenge that is most difficult but yet must be a primary role of the university. In addition to recognizing that the education of young persons is a vital end in itself, James argues that education is also an instrumental good for democracy because it can provide

qualified and knowledgeable leaders and participants in civic life. James presents two suggestions for practices that are fundamental in helping students to formulate their own ideals while providing them the conditions to realize and test these ideals. Both of these suggestions can be traced to James’s appeal to direct experience and his criticism of abstractions that hinder the university’s mission. The first proposal is that there should be meaningful and extensive faculty and student interaction in the ongoing active engagement in student learning. The second proposal is that there should be in place a curriculum that focuses on human excellence and achievement through incorporation of pluralistic biographical, historical, and/or literary contexts. For James, the principal barrier to helping students develop worthy ideals and engage in useful action is the misuse of abstractions or concepts implicit in policies and practices that neglect attention to relevant experience. James criticized the German and American universities for their unyielding institutional structures with their fragmentations of disciplines and emphasis on technical rules and procedures that suppress individuals who envision alternative and creative ways of looking at the world. Education, instead of preparing young people for the adult world, had become a means to furthering the careers of teachers and the reputations of the institutions. James’s solution to the misuse of abstractions is always to return to experience in order to test the usefulness of any practice or proposal in the light of what has been determined so far to be the most worthy goals and aims. If experience shows that a particular policy or practice hinders the development of the student as a distinctive and flourishing individual, then that policy or practice should be revised or rejected. The Pragmatic Test: Implication of James’s Theories and Proposals for Effective Practice An essential part of this examination of a Jamesian philosophy of education is to show how integration and implementation of James’s ideas would characterize a pluralistic university, a term that is inspired by the title of his major work on philosophical pluralism, A Pluralistic Universe. Analogous to a dynamic world that is rich in a diversity of knowledge, perspectives, and events, a pluralistic university seeks to understand and appreciate that world in a comprehensive way. Such a university recognizes that the most important resource of any educational institution is not its facilities, policies, or reputation, but exceptional individuals who comprise its administration, staff, faculty, and student body. These individuals, who are not restricted to any particular social status, economic background, or ethnic group, seek solutions to problems in creative, original, and processive ways, are of high moral integrity, and emphasize

the importance of human experience over bureaucratic structures and policies. Leaders today in the field of moral and spiritual development of college students echo James’s appeal to higher education to help guide students in their explorations of their inner as well as their outer lives. Contemporary research in effective practices in higher education largely supports James’s suggestion that meaningful and extensive faculty and student interaction together with ongoing active and diverse engagement in student learning positively influences student learning, accomplishment, and well being. There is need for further studies to show that James’s suggestion that a humanities oriented curriculum that focuses on positive human achievement through pluralistic biographical, historical, and literary contexts influences students in positive ways. Although much of the research in the moral development of colleges students supports James’s insistence on the importance of the cultivation of the inner life of students and the significance of exceptional adult leaders and teachers as positive influences on students’ academic success and well being, and many thinkers in higher education agree with James’s emphasis on the benefits of a humanities oriented curriculum, some difficulties in James’s proposals for higher education can be brought to light by further analysis. Often his proposals seem too simplistic and seem to ignore many details that are obvious today. These difficulties arise, it may be argued, from his lack of understanding of the societal problems that existed during his life time as well as his lack of understanding of the complex roles of organizational structures. Also James’s outlook as teacher and scholar was highly influenced not only by the particular population of students who attended Harvard and Harvard’s prestige and resources, but also by James’s own personal affluence and background. Research Questions This study integrated a philosophical, biographical, historical, and empirical method of inquiry. This integrated method of inquiry was utilized to present, analyze, and propose a solution to the problem presented in this paper. The purpose of this research is to examine and critically assess how William James envisioned the mission of the university. The mission, for James, is to educate students to become whole, distinctive, and flourishing persons who contribute as well as benefit from a pluralistic society. The barrier to this mission is the misuse of abstractions or concepts in a way that neglects attention to crucial and highly relevant experience (as also is the case in philosophical arguments). This misuse of abstractions can be in the form of policies, practices, disciplines, as well as instruments of measurement. James’s

solution to the problem of the misuse of abstractions is always to appeal to human experience directly and to continue to test practices and policies in the light of worthy goals and aims. The following questions drive the direction and purpose of the study: 1. What are the philosophical assumptions which underlie James’s ideas on the mission of the university and help to inform and shape his philosophy of education? 2. How does James characterize the mission of the university? What primary roles does the university play in educating the individual? What practices help to achieve the mission of the University? What are the barriers to the success of these practices? What proposals does James present which would remove these barriers? 3. What are the implications of James’s proposal for higher education today? How does today’s research in college student success and well being support or not support James’s arguments and proposals? What limitations and possible difficulties must be considered when examining James’s proposals for educational practice? Limitation James’s ideas on education were, on the whole, directed to a popular rather than an academic audience and were often sketchy and non-technical. As a result, a basic understanding of James’s philosophy is needed to flesh out his ideas. Some of the works on education I draw upon were initially lectures James delivered on occasions such as a dedication ceremony or the bestowing of an honor whose purposes and venues may have greatly influenced what James deemed appropriate to say for the particular occasion. These situations may have considerably toned down James’s positions and opinions that might have seemed to him to be too antagonistic. James’s ideas on education were largely based on his (a) philosophical perspectives; (b) his first hand observations and experiences of German and American universities; (c) his limited reading of literature about higher education; (d) his lifetime experience as a teacher and scholar at Harvard; and (e) his studies in psychology on cognition and learning. James did not engage in extensive research on higher education; it was not his field of expertise. James was a professor at Harvard College whose student population was on the whole homogenous. There was little diversity of backgrounds, ages, religions, ethnic makeup, cultures, and social classes. Few exceptions existed; among them were the later to be famous African American thinkers and writers W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke, who attended Harvard during James’s time and were his students. Almost all female students whom James taught attended Radcliffe College, which was loosely affiliated with Harvard. Mary Whiton Calkins, who was

later to become President of Wellesley, was an exception (Richardson, 2006, pp. 307–308; Simon, 1998, pp. 243–244). James tutored her at his home, partly because no women could earn a Harvard degree and none were allowed to enroll as students there. During James’s years as a teacher at Harvard (1872–1907), most students were from White middle and upper income families, and most were from Massachusetts (Townsend, 1996, p. 91). A very small percentage (3%) of 18–24 year olds in the US was resident college or university students. Of those 250,000, only 2,000 attended Harvard (p. 86). By the time many students of James, such as G. Stanley Hall, George Santayana, Randolph Hearst, Theodore Roosevelt, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Barton Perry, Arthur Lovejoy, Alain Locke, and Owen Wister, entered Harvard, they were likely already on their way to establishing notable acclaim. Therefore, one can argue that James’s opinions regarding higher education were formed largely on the basis of his experience teaching at an elite liberal arts college a century ago and did much to influence his attitude regarding the mission of higher education. It could be argued James lacked the experience, knowledge, training, and insight that are needed to address academic and administrative issues in the complex and diverse world of higher education today. Although James attended lectures on physiology one semester at the University of Berlin, went to Laurence Scientific School, and later earned his medical license at Harvard Medical School, James was never formally enrolled at an undergraduate college and never earned an academic degree other than a medical degree at Harvard Medical School, which had very low standards at the time. James’s education was a highly unconventional one. His biographer Ralph Barton Perry declared that his schooling appeared to be “a series of accidents,” (Perry, 1935, vol. 1, p. 170). At the age of sixteen he had resided in as many as eighteen different houses in addition to various hotels. His father Henry Sr., an independently wealthy scholar, was the principal influence on his children’s education, sending James to nine schools from the age of ten until sixteen (Richardson, 2006, p. 19), and often supervising his studying at home at various extended periods in-between. James’s diverse educational experiences also included exposure to a wide breadth of cultural experiences, including three trips to Europe by the time he was 17 (Richardson, pp. 18, 21, 23). James’s atypical educational experiences growing up in an affluent family and encountering some of the most influential thinkers of their day could not adequately provide him insight, it could be argued, into the complex, diverse, and rapidly changing world of the average American college youth of the twenty-first century. Typical of the practice of his day, his language was often gender-biased, using the word

man to indicate humanity or people, and masculine pronouns to refer to both male and female antecedents. I will attempt to be as precise as possible in conveying James’s intent although some notable quotations are included in this study that exhibit this bias. Organization This dissertation consists of five chapters. Chapter 1, “Introduction to the Problem,” is organized into six sections: Introduction, Rationale, Framework, Research Questions, Limitation, and Organization. Chapter 2, “History of the Problem,” places the problem of this study in a historical context. The chapter is organized into six sections: Introduction, The Emergence of the Modern German Research University, The American Importation of the German University, The Evolution of the American University in a Global Industrial Market in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, Sample of Works Addressing the Problem, and Conclusion. Chapter 3, “The Philosophy of William James,” attempts to elucidate the philosophical ideas of James’s pluralism, radical empiricism, and pragmatic theory of meaning and truth that will strengthen his critical assessment of higher education presented in Chapter 4. Chapter 3 is organized into seven main sections: Introduction, Concepts and Percepts, Origins of Concepts, The Value of Concepts, The Pragmatic Theories of Meaning and Truth, Violations of the Pragmatic Theories of Meaning and Truth, and Outline Summary of James’s Philosophy. Chapter 4, “Philosophy of Education: The Cultivation of the Whole Person,” is an analysis of James’s argument for the mission of the university. This chapter is organized into seven main sections: Introduction, Human Being as Concept, Meaningful and Purposeful Interaction between Students and Exceptional Adult Leaders, Barriers to Meaningful and Purposeful Interaction between Students and Faculty, Humanities Oriented Curriculum, Barrier to Humanities Oriented Curriculum, and Conclusion. Chapter 5, “The Pragmatic Test—Implication of James’s Theories and Proposals for Effective Practice” presents a sample of research in student learning and overall success in higher education that supports or calls into question James’s two proposals that are outlined in Chapter 4, and examines as well the difficulties that arise from James’s specific proposals for higher education practice. The chapter is organized into five main sections, Introduction: Nurturing the Inner Life, Faculty-Student Interaction in the Active Engagement in Diverse Student Learning, Pluralistic Humanities Oriented Curriculum, Reflections and Criticisms, and Conclusion.

CHAPTER 2 HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM The purpose of this chapter is to outline a history of the problem addressed in this research. The problem, as articulated by William James at the beginning of the twentieth century, is that individuals in a college or university, like any other large institution, can become so focused on the operation and reputation of the system itself that they neglect the well being of the persons that the institution was first established to serve, in this case, students. One approach in explicating the problem is first to trace briefly the historical events and theories that helped to create the problem. Mapping out these events and theories is done in three parts: the historical and theoretical foundation of the American research university which was the founding of the modern German research university in the early nineteenth century; the transportation and interpretation of the modern German research university model to American soil in the middle and late nineteenth century; and the evolution of the American university into a large bureaucratic institution, and its place in the global industrial market in the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries. The founding of the German modern university and its subsequent influence on American university curriculum and policies are important historical contexts of this study because much of James’s criticism of educational practices was based on what he saw as German influence on the growing bureaucracy in American universities. How this problem has evolved in both Germany and the United States shows the relevance of this problem for higher education today. In addition, a presentation of a sample of research that has addressed the problem follows. The chapter is organized into six sections: Introduction, The Emergence of the Modern German Research University, The American Importation of the German University, The Evolution of the American University in a Global Industrial Market in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, Sample of Works Addressing the Problem, and Conclusion. This chapter seeks to answer these research questions: How was the cultivation of the whole person central to the founding of the German modern university? How did the importation of the German university model to the United States change the focus of the research university in this country? How has the increase in size of American research universities, along with its accompanying increase of specialization and professionalization further change the focus of the university? What literature has addressed this problem through a Jamesian lens?

Introduction Research universities bring about far reaching good and greatly benefit humanity in general. For example, research projects at North Carolina State University have improved the quality of human life by developing the first synthetic aorta in the world and building statistical models that will assist in creating new treatment methods for patients with HIV (“Research,” n.d.). NC State is also known for its student community service initiatives, performing such projects as helping to establish a medical clinic and assisting in building a house with Habitat for Humanity in the Dominican Republic (“University Lauded for Service Initiatives,” n.d.). Although the enrollment of giant-sized universities today can be as large as 50,000 or more students, many institutions realize the positive consequences for learning that devoting individual attention to students can give, and they look at ways that students can thrive in small nurturing communities. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for example, the goal of the Bradley Learning Community, a residential learning community of 250 undergraduates, is to simulate the student experience of a small liberal arts college (“Creating Community,” n.d.). The focus of many of today’s research universities often comprises at least two main goals: aspiring to be on the cutting edge of research while being an intellectually challenging environment for students and faculty. These are admirable goals, and higher education’s involvement in the scientific and industrial progress, not only of the nation, but also the world, while seeking to teach future citizens, improves the quality of life for many individuals. Its large scale benefits cannot and should not be downplayed. Yet some observers are worried that the determination of the universities to secure international reputations in research and the too impersonal specialization and professionalization that ensue are harmful to the individual student’s learning and well being (Wilshire, 1990). Others point to the negative effects of too few interpersonal contacts that foster student development (Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt, & Associates, 2005; Hamrick, Evans and Schu, 2002; Parks, 2002; Baxter Magolda, 1992; Chickering & Reisser, 1993). Still others comment on the detrimental effects that result when institutions of higher learning make lucrative research projects a priority (Bok, 2003). These modern trends in the university are often directly related to the decrease of human scale—the lack of attention to individuals’ needs and interests—which has been shown to hinder student success (Hamrick et al. 2002; Kuh et al. 2005; Baxter Magolda, 1992; Dalton, 1998). While some argue that faculty and administrators should not focus on helping to shape

the inner lives of students (Fish, 2003), many experts in college student development stress the importance of students’ holistic development in academic achievement and student success, which centers on the cultivation of an authentic and purposeful life (Astin, 1993; Chickering, Dalton, & Stamm, 2006; Parks, 2002; Palmer, 2004). Education for such a life involves the nurturing of the whole student, which includes both the inner life as well as the life that is outwardly observable and assessable (Braskamp, Trautvetter, & Ward, 2006; Chickering et al., 2006). Ironically, the American research university was born out of the adaptation of the modern German research university, whose initial focus was the cultivation of the whole student. The Emergence of the German Modern Research University The founding of the University of Berlin in 1809–1810 marked the dawn of the great modern German research university. Its intellectual founders were Humboldt, Schleiermacher, Steffens, Fichte, and Schelling (Richardson, 1991), whose ideas on education centered on the process of Wissenschaft (Readings, 1996, pp. 62–69). Wissenschaft can be translated in English as “scholarship” or “learning,” that is, “the collective activity of scholars in obtaining, interpreting, and ordering” knowledge (Ringer, 1969, pp. 102–103). Closely related to Wissenschaft is Bildung, the cultivation of the distinctive individual, which involves the moral, aesthetic and cognitive development of the whole person guided by investigation, and creativity (Ringer, pp. 86–87). These German scholars viewed truth not as something given but as something that must be approached by means of rigorous research and rational thought. The university should not merely seek to transmit a fixed body of facts but rather to kindle in students, who are in the process of obtaining many different types of specialized knowledge, the idea of Wissenschaft, so that even in their devotion to a particular discipline, they will also be gaining the habit of viewing everything from this perspective. In this way students will learn to perceive nothing for itself alone (e.g., a discipline, subject, or theory), but everything in light of its connections with that which is most relevant to the whole of knowledge. In addition they will not only know how to unify knowledge but also to produce and access it (Lawler, 1991, pp. 30–35). According to these thinkers, only after one has been trained philosophically, (having to do with the scholarship of the whole), can one deal with problems, ideas, and theories in the other disciplines with a truly scholarly perspective (pp. 27–28). As both teacher and researcher, the professor views her discipline in terms of how it relates to the whole and finds alternate ways

of interpreting existing knowledge. In the process of seeing the relationship of the discipline to the whole, she creates new knowledge that will add and therefore put forward a more comprehensive view of the whole. In this way there is no superficial repetition of knowledge, but knowledge is viewed from a central point of focus. This same model is used in the university over all, where there are many different disciplines, but one guiding and unifying overlook, that of philosophy (Paulsen, 1894/1895, pp. 79–81, 227). The faculty of philosophy exemplifies this search for truth. For other faculties, the communication and instruction of technical expertise required for a profession are emphasized over the ideals of general investigation (pp. 79-80). The doctorate in philosophy is evidence that the person holding the degree is a “learned investigator” (pp. 80-81), a scholar of Wissenschaft. Only after one has been trained philosophically can one deal with problems, ideas, and theories in the other sciences with a truly scholarly perspective. Each professor is a master of a specific area of learning such that she can further the whole. Each has been educated in applying the philosophical principles of the science she teaches and in articulating the subject in light of these principles (pp. 227–228). Instead of fixing a body of information to memory, the role of both professors and students is active engaged thinking. Neither professor nor student has privileged access to certainty, authority, or truth, and professor and student must be equal in status in pursuit of truth. Because truth is a process, not an ideology, no political or ideological limits must deter the scholar from his or her “freedom to teach,” Lehrfreiheit, nor hamper the student in his or her “freedom to learn,” Lernfreiheit. The university professor’s responsibility is to teach in such a way that students understand the foundational principles of scholarship so that they can investigate and access knowledge on their own in light of their own investigations. They are to respect students’ freedom to pursue or not to pursue knowledge (pp. 207–208). However, in the 1840s and 1850s, when German states began to compete fiercely for intellectual talent for the sake of future civil service employment, state of the art research, and celebrated professors, the university increasingly turned away from its earlier focus on Bildung. The anticipation of a unified Germany and the desire for each state to have cultural dominance fueled the rivalry. State ministries of culture and education who hired full time faculty members sought after the best professors. To be appointed by a state ministry was a prestigious achievement, and such an appointment was largely due to one’s international reputation for research and publication. Since many universities began to vie for particular professors, those

who were the most prestigious could demand the most advanced equipment and modern facilities. Institutes in chemistry, physics, and physiology began to spring up. Reputations were so important to the university that scientists were recruited specifically to advance their own research, and, in turn, influence their students to be devoted followers of their teachers’ research, not to pursue their own interests or purposes (Lenoir, 1998). By the early twentieth century, the power and influence of the German full professor or Ordinarius had evolved into absolute authority in the university. The organizational structure included smaller hierarchical units or institutes, where each Ordinarius had complete authority over “research, teaching, personnel and budget” and discouraged respectful collaboration with academic peers (Pritchard, 1990, p. 45). The Mittelbau, who made up the untenured teachers and researchers, greatly outnumbered the Ordinarien, who constituted a highly elitist tier of professionals. As the twentieth century progressed well into the 1960s, the professional institutes were similar to isolated cells, each one containing a strict hierarchical structure. Such isolation discouraged collegiality in research, and many students complained that the institutes were enemies of academic freedom. The ordinaries soon had complete control of the use of university resources, and did little to encourage individual creativity and constructive collegiality (Pritchard, pp. 89–90). It was clear to numerous German academics, that the illustrious German university had abandoned the ideals of the modern university’s founders for the benefits of money and prestigious reputations that research could bring (Clark, 2006, p. 468). The American Importation of the German University In the 1850s, the German university was widely known as a superior model of higher learning, which led to a dramatic increase in Americans studying in Germany. Student matriculation reached its peak between 1895 and 1896 as American scholars set off for Germany to earn the highly prized German PhD (Veysey, 1965, p. 130). In 1876, Johns Hopkins University became the first American university to be founded on the German research model. The German lecture, the seminar, and the laboratory models were introduced into American academic life. While the ideas of Wissenschaft and Bildung had eroded in German institutions of higher learning in the passage of the nineteenth century, these ideas were never transmitted intact to the US. What the Americans originally construed as German educational principles were based on the emphasis on rigorous research, but not the lofty “rhetoric” behind it that described research

as intimately related to the whole of knowledge and the whole of life (Clark, 2006, p. 463). One of the reasons for the contrast in American and German education was that the secondary education system was quite different in Germany than in America. For example, there were three categories of German secondary schools around 1885: the gymnasium, the Realgymnasium, and the Oberrealschule, each being a nine-year institution for boys, where students enrolled at the age of eight or nine. Germany universities required no entrance exam; instead, they were obliged to enroll any applicant who had passed the classical Abitur exam for certification, and they rarely accepted people who did not have this certification. Half of the course hours required in the gymnasium were in Latin and Greek, and thus gymnasium students were more likely to enter a German university. As a result, students who entered the German university were older than American students, had already received a classical foundation, and were often members of an affluent social class (Ringer, 1969, pp. 31–33). Although the basic educational structure of the German system and its earlier devotion to Bildung were not transmitted across the sea from Germany, the appreciation for the benefits of bureaucratic titles and specializations most certainly made it to the US (Rudolph, 1990). As a result, a meteoric growth of the number of departments within the American institutions of higher learning followed. Exacerbating this growth was an increase of the overall number of educational institutions as a result of “surplus capital” from the “accumulated fortunes” of those who associated education with “material success and progress” (Lucas, 1994, p. 142). Bureaucracy expanded as student enrollments increased, while tasks and responsibilities naturally became more specific and carved up (Lucas, p. 191). The obsession for reputation, resources, and faculty, as in the German university, began to drive in more powerful ways the policies and practices of the American university. At the University of Chicago in 1891, for example, five different grades of one-year appointments were established at the lowest rung of the faculty hierarchical structure. Above them were those with two-year, three-year, and four-year appointments assistant professors. There were also different grades for associate professors, professors, and head professors (Rudolph, 1990, pp. 398–399). The two primary domains of academics, (a) humanities, which were viewed as representative of an inner, subjective world, and (b) the natural sciences, which were seen as representative of the external objective world, grew and divided and formed groups, with which faculty could identify professionally while developing their own technical models and jargon.

Social sciences, caught in the middle, began to mimic the natural sciences. Such circumstances gave birth to the multiversity with its “insularity of the disciplines” and its departments within its disciplines competing for attention and funding (Wilshire, 1990, p. 65). Concepts such as truth or moral life were defined by each group differently and therefore could not be discussed across boundaries of disciplines. Rudolph observes in The American College & University: Departmentalization was not only a method of organizing an otherwise unwieldy number of academic specialists into the framework of university government; it was also a development that unleashed all of that competitiveness, that currying of favor, that attention to public relations, that scrambling for students, that pettiness and jealousy which in some of its manifestation made the university and college indistinguishable from other organizations. (Rudolph, 1990, pp. 399–400) The Department of Biology at the University of Chicago in 1893, for example, splintered into zoology, botany, anatomy, neurology, and physiology, with new appointments of chairs, budgets, and chains of command (p. 400). The university was now a place to professionalize vocations, and it gave birth to different professional schools: social work, business, and veterinary medicine, obscuring the demarcation between academic and professional preparation. Soon the university prepared students for careers in agriculture business and engineering—what had heretofore been relegated to on-the- job training. Most if not all careers that served the American democratic society and contributed to American way of life were deemed as equally important vocations. The university harbored both types of education—the college liberal arts preparation and professional training (pp. 340– 343). Nicolas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia University, from 1902 to 1945, had written in 1895 that the worst influence of German education was the growth of technical schools which had become a part of the university and whose special interest had begun to dominate the university boards and policies. The increase of the technical schools was largely due to the revenue generated by huge enrollments and to the perception of them as a means for students to cement connections between the university and the outside world. The problem posed by the increase would be eradicated if students who entered the technical schools were required to complete a liberal arts education argued Butler. In that way, students who were interested in continuing to pursue research would not be missing a classical preparation (Butler, 1895, pp. xxiii–xxvi). Butler emphasized that academic standards continued to decline because

many students lacked this basic broad education. He expressed his alarm at how the increasing specialization of the university was hampering students’ ability to see the whole, with each thing given its proper place by means of a balanced perspective (p. xxx). The growing professionalization and specialization affected the individual academic in many ways. As the number of disciplines and sub-disciplines increased, so did the number of scholarly publications. As publications increased, the gap between disciplines and sub- disciplines widened. As more articles were published in a given field, the body of knowledge grew larger, which required that researchers spend a greater amount of time reviewing relevant literature in their field (Wilshire, 1990, p. 74). Young professors who focused their energies to teaching over research became casualties of the system early in their careers as they failed to earn tenure (p. 79). Those who defended a focus on research argued that the pairing of teaching and research is crucial because it is not the role of the professor simply to pass along knowledge, but is that of creating new knowledge as well. Published research helps to insure that standards are upheld in quality of scholarship (Lucas, 1994, p. 285). Yet others saw scholars’ perspectives on the world narrowing as each discipline became more specialized with neither encouragement nor time to relate new knowledge to the whole (Wilshire, 1990, p. 74). Rudolph describes the wave of the future for the university professor: For that catholicity of outlook and acquaintance with universal knowledge which had seemed so often to be a mark of the best of the old-time professors there was now substituted a specialist’s regard for the furtherest refinements of his own interest. (Rudolph, 1990, pp. 400–401)

Under the regime of specialization, narrowness of interests and inbreeding could lead to some of the greatest dangers of organization: dearth of originality, excess deference to authority, diffusion of responsibility. To the degree that specialization and organization achieved an upper hand, to that degree such perils came characteristic of academic life. (p. 401) As the bureaucratic machines continued to expand throughout and to the end of the twentieth century, a “constant refrain” from those commenting on the state of the university was that the university has “succumbed to a chilling form of ‘mandarism,’” and that it has become “utterly remote and removed from the vital concerns with which academic inquiry had once been

engaged” (Lucas, 1994, p. 287). Today, the emerging studies of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century in effective practices for college student success are pointing to the adverse effects of the “psychological size” or human scale of a university (the measurement of attention given to individuals’ needs) (Hamrick et al., 2002, pp. 103–105). One way to describe the problem is to examine the phenomenon of redundancy (Chickering & Reisser, 1993, pp. 268–269, 315). Redundancy is a result of the shrinking of human scale in an institution. It is a condition that occurs when the number of individuals of an organization increases to a point that the quantity of opportunities for persons to participate in satisfying ways decreases. When redundancy sets in, the tasks of participants become more specialized, and with the increase of specialization there is the increase of marginalization of those considered to be less qualified. Requirements for conduct become more standardized, leaving few opportunities for institutional leaders to consider the consequences they might have for individuals. Although there are opportunities and strategies for increasing the human scale and decreasing the psychological size of a university, studies suggest that alternative structures and programs may not be enough to avert the potential destructive consequences for faculty and staff at a large university (Kuh et al., 2005, p. 288). Even when colleges and universities are praised for making students a priority, professors admit that the time needed for research is “spiraling out of control” and their workload is increasingly having an adverse effect on the quality of undergraduate learning (Kuh et al., p. 290). As more faculty research is demanded, less time is available for educators to interact with their students. Graduate students are often seen as individuals who can relieve professors of some of the burden of teaching, grading, and researching, while also fulfilling other responsibilities that further the careers and reputations of their mentors. Frequently, undergraduate students’ interests are seen as even less important (Wilshire, 1990. p. 77). The Evolution of the American University into the Global Industrial Market in the Twentieth and Twentieth-First Centuries While vital gaps in program, policies, and curricula in the university are overlooked with very few assessing the whole picture in a critical way, a lack of articulation and ongoing overall assessment of values has placed the university in a vulnerable position. This lack of coherent values has provided opportunities for those who view the commodification of knowledge as a lucrative financial benefit to subdue those who view knowledge as a means to student well being.

The philosopher Jean-François Lyotard in the late 1970s had pointed to an inevitable increasing “mercantilization” of knowledge (p.5): The old principle that the acquisition of knowledge is indissociable from the training (Bildung) of minds, or even of individuals, is becoming obsolete and will become ever more so. The relationship of the suppliers and users of knowledge to the knowledge they supply and use is now tending, and will increasingly tend, to assume the form already taken by the relationship of commodity producers and consumers to the commodities they produce and consume—that is, the form of value. Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold; it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself. . . (Lyotard, 1979/1984, p. 4) In the “Idea of the University: Learning Process,” Jürgen Habermas cites Karl Jaspers, who first noted in 1946 that the university was facing the temptation to seek to administer primarily to the needs of industrial society. Production of knowledge and training of graduates would be devoted to this aim. The university would assume a factory model with both knowledge and a work force as its products. As a result, it would turn its focus away from that of seeking to understand humanity itself (Habermas, 1989, pp. 100–101; Jaspers 1946/1959). Derek Bok, a former president of Harvard, argues that the university has certainly taken this path (Bok, 2003). He writes that today’s university is seen as a means for society to take advantage of its scientific advancement in creating new products for industry and training of state officials and executives. And the university profits from this demand of its services. Without looking at the risks that are involved, and seeking more and more financial gain, the university is treading dangerous ground (pp. 199–208). Bok writes, One can imagine a university of the future tenuring professors because they bring in large amounts of patent royalties and industrial funding; paying high salaries to recruit “celebrity” scholars who can attract favorable media coverage; admitting less than fully qualified students in return for handsome parental gifts; soliciting corporate advertising to underwrite popular executive programs; promoting Internet courses of inferior quality while canceling worthy conventional offerings because they cannot cover their costs; encouraging professors to spend more time delivering routine research services to attract corporate clients, while providing a variety of symposia and “academic” conferences planned by marketing experts in their development offices to lure potential donors to the

campus. (pp. 200–201) By succumbing to commercialism, the university is rejecting its overall ideals of unifying what is now “fragmented” by “separate disciplines, research centers; teaching programs, and personal ambitions” (p. 206). Although many argue that government decreases in funding have caused American universities to appeal to “entrepreneurial” sources, Bok claims this is not the “whole story” (p. 8). Many reasons for such commoditization of knowledge include “a lack of clarity about academic values” and the influence of “rapid growth of money-making opportunities provided by a more technologically sophisticated, knowledge-based economy” (p. 15). This overemphasis on financial superiority is troubling to thinkers who continue to ask what really matters in students’ lives. College students in recent decades have shifted their focus from the development of their inner lives to the development of financial success: “In short, a focus on the spiritual interior has been replaced by a focus on the material exterior” (Astin & Astin, 2006, p. viii). Students’ material focus is reinforced by the endorsement of consumerism they see in the academy. “College students observe the discrepancies between lofty pronouncements about educational values and what they see implemented in practice. They are also quick to recognize the things that really matter to their institutions” (Dalton & Crosby, 2007, p. 3). It is crucial, therefore, that administrators and faculty be made to see that an overemphasis on the financial benefits of decisions, policies, practices, and procedures by the university can adversely affect the development of the student, the university, and society in a comprehensive and far reaching way. Historian John R. Thelin writes that The challenge for higher education in the United States during the twenty-first century is . . . to accept its roles as a mature institution, along with the responsibilities that accompany that maturity. This task is not a matter of money but of rediscovering essential principles and values that have perhaps been obscured in the recent blurring of educational activities and commercial ventures. By going back to the basics of these fundamental matters of institutional purpose, the diverse constituencies in American higher education can once again connect past and present as a prelude to gain an appropriate future. (Thelin, 2004, p. 362) Sample of Works Addressing the Problem This paper addresses the problem that the misuse of abstractions or concepts implicit in policies and practices that give insufficient attention to relevant experience can be a barrier to the

holistic education of students as emotional and purposeful beings who contribute to as well as benefit from a pluralistic society. Education, instead of preparing young people for the adult world, has become a means of furthering the careers of teachers and the reputations of the institutions. James’s solution to the misuse of abstractions is always to return to direct experience in order to test the usefulness of any practice or proposal in the light of what has been determined so far to be the most worthy goals and aims. If experience shows that a particular policy or practice hinders the development of the student as a distinctive and flourishing individual, then that policy or practice should be revised or rejected. The approach for addressing this problem used in this study is by formulating and presenting a systematic view of James’s philosophy of education. This study draws from research in the following areas: First, James’s pluralism, radical empiricism, and pragmatic theories of meaning and truth, which help to articulate, expand on, and provide essential context for James’s theories of education. Second, various lectures, essays, books, and correspondence of James. Third, biographical and historical works relevant to his approach, style, and practices as a teacher. Fourth, a sample of contemporary research in the areas of student success and overall well being in higher education that helps to demonstrate how James’s ideas on education can function in practice. A sample of other works that have addressed the problem of this study that incorporates James’s ideas is discussed below. References to James’s views on education are emphasized. At the time of the writing of this study, to my knowledge no single work on James draws from all of the four areas of research mentioned above to devise a systematic view of James’s philosophy of education. Higher Education in the Making (Allen, 2004). Allen argues that the current stalemate in higher education between canonists and anti-canoists is a result of dogmatic positions assumed by both sides. Drawing from process thinkers such as Dewey, Whitehead, and James, he argues for an approach to education that is less polarizing and more pragmatic. Allen applies James’s philosophy to education but does not incorporate James’s actual writings on education. A Stroll with William James (Barzun, 1983). Jacques Barzun presents an account of the philosophy, psychology, and life of William James, whom he depicts as a proponent of the humanistic tradition in an age where science has claimed to have the only possession of truth. James’s suggestion that non-humanities courses be taught with a humanities context shows how James can bring two opposing kinds of interest together. Barzun argues that James was one of

the few spokesman who opposed the increasing specialization of disciplines and education in the universities (p.283). “William James as an Educator: Individualism and Democracy” (Boller, 1979). James’s devotion to the value of the individual significantly influenced his views on higher education. In his essays on higher learning, James often makes the point that the mission of education should be directed toward the development of excellent persons. Paul F. Boller Jr. writes that James’s individualism is intimately tied to his openness to new ideas. Four critical aspects of his philosophy inform his ideas on education: pluralism, radical empiricism, pragmatism, and indeterminism. “James’s Theory of Education” (Broyer, 1976). In this section included in The Philosophy of William James, John Albin Broyer argues that the fact that James created no systematic philosophy does not decrease his importance but, rather, underscores his creative genius. He examines James’s thoughts on education in four ways: his response to problems in education by means of an integration of psychology, philosophy, and practice; implications of his resolutions; summary of his psychology of education; and his ideas in the context of historical developments in education. “Toward Pragmatic Liberal Education (Kimball, 1995). Bruce Kimball in an extended essay in the edited volume The Condition of American Liberal Education: Pragmatism and a Changing Tradition presents evidence that pragmatic thinkers have had considerable impact on the university today. Among the influences of the pragmatic movement on higher education which he mentions are pragmatism’s emphasis on historical as well as social contexts as they relate to value formation and the pursuit of knowledge, perspectivism, and experimental inquiry. Democratic Temperament: The Legacy of William James (Miller,1997). Miller writes in this book on James’s espousal of democratic ideals that James viewed the academic institution as a central place for instructing future citizens about the democratic outlook. In a section on James’s philosophy of education, Miller argues that James’s call for an aristocracy of the college educated is not really as elitist as it sounds. In his section on James’s democratic teaching, the author argues that James may give the impression of snobbery when expressing his ideas on education, but that his snobbery is mitigated by its democratic function of preparing citizens for self-rule, and that democracy is not incompatible with elitism of a certain kind. James insisted that the well being of any nation is dependent upon its having deeply reflective citizens who have

strong convictions and act on those convictions, while at the same time respecting the ideas and ideals of other citizens and cultures. Because actions should be results of ideas, it is not sufficient to discuss merely conceptions of justice; students should apply in their lives what they learn about justice in the classroom by helping to improve conditions in society. James contended that if students were given more power in governing a university, they would begin to act more responsibly. James wanted the college-educated to serve as a leadership class to balance popular instincts, and he urged all people to act vigorously while being led and checked by an intellectual elite. “A Resurgence of Vicious Intellectualism” (Lowe, 1951). Victor Lowe’s essay criticizing university policies that discriminated against professors who were members of the American Communist Party generated strong reactions from the philosophical community, including published responses from fellow philosophers Sidney Hook and Arthur Lovejoy. Lowe says that James applies the term “vicious intellectualism” when condemning conclusions based upon systematic logical reasoning that excludes experience as a test of the meaning of concepts within a system. Yet, the term “vicious intellectualism,” he explains, can be directed beyond James's criticism of abstract, purely logical reasoning as exhibited in absolute idealism to criticism of university policies. The Dynamic Individualism of William James (Pawelski, 2007). In a brief section entitled “The Individual and the University,” James O. Pawelski discusses James’s individualism in the context of his views on higher education. He notes that James’s essays and lectures concerning the university provide insight into James’s later and more “mature” conception of the “proper relation between individualism and institutions in general” (p. 22). “Pluralism and Professional Practice: William James and Our Era” (Podeschi, 2002). Ron Podeschi, in this essay published in William James and Education (2002), presents the many tensions of James’s thoughts, such as individuality and community; progress and realities; and subjective feelings and objective rationality. Podeschi writes that James poses the challenge to us to be authentic as well as open to new possibilities. He argues that James emphasized the possibilities of the inner life over the oppression of institutional systems. The Thought and Character of William James (Perry, 1935). Ralph Barton Perry, a former student and colleague of James at Harvard, demonstrates in this two volume intellectual biography interrelationships between James’s personality, teaching practices, and philosophy. William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism (Richardson, 2006).

Included in this intellectual biography of William James is Robert D. Richardson’s account of James’s teaching experiences at Harvard, along with short summaries of James’s writings on education. William James Remembered (Simon, 1996). Linda Simon brings together an assortment of reflections by James’s students, colleagues, friends, and family. Crafting this mosaic picture of James, Simon offers glimpses of him as teacher, family member, and colleague. Students remember him as a teacher whose spontaneous behaviors enlivened the classroom, and who made young scholars the focal points of his personal as well as professional life at Harvard. Simon explains that James appealed to his students to be amenable to perspectives different from or new to their own. She writes that James had an “utopian ideal of the university as a community that tolerates all manner of thinkers, however unpopular their ideas” (p. xv). Genuine Reality: A Life of William James (Simon, 1998). In this biography of James that details much of his life at Harvard, Linda Simon describes his attitude toward his own teaching and his career as a public intellectual. Simon says that often James complained about his teaching, that it was demanding and exhausting, but that he was happy that he could make a strong impression on young people. He resented, however, that his academic reputation had been tarnished by his popularity as a public lecturer. Killing the Spirit: Higher Education in America (Smith, 1990). Page Smith’s analysis of higher education questions the value of some practices in higher education today. He examines James’s arguments against the rigid intolerance of science, exemplified by Clifford’s ethics of belief, which insists that believing in something in the absence of insufficient evidence is “sinful” (p. 103). Smith laments that the academic world was unresponsive to James’s warnings about the increasing dominance of scientism. He writes that James became increasingly distant from his Harvard philosophy department colleagues because they often objected to his frequent light hearted and highly metaphorical writing. His works were frequently denigrated because scholars considered his style to be too personal and subjective. In the context of James’s criticism of the PhD, Smith describes the “Cult of Dullness,” that is often associated with the writing style of the dissertation. He questions the requirement of “originality” over “wisdom” in dissertation research (pp. 110–112). Manhood at Harvard: William James and Others (Townsend, 1996). Kim Townsend argues that James’s intellectual attitude is largely conveyed in the language of masculinity that was prevalent in his day and time, and that such attitudes were strongly promoted on the campus

of Harvard. James, along with many other prominent Harvard professors, advanced this way of thinking (which was closely tied to highly individualistic ideals) through their teaching of such influential leaders thinkers as W. E. B. Dubois, Theodore Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst, and Owen Wister (author of The Virginian). The Moral Collapse of the University: Professionalism, Purity, and Alienation (Wilshire, 1990). Wilshire encapsulates James’s philosophy of education when he says, “there is no substitution for human relationship and presence, for listening, for sharing silence and wonderment, and for caring. There no expert knowledge of the human self which can be claimed by any particular academic field” (p.282). Wilshire incorporates James’s criticism of higher education along with criticisms of other thinkers such as Alfred North Whitehead, John Dewy, and Frederick Nietzsche to demonstrate what he sees as the harmful effects of professionalization, specialization, and the dominance of scientific claims to truth on the education of young people as human beings. “William James’s Prophetic Grasp of the Failures of Academic Professionalism” (Wilshire, 2002). This essay was published in the 2002 edited volume William James and Education. Wilshire discusses James’s despair at what he saw as a dangerous trend of professionalization and overspecialization of disciplines, resulting in a burdensome bureaucratization of the university. Specifically, Wilshire looks at James’s well known essay “The Ph.D. Octopus,” as an example of James’s criticism of higher education’s increasing demand for medals and titles and the growth of organizations who shun those who do not have the proper “badges” in the academic community. James also condemns, explains Wilshire, what he sees as a trend in higher education of students simply learning how to gather data and use methods in particular disciplines but not understanding the deeper meanings and interrelations of these disciplines. Wilshire argues that James’s predictions that these trends would be detrimental to the mission of the university have turned out to be true. Conclusion This chapter examined the history of the problem presented in this study. The problem is that too much specialization and professionalization of the university can hinder the university from achieving its mission, that of educating the whole student in the contexts of the whole of knowledge and the whole of life. The following chapters seek to address this problem and offer suggestions to resolve the

problem. One way to propose possible solutions is to appeal to the works of insightful and prescient thinkers who help educationists to refocus on what the college and university should be about and who present their own proposals for practices that can effectively support and carry out their visions. In the next chapter, I will interpret and analyze William James’s metaphysical pluralism, radical empiricism, and pragmatism. This interpretation and analysis will seek to give a foundation for James’s educational ideas and will help to bring his philosophy of education into focus.

CHAPTER 3 THE PHILOSOPHY OF WILLIAM JAMES

The purpose of this chapter is to present the philosophical ideas of James’s pluralism, radical empiricism, and pragmatic theory of meaning and truth that will help to articulate and support his critical assessment of higher education which will be presented in Chapter 4. This chapter seeks to answer the research question: What are the philosophical assumptions which helped to shape James’s philosophy of education? This chapter is organized into seven main sections: Introduction, Concepts and Percepts, Origins of Concepts, The Value of Concepts, The Pragmatic Theories of Meaning and Truth, Violations of the Pragmatic Theories of Meaning and Truth, and Outline Summary of James’s Philosophy. Introduction James’s philosophy is centered on the belief that reality must be taken as what it manifests itself to be in our experience, and although abstract categories aid us in seeking order and intelligibility in the universe, these categories only help us to interpret experience; they cannot take the place of direct experience itself. To think that they can is to succumb to what James calls vicious intellectualism. In order to avoid vicious intellectualism, we must (a) ascertain the meaning of our concepts and (b) test the claims to truth to which our concepts lead us. To assess the meaning of particular concepts we must ask, What is their function? How do they operate?, and more broadly, What is their value in helping us to live useful lives? In trying to determine the truth of any claim about the world, we must test the claim in experience by means of five criteria: personal experience, social experience, consistency with previously established beliefs, logicality, and simplicity. James’s pluralism is grounded in his argument that no one theory can adequately explain the nature of the universe. He especially attacks theories which advance what he terms a “block universe” or a closed system where everything is internally related to everything else and there are no external relations of any kind. James argues that while internal relations among things do exist, each thing is unique and resides in a world where both connections as well as disconnections are present. James’s radical empiricism emphasizes that these connections and disconnections are as much matters of direct experience as the things themselves. In addition, unlike empiricists, such as Hume, who claim that experience includes only discrete impressions

of sensation and reflection, James says that experience that is relevant to knowledge of the world also includes such non-sensuous things as emotions, memories, anticipations, causal relations, effort, and appreciations. Concepts and Percepts For James, the experienced universe is a rich, dense, dynamic, concatenated universe (1909/1996b). He defines experience as change that occurs over periods of time—within which an infinite number of phases seamlessly running in and out of the other transpire (1912/1996a, p.62). Experience and reality, as James conceives them, come down “to the same thing” (p. 59). There is no world other than experience—no noumenal world or world outside of experience. Aspects of experience are in constant interplay as “systems of concatenation” pervade our lives (1911/1996c, p. 130). Our universe is a dynamic system of rough and smooth edges with elements of chaos and order, where partial relationships, associations, schemata, structures, arrangements, organizations, and groups undergo transformation. Experience, then, is not made up of any one general thing or substance; instead there are as many “stuffs as there are ‘natures’ in the things experienced” (1912/ 1996a, p. 26). In a pluralistic world we experience some systems that are internally related to other systems and some that are not (1911/1996c, p. 130). We experience connections (internal relations) and disconnections (external relations) in “partial systems,” when we, for example, establish and maintain human organizations, including corporations, labor unions, and utility services. Human beings are connected to various objects by forces such as heat, gravitation, love, and knowledge. Even non-human systems, such as a telephone system, cannot exist without connections and disconnections: copper and air are needed for telephone services to exist, James argues, but a telephone service is not necessary for copper and air to exist. The same is true for other sorts of unions—teleological and aesthetic unions appearing “to run alongside of each other. . . so that the appearance of things is invincibly pluralistic from this purposive point of view” (1911/ 1996c, p. 131). We also experience pluralism in the experiences of knowing: Everything in the world might be known by somebody, yet not everything by the same knower, or in one single cognitive act,—much as all mankind is known in one network of acquaintance, A knowing B; B knowing C,—Y knowing Z, and Z possibly knowing A again, without the possibility of anyone knowing everybody at once. This “concatenated” knowing, going from next to next. . . makes a coherent type of universe in which the widest knower that exists may yet remain ignorant of much that is known to

others. (1911/1996c, pp. 129–130) Such is a pluralistic universe where present moments are related to past moments; scents are associated with particular plants; music evokes a memory of a place; an itch is a result of an insect bite—any one thing will have at least one connection with some other particular thing. Although these bits or pulses of experience are immersed in a larger stream of being, they retain their integrity and are never completely dissolved in this stream of continual flux. Everything that exists, exists to some degree in external relation in various changing continua of experience. Every bit of reality is capable of being in many sorts of relation with various other bits of reality, yet nothing can be “engaged in all . . . relations simultaneously”: Briefly it [the situation] is this, that nothing real is absolutely simple, that every smallest bit of experience is a multum in parvo plurally related, that each relation is one aspect, character, or function, way of its being taken or way of its taking something else; and that a bit of reality when actively engaged in one of these relations is not by that very fact engaged in all other relations simultaneously. The relations are not all what the French call solidaires with one another. Without losing its identity a thing can either take up or drop another thing. . .which by taking up new carriers and dropping old ones can travel anywhere with a light escort. (1909/1996b, pp. 322–323) A dried human head displayed on the lodges of Borneo’s Dyak peoples is an apt analogy of the one and the many, of connections and disconnections in experience, James suggests. Dangling from the skull of the dried head are feathers, leaves, beads, and other material—each seemingly having no connection with the others as they suspend from their center. Although each item’s appearance bears no noticeable similarity to the other, each article’s attachment to the skull is the thing’s underlying connection, symbolizing the connections we experience (1912/1996a, pp. 46– 47). Various groups of parts of experience are somehow loosely united by means of “conjunctive relations” (p. 107). The dried human head illustrates a common “nucleus” of experience from which distinctive experiences “float and dangle” (p. 46). Summary Reality and experience for James come down to the same thing. We can talk of nothing that exists outside of experience. Experience is characterized as change that occurs over a period of time. We experience the world as a dynamic system of connections and disconnections, of order and chaos. Experience is pluralistic in that it is made up of many disparate and like things, elements, qualities, but they have an underlying unity.

Origin of Concepts A pluralistic, experiential universe is a universe comprising what James designates as pure experience, and this is always prior to conceptualized experience. Here, an assortment of percepts or thats makes up an “instant field of the present” (1912/1996a, p.23, 74), but these thats are undistinguished and unclassified (p. 74, 93) as they arise and surge, alter, and terminate in the flux. In the flow of relatively pure experience, being, time, and space all merge while percepts arise, linger, or terminate (p. 95). A pure perceptual state is rarely sustained for any length of time, being restricted to events such as a new-born baby’s first moments, someone’s being struck on the head, or an individual lying in a semi-comatose state (p. 93). Our initial or most fundamental experience of the world involves no conscious discrimination of particular aspects of our experience. In this original flow of “naïf immediacy” (p. 24), we are confronted with a chaotic confusion. Each “that,” also known as “sensation,” “feeling,” “intuition,” or “percept” (1911/1996c, n. p. 48), merges and interpenetrates into other “that’s” with no apparent boundary or limit. These “thats” are potential “whats”— mere prospective objects or subjects—themselves devoid of specific lasting traits (1912/1996a, p.93). They are for James “concrete bits of sensible experience” (1911/1996c, p. 74), continually changing in character. Out of this “aboriginal sensible muchness,” we begin to classify, name, see patterns, form concepts, structure ideas, shape thoughts—turning “thats” into “whats” (p. 50). As soon as pure experience is felt, containing “duration, intensity, complexity or simplicity, interestingness, excitingness, pleasantness or their opposites” (p. 49), some of it almost always becomes filtered through the structures of our concepts. In other words, we begin to mull over this flow of sensation to make sense of it. When perception is transformed into reflective thought, conception selects and breaks up perception into discrete units or snapshots (1909/ 1996b, p. 285), but some perceptions eventually attach to some ideas (conceptualization), while others find no partners (termination) (1912/1996a), p. 95). As a result, perceptual experience becomes shot through with conceptualization. As percepts travel in flux, shifting and shuffling about, intermingling, clumping, and separating, some aspects of these sensations are cut out, frozen into fixed abstractions, developing into distinct concepts. This is the stage when percepts become transformed into concepts, discriminated into thoughts, phenomena, events, and so on (pp. 74–75). Concepts are “borrowed” from experience: “to know what the concept ‘color’ means you must have seen” a

particular color. Even when you have a series of concepts built upon other concepts, the basic elements were born in fields of perception that give meaning to concepts (1911/1996c, pp. 79– 80). Selected things perceived in the past, even long ago, emerge in abstraction and “interpenetrate” into specific percepts of our present while the percepts “impregnate and fertilize each other” (pp. 52–53). Summary Perceptual experience proceeds conceptual experience. It is made up of many different aspects that arise and terminate in a constant flux of which we are not yet aware. When we try to make sense out of our perceptual experience, we interrupt its flow by sorting and classifying aspects of it in order to give them meaning. This is the process of transforming percepts into concepts. A basic distinction between percepts and concepts is that the flow of percepts is “continuous,” and concepts by their very nature are “discrete” (1911/1996c, p. 48). The Value of Concepts The whole of our intellectual life is generally made up of a substitution of concepts for percepts (1911/1996c, p. 51). Concepts play three kinds of roles in our lives: First, they help us to get around and to survive in practical ways (p. 73). Because our range of attention is so limited, we cannot take in a broad assembly of things (1909/1996b, p. 285). We “harness” experience “in order to drive it better to our ends,” helping us to adapt successfully to a vast environment (1911/1996c, p. 65). The survival of human individuals has continually depended upon substituting concepts for sensations in order to prepare for the future. As a result of the value of survival as well as of other values, we engage in purposive action. We construct classifications that point to expected outcomes from concepts when our perceptions of one class show similarities to past perceptions of the same class. We become attuned to causal factors behind advantageous or troubling events that happen to us, and thus we can be alert for similar circumstances (pp. 63–65). We enter into a conceptual realm that allows us to make shortcuts and “rapid transitions” to interpreting what we encounter in the world; these shortcuts are “labor- saving,” leading us to more facile or manageable resolutions of problems or navigating in the world, and the benefits we gain lighten our burdens (1912/1996a, p. 64). Concepts are added to concepts, and our storehouse of names, qualifiers, and relations includes those present, past, and anticipated. New names, titles, labels, adjectives, adverbs, and their dynamic relations arise each day and are added to the present ones (1911/1996c, p. 52) that give us information about the sensible world. We construct out of concepts our theories,

hypotheses, models, and schemes about the world of which we must then test and verify. If we were not able to substitute concepts for percepts, James explains, we should live simply “getting” each successive moment of experience as the sessile sea- anemone on its rock receives whatever nourishment the wash of the waves may bring. With concepts we go in quest of the absent, meet the remote, actively turn this way or that, bend our experience, and make it tell us whither it is bound. We change its order, run it backwards, bring far bits together and separate near bits, jump about over its surface instead of plowing through its continuity, string its items on as many ideal diagrams as our mind can frame. (p. 64) Moreover, concepts add values to our lives, they ignite and focus our wills, and they help us to alter our directions and purposes (p.73). It is this interrelation of percepts and concepts which makes reality intelligible, but such concepts such as beauty, God, truth, and love also add meaning to our lives. Without the conceptual world to furnish values and direction, the perceptual world would be sheer mayhem and blind feeling; without the perceptual world as the source of content, novelty, and vividness, the conceptual world would be superficial, static, and lifeless. Finally, concepts not only give us practical advantage and profound significance to our daily lives; they also provide us with something else: concepts can create a map that can exist apart from the perceptual world for “purposes of study,” not serving in any useful way for physical survival or other practical benefits (p. 74). These relational concepts are “skeletons of ‘rational’ or ‘necessary’ truth in which our logic- and mathematics-books (sometimes our philosophy-books) arrange their universal terms” (pp. 69–70). There are those, remarks James, who “systematize and classify and schematize and make synoptical tables and invent ideal objects for the pure love of unifying” (1912/1996a, p. 265). Summary Concepts play three roles in our lives: First, they help us to get around and to survive in practical ways. Second, they add values to our lives and direct us to action. Third, they provide us with logical systems and maps for purposes of study such as in mathematics and logic. Pragmatic Theories of Meaning and Truth Two central aspects of James’s philosophy are his pragmatic theory of meaning and his pragmatic theory of truth. They relate to each other in that the question of meaning is prior to and a precondition for the question of truth. The question of meaning must be settled or resolved

before we proceed to determine the truth or falsity of a claim to truth. James contends that the meaning of a concept can be ascertained in at least one or both of two ways: (a) by pointing to an experienced object or aspect of experience that the concept designates or refers to or (b) by analyzing the use or function of the concept within a claim to truth. In order to do (b), we must (c), among other things, assess the role in experience of the concept and the proposition within which it is contained. If we discover that the concept as so used makes no difference in experience, or is not clearly rooted in experience, then the concept can be deemed to be deficient in meaning. If a key concept or set of concepts is deficient in meaning, then we must revise the concept or concepts in order to have a meaningful proposition that can then be tested for its truth or falsity. Thus the truth or falsity of a claim or set of claims can be tested, according to James by his Pragmatic Theory of Truth, which functions as the complement to his Pragmatic Theory of Meaning. The next two sections expound on these two theories. Pragmatic Theory of Meaning In order to make use of concepts so that the individual is in “better command of the situation” in which she finds herself (1911/1996c, p. 57), James explains that we must use them to direct the mind to their origin—the world of perception. In order to do this we ask of them: What is their function? How do they operate? What is their value in helping us to live useful lives? What difference in our experienced lives can they make? (pp. 59–61). To ask what is a concept’s use in our ongoing experience is to adhere to what James calls the Pragmatic Rule or what is often referred to as the Pragmatic Theory of Meaning. Thus when we ask “What is the meaning of equal?” James replies, “either that ‘you will find no difference’ when you pass from one to the other, or that in substituting one for the other in certain operations ‘you will get the same result both times.’” The meaning of infinite is “you can count as many units in a part as you can in the whole.” Freedom means “no feeling of sensible restraint,” and cause means that “you may expect certain sequences. . .” (p. 62). James explains that when we think of a concept, we think of three things: (a) its word or label, (b) its image, and (c) the idea that points to its function. The first two indicate a concept’s “substantive value” in contrast to the third thing, the anticipation of its use (p. 58). Sometimes our mind produces an image or picture when we think of the concept, but not always. Its function is the consequences for our thinking, acting, or both to which the concept leads. For example, James would say the concept human is three things: (a) the word human, (b) a sketchy sort of

picture of a human form, and (c) the instrument (the idea) that symbolizes, or substitutes for, the character or nature of human so that we know what to expect when we experience it. Another example is the concept of triangle being (a) the word itself; (b) an image of three connected lines; and (c) and an instrument (the idea) symbolizing the nature of triangle so that we can expect certain thoughts and actions related to triangle when they arise (p. 58). For James, the most significant aspect of any concept, is not its substantive parts (word and image), that is, the contemplation or isolated use of it, but our notion of its function. Thus in response to the question, what is the meaning of a concept, we turn to the Pragmatic Theory of Meaning, which asks, how does it make a difference in our lived experience? For example, how do we determine the meanings of the concepts self, mind, body, and physical world? As noted earlier, in the onset of our lives, our world is not yet differentiated into language, patterns, models, kinds, and classes. A human being first begins to experience herself as a conscious center of activity that acts upon the world and is acted upon by the world. In the midst of these chaotic experiences, there emerges an awareness of what is a conscious self and what is not (1912/1996a, p. 16). As human beings, we undergo both subjective reality and non-subjective reality, and such “double-barrelled [sic]” experiences (p. 10) bring us to an intersection of self and world. Self (conscious and physical) is distinguished from the external world, and the mental self is distinguished from the physical self in terms of functions and operations (p. 13). Therefore, the self is not an entity, not a Cartesian substance, but a process of operations. Thus, we distinguish subjective and objective experience by how experience functions in different “contexts”: In one of these contexts it [experience] is your “field of consciousness”; in another it is “the room in which you sit,” and it enters both contexts in its wholeness, giving no pretext for being said to attach itself to consciousness by one of its parts or aspects, and to outer reality by another. (p. 13) James describes the conscious self as something experienced as pliable, fluid, and unrestrained. But the physical world is experienced as obdurate, constraining, and resistant. In the physical world, for instance, a fire will consume the material aspects of a room, but burning flames need not affect a room that is merely imagined to be on fire (p. 14). Yet at times both come together, and world and self cannot easily be distinguished.

There is also the question of how to differentiate one mind from another. James writes: “My experiences and your experiences are ‘with’ each other in various external ways, but mine pass into mine, and yours pass into yours in a way in which yours and mine never pass into one another” (pp. 47, 48). Both in place and in time, two people can experience similar events but experience them in different ways. A feeling can be felt in two contexts at once— similar to two people owning the same house. Related experiences and memories about a particular place, such as James’s example of Memorial Hall at Harvard, can be “owned” by both you and me. Although both you and I undergo experiences and memories of the same building, Memorial Hall, what is experienced as Memorial Hall is “yours” as it is felt as “yours,” and what is experienced as Memorial Hall is “mine” as it is felt as “mine” (p. 133). Summary The term concept connotes three things: the word itself, an image that may occur when we think of the concept, and the idea of its function or anticipation of the consequences in our experience to which the concept leads. The Pragmatic Theory of Meaning states that to determine the meaning of a concept we must determine its function or use in human experience by asking: What consequences in our action or thought does it lead us? The experienced self is characterized by its distinctive process of operations. The physical and conscious selves are distinguished from the external world, and the mental self is distinguished from the physical self by how each functions. The Pragmatic Theory of Truth Truth is made by the decisions we make or do not make, the actions we undertake and do not undertake, and by the consequences that ensue from our actions and which, in turn, affect us (1912/1996a, p. 262). As knowers we help to shape the known, and we are in turn shaped by it—we do not merely passively reveal or uncover it (p. 251). To verify truth, we treat each claim to truth as a prediction and test it in the experienced, pluralistic world, which consists of more than sensate experience. All propositions are always open to consideration and reconsideration, and we should always leave room to respond to challenges to their “truth.” For James, True ideas [i.e., proposition or claims to truth] are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known-as [sic].

. . . Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event a process; the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation. (1907/1978a, p. 97) Claims to truth are “true” because they are shown to deserve to be true by their usefulness in experience. James’s pragmatic theory of truth includes at least five criteria for testing claims to truth: (a) personal experience, (b) social experience, (c) consistency of new claims with previously established truths, (d) logicality, and (e) simplicity. Personal Experience First, true ideas are those we can verify by personal experience. Personal experience can include many types of experience (not just sensate) such as anticipation, memory, association, interest, emotion, aspiration, and other ways of experiencing and knowing. Empirical verification means that a hypothetical proposition that has been formulated has led us to a successful prediction of one’s own relevant experience. Thus, by and large when James uses the terms useful and practical, he means successful prediction (1907/1978a, pp. 95–113). There are personal experiences that contradict or challenge “their predecessors” (1912/1996a, p. 62). There are other personal experiences that affirm their meaning and lead to a goal. James says the only function of one personal experience is that it “leads” the knower to another experience. If the latter confirms the former, then the two “agree in function” (p. 63). The process of agreeable leading or an idea’s verification is a series of operations that verify it (1907/1978a, pp. 97–107). On the basis of one’s original personal experience, one can formulate a proposition or hypothesis (A) that points toward a future event or experience (D). Between (A) and (D) there are other experiences (B) and (C), or what James calls transitions or connections, which are harmonious and relevant—that is, they help lead smoothly from (A) to (D) and connect (A) in satisfactorily ways with (D). These transitions, (B) and (C), are results of an investigation by a person who seeks to verify a claim on the basis of firsthand experience. In order to arrive at (D), the individual must engage in these connective experiences. If (D) is an experience that confirms the successful prediction of (A), then (D) makes (A) true. Thus the verifiable process—personally experienced or experienceable—is necessary (but not sufficient) in order to validate a hypothesis. Once a proposition has realized a successful prediction in one’s own experience, then the knower can say the proposition is true to that extent (the other four criteria must also be satisfied). Every true proposition successfully predicts a future experience. Hence, it is experienced events that help to

make a claim true. Similarly, “idea” can be substituted for an “experience” at point (A). An original idea can lead the person to other parts of her experiences or to other ideas that lead to other personal experiences. If she starts with (A), a theorem in geometry, she can generate (B) and (C), other theorems, through stages of reasoning to (D) (pp. 97–107). This second example could also be placed under the heading of logicality, the fourth criterion, for James considers a process of conceptual reasoning to be a kind of experience (formal, not “empirical” [1912/1996a, pp. 54–58]). In addition, an experience that verifies a proposition can be translated into another proposition than can be tested by personal experience. The verifying process is not an end in itself, as James says; it can become a means to other successful predictions. One verified truth

can lead toward another truth. A person can convert (D), her present experience, into (A1), an hypothesis that predicts (D1), another particular event, which in turn helps to makes (A1), the hypothesis, true. (1907/1978a, 95–113). Social Experience The second criterion used to verify claims to knowledge is social experience. When others arrive at the same conclusion on the basis of their experiences at which the individual has arrived on the basis of her experiences, this consensual experience adds to the confirmation of her belief. James argues that ideas and feelings have references to a world that goes beyond the knower, and confirmation is needed from others of the traits of that world. Our experiences must overlap and coincide to give additional verification of our belief: “We see each other looking at the same objects, pointing to them and turning them over in various ways, and thereupon we hope and trust that all of our several feelings resemble the reality and each other” (1908/1978a, p. [24] 190). In substantiating beliefs one must seek a world that is common to us all that will corroborate claims to truth (p. [23] 189). Consistency of New Claims with Previously Established Truths. A third criterion of truth is the compatibility and consistency of claims with previously established truths. Present and past verified ideas compose the whole body of truths that a knower possesses. Scientific laws and historical facts are among the indirect (not validated by us first-hand) true prepositions one utilizes in determining other claims, which, in turn, add to her knowledge. When further testing ideas, an individual sees if they are workable with proven beliefs. She asks, “Do they fit in—are they in harmony with previous truths?” She also must, in turn, test past truths with present truths. Do new truths hold more convincing evidence that

would cause her to question one or more of her past beliefs? Of course, if a habit of thought or action has been proved over and over, she does not need to apply each of the criteria of truth every time (1907/1978a, pp. 102, 104, 107). James echoes Dewey and Schiller when he says the following about true ideas: Ideas (which themselves are but parts of our experience) become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience, to summarize them and get about among them by conceptual short-cuts instead of following the interminable succession of particular phenomena. Any idea upon which we can ride, so to speak; any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, simplifying, saving labor; is true for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally. This is the "instrumental" [or pragmatic] view of truth . . . the view that truth in our ideas means their power to "work" . . . (1907/1978a, p. 34). Logicality The fourth criterion of a pragmatic theory of truth, logicality, calls attention to James’s insistence on such things as correct rules of inference, careful definitions, and consistency and coherence among statements. Consistency means that statements in the hypothesis should not contradict each other and should not be self-contradictory. Coherence means that the various statements of the hypothesis should hang together in a systematic way. The above explanation of the first criterion of truth demonstrates how claims to truth can be verified using agreeable leading. This fourth criterion notes that to lead from (A) to (D), one must clarify the meanings of key terms clearly, follow rules of correct logical inference, and formulate clear and precise hypotheses (1907/1978a, pp. 100–102). Simplicity The fifth criterion is simplicity. James writes that when there are two claims from which one must choose, and the evidence for each is equally convincing, then the knower should choose the simpler of the two predictions (1907/1978a, p. 104). Summary In trying to determine the truth of any claim about the world we must test the claim in experience based on five criteria: personal experience, social experience, consistency with previously established beliefs, logicality, and simplicity. The first two criteria are rigorously empirical; the other three are formal. There would be no meaning to the empirical without

conceptual interpretation which involve the last three criteria. Correspondingly there would be no content to the formal criteria without the empirical. Violations of the Pragmatic Theories of Meaning and Truth For James, a concept can only mean something about (a) a thing; (b) a feature of a thing; or (c) an assemblage of these abstracted features or “portions” (1911/1996c, p, 79). Concepts can attach labels to selected facets of the rich interweavings of reality but are inadequate to depict all the complexity and nuances of reality’s intricate relations. The distinction between a concept and what it represents would seem to be obvious. Although philosophers usually recognize the distinction readily enough, James argues that they often do not behave as though they do. Philosophers such as A. J. Ayer remark that such criticisms of concepts substituting for percepts is merely complaining that the menu itself is not very tasty, a highly simplistic notion, not a profoundly philosophical one (Sprigge, 1993, p. 185). Richard Gale criticizes James for calling attention to an obvious error that no philosopher would commit (Gale, 1999, p. 147, n. 18). However, James would argue that philosophers do commit this sort of error when they take advantage of concepts’ uses and functions as guides and navigators to the exclusion of taking into account experiences that might challenge them. And according to James, acting as though one believes that concepts can adequately substitute for percepts is just the same as believing that they do (1911/1996c, pp. 47–74). For example, as we attach concepts to percepts, we form a “topographic system” among the concepts themselves (p. 66), where relations between them are discovered that create static links or bonds (p. 67). Mathematics and logic are made up of these systems exclusively and constitute worlds of “static nature” that have “‘eternal’ character” (p. 68). When we use concepts to construct conceptual tools, systems, maps, and frameworks to solve problems, formulate hypotheses, construct arguments, and perform other functions (pp. 47–74), they can misinform us about the experienced world. For instance, mathematicians organize motion in a series of points of space that correspond one-to-one with plotted instants of time. Instead of explaining motion in terms of experienced continuity and change, motion is explained intellectually by “conceived positions” that fail to elucidate what movement really is (1909/1996b, p. 234). Although this abstraction is useful, efficient, and valuable for mathematicians to devise formulas, make predictions, and perform calculations, James argues that the abstractions cannot adequately explain how any object can actually move: “You merely dot out the path of appearances which it [an object] traverses,” but it is impossible to account for continuity by means of discontinuities

(p. 236). James draws on arguments of Henri Bergson (1907/1911) to describe further how motion is often viewed. Just as Descartes describes the soul and the world as having to be continually recreated by God at successive moments, so mathematicians might as well conceive the world as existing only at the moments corresponding with the points of time plotted on their graphs. When fixed relations are created, the eternal character of these relations can enable us, for example, to calculate and predict what positions certain objects can reach and under what conditions, but they continue to be merely abridgements and should not be assumed to explain adequately the world as it really is (1909/1996b, pp. 235–237). To illustrate his criticism of rationalist analyses of motion, James points to the claim of the Eleatic philosopher Zeno that change and motion cannot exist. The paradox of Achilles and the tortoise begins with the assumption that time is infinitely divisible. The consequence of this assumption is that time is made up of units that can never elapse; before the second half of a unit of time can pass by, the first half of it must go by. As a result, before one half of a second goes by, one half of this one half (one fourth) must go by, and one half of this one fourth (one eighth), must pass, and so on, ad infinitum. Thus once the tortoise is given an early start, Achilles can never cross the infinity of divided and subdivided units to overtake it. Caught up in his logical analysis, Zeno denies motion and change, thus rejecting his own experiences in the world (pp. 228–230). Yet, James declares that the “essence of life is its continuously changing character” (p. 253). In order to relate fixed concepts to experience, constructed arbitrary points are substituted for experience’s continuous nature, and “real motion” is made “unintelligible” (p. 254). Achilles experiences motion directly as he runs from the start to the finish line; he experiences nothing of the mathematician’s “successions of cuts . . .” (p. 255). When we conceptualize experience, then, James cautions, we “arrest its movement, cutting it up into bits as if with scissors. . . ” (p. 244). What is actually taking place is this philosopher’s reduction of the complexity, subtlety, and vastness of perceptual reality to conceptual tools and thus uncritically ignoring or dismissing the relevance of perceptual experience. This philosopher and others who reason in similar fashion fail to distinguish the concrete from the abstract and generally rely solely on technical or logical claims to truth, to the point that their reasoning dismisses or ignores relevant appeals to knowledge by direct acquaintance. James calls this error intellectualism (1911/1996c, p. 221). Equating abstracted

knowledge with reality instead of correctly seeing it as a selective and therefore partial interpretation of reality is the result of treating conceptual tools such as theories and models as if they were the same or superior to empirical things and their relations. It is the neglect of concrete experience. The intellectualist acts as though the part is identical with the whole—elements taken from experience are confused with the richness of experience itself—its depth, breadth, abundance, detail, flavor, extensiveness, process, and flux. The only this, nothing more is treated as if it were the more than this. Intellectualists begin with a fixed belief, find that what they may discover in experience is incoherent with their presupposition of complete intelligibility, and vainly add more conceptuality, that is “strung upon this or that element” of their arguments (1909/1996b, p. 235). Assuming the principle of sufficient reason, that everything that happens in the universe can be sufficiently explained in terms of abstract reasoning, and thus that all things in principle are rationally explainable, such rationalists thinkers can end up dismissing the phenomenal world and searching for concepts and conceptual relations as the sole solutions to their philosophical problems, finally arriving at the sole existence of the Absolute for a resolution. James labels the conceptualized world described by monistic idealists such as F. H. Bradley (1893/1969) as a “block universe” account of reality. These intellectualists argue that any relation that cannot be deemed as completely necessary or exclusively internal not rational. Nothing real can be contiguous or adventitious. Spatial relations, such as to the left of and to the right of are contingent and thus are unintelligible and thus necessarily unreal. Eliminating all external relations on the ground that they are not, and cannot, be made fully rational, rationalists are left with only internal relations, with no distinctions among particulars being made. The result is that the very notion of plurality is thought to introduce incomprehensibility—there is no many—there is only one substance. James’s criticism of monistic idealists reveals an intimate connection between his pluralistic universe and his epistemology: Pragmatically interpreted, pluralism or the doctrine that it [the universe] is many means only that the sundry parts of reality may be externally related. Everything you can think of, however vast or inclusive, has on the pluralistic view a genuinely “external” environment of some sort or amount. Things are “with” one another in many ways, but nothing includes everything, or dominates over everything. The word “and” trails along after every sentence. Something always escapes. “Ever not quite” has to be said of the

best attempts made anywhere in the universe at attaining all-inclusiveness. . . . .However much may be collected, however much may report itself as present at any effective centre of consciousness or action, something else is self-governed and absent and unreduced to unity. (1909/1996a, pp. 321–322) James not only criticizes rationalists but also Humean empiricists for contending that conceptual tools and theories can by themselves provide an adequate view of reality, and he labels such thinkers “empiricist intellectualists” (1911/1996c, p. 221). James’s radical empiricism differs from Humean empiricism in two ways. First, Hume denies the legitimacy of anything other than sensate experience in informing human beliefs and actions. For James, neglecting to appeal to a broader characterization of experience, including that of anticipation, memory, association, interest, emotion, and other ways of experiencing and knowing, is to exclude vital aspects of reality. Whatever is experienced is real—each experienced element must be taken seriously in a philosophical analysis (1912/1996a, p.42). Second, because Hume contends that internal relations cannot be shown to exist by means of discrete impressions of sensation, he concludes that there is no evidence that they exist. Hume, paradoxically, gives priority of his theory of experience over what is given in experience. We experience, says Hume, only the contingent or external relations of contiguity, succession, and constant conjunction. Hence we experience no inherent or necessary connections between putative causes and their putative effects. Therefore, instead of denying that external relations exist, as do Bradley and other monists, Hume denies the existence of inherent relations among his impressions of sensation and reflection. Once Hume separated experience into disconnected units, rationalists such as Bradley saw an urgent need to connect these units with notions such as the Absolute. Hume’s distorted portrayal of sensible experience in positing that perceptions are completely separate and unrelated has led intellectualists to go “outside of experience altogether” and to think that they must resort to “invoking different spiritual agents, selves or souls” to account for experienced continuities and connections (1909/1996b, p. 267). Summary James’s criticism of vicious intellectualism points to the limitations of concepts in representing the complexity and vastness of experience. James criticizes philosophers who rely solely on technical or logical claims to truth to the point that their reasoning dismisses or ignores

relevant appeals to knowledge by direct acquaintance. James calls this error of reasoning vicious intellectualism. The sources and verifications of truth are restricted to the criterion of logicality: claims that follow correct rules of inference, careful, precise definitions, consistency of statement, and consistency and coherence among statements to the exclusion of experience. Testing a claim for truth becomes an either-or situation, the thinker rejecting appeals to experience in favor of appealing entirely to self-contained, formal, abstract ways of thinking. Neglect of the ongoing test of experience is a fundamental obstruction to our search for reliable knowledge. Outline Summary of James’s Philosophy As a crucial background to James’s philosophy of higher education to be discussed in Chapter 4, I list the following principal features that describe James’s pluralistic universe and their epistemological implications: Pluralistic Universe 1. The universe which we experience is a concatenated universe where connections are as real as disconnections. 2. Relations are as real as things related. 3. Relations are dynamic. 4. Experience and reality come down to the same thing. 5. Reality is concrete, dense, and full and is always more than what we can conceptualize. 6. Reality is replete with values (purpose, goals, and attention) as well as facts. 7. Reality includes aspects of chance and novelty, as well as causal connections. 8. Humans are relatively free, and through their freedom, can affect the course of events in the world. 9. Experience is prior to, and the context or field within which, functional distinctions between subjects and objects can be drawn. Epistemological Conclusions 1. The complexity and fullness of experience cannot be entirely captured by conceptual tools such as definitions, abstract terms, theories, simulations, models, etc., and their logical relations in isolated academic disciplines. 2. Although these conceptual tools and disciplines are a means to the interpretation of concrete experience, they are not ends in themselves.

3. Exploration of the integrity and interrelations of diverse points of view is encouraged. 4. The relevant forms of fundamental experience include such things as emotions, memories, anticipations, causal relations, intentions, efforts, appreciations, and values—in addition to sensations. 5. Ideas are true to the extent that they lead or can lead to predicted empirical outcomes in particular situations. Ideas are thus not antecedently true or false but are made true by their success in predicting empirical outcomes in varying situations. 6. Experience is the final test of the truth or falsity of ideas, and its complexity and fullness always exceed the grasp of even the most ingenious and comprehensive sets of ideas. 7. None of these established truths would ever be deemed as the final word in a pragmatic method of inquiry. Truths for James are never absolute and never transcend verification. 8. Knowledge requires judgments, and responsible judgments require ability freely to choose among alternative options, claims, interpretations, and theories in light of experiences and reasons. Rationalistic and Empiricist Intellectualism James contrasts two kinds of intellectualism (rationalistic intellectualism and empiricist intellectualism) with radical empiricism in the following ways: 1. Rationalists tend to see the world as a seamless whole, which, at least in principle, can be characterized in its entirety by deductive relations. Thus, disconnections in the world are only apparent, not ultimately real. Traditional, non-radical empiricists view experience as made up of discrete, disconnected atoms of experience and have great difficulty explaining the apparent connectedness of things in the world. 2. The relevant forms of fundamental experience include for traditional empiricists only sensations, and these sensations are disconnected, as described above. Since this view of experience is assumed by both rationalists and empiricists, the rationalists search for non-empirical, rationalistic means for imparting connections to sensations, while empiricists are led to skeptical conclusions about the order and intelligibility of the world. 3. For both empiricists and rationalists, claims are true to the extent that they correspond to a fixed, determinate world beyond or behind experience.

4. For both, reality is what it is independent of our experience or thought. 5. Both empiricism and rationalism tend to test experience by ideas, rather than ideas by experience. Empiricists in the grip of their erroneous theory of experience, see sensations as consisting of discrete ideas. Rationalists see the reality behind our sensations as a structure of deductively connected ideas and have difficulty in accounting for individuality and diversity as well as the workings of time and change in the world. Pragmatic Theory of Meaning To determine the meaning of concepts, one must ask the questions, What is their function? How do they operate? What is their value in helping us to live useful lives? Pragmatic Theory of Truth There are five ways to test truth claims. 1. Personal Experience 2. Social Experience 3. Consistency with Established Claims to Truth 4. Logicality 5. Simplicity

CHAPTER 4 PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION: THE CULTIVATION OF THE WHOLE PERSON

The purpose of this chapter is to present an interpretation and analysis of James’s philosophy of education. This chapter seeks to answer the research questions, How does James characterize the mission of the university? What are the barriers to the accomplishment of that mission? What proposals does James present which would remove these barriers? How does James’s general philosophy inform his philosophy of education? This chapter is organized into seven main sections: Introduction, Human Being as Concept, Meaningful and Purposeful Interaction between Students and Exceptional Adult Leaders, Barriers to Meaningful and Purposeful Interaction between Students and Faculty, Humanities Oriented Curriculum, Barrier to Humanities Oriented Curriculum, and Conclusion. James’s philosophy of education is firmly grounded in his philosophy. Reality and experience come down to the same thing for James, and we can talk of nothing that exists outside of experience. Experience is pluralistic in that it is made up of many disparate and like things and aspects, but yet these have an fundamental unity. A superior education is therefore one that provides students with the resources and conditions by which they can best experience the lived pluralistic world. Although concepts play three crucial roles in our lives, (a) helping us to get around and survive in practical ways; (b) adding values to our lives and directing us to action; and (c) providing us with logical systems and maps for purposes of study such as in mathematics and logic, they cannot provide us with all we need to know about the world we experience. The Pragmatic Theory of Meaning states that to determine the meaning of a concept we must determine its function or use in human experience by asking: What consequences in our action or thought does it lead us? Furthermore, in trying to determine the truth of any claim about the world we must test the claim in experience based on five criteria (Pragmatic Theory of Truth): personal experience, social experience, consistency with previously established beliefs, logicality, and simplicity. The Pragmatic theories of meaning and truth apply also to the uses of concepts and claims to truth in the form of policies and practices relevant to the university. James criticizes philosophers who rely solely on technical or logical truth claims to the point that their reasoning dismisses or ignores relevant appeals to direct acquaintance. James

calls this error of reasoning of philosophers vicious intellectualism. Analogous to this criticism is James’s criticism of administrators and faculty who commit the error of ignoring relevant appeals to what is best for students by neglecting critical aspects of students’ experiences as the administrators and faculty go about implementing particular university policies and practices— an error of reasoning I call institutional intellectualism. For James, neglecting to work with broader characterization of experience, including experiences of such things as anticipation, memory, association, interest, and emotion is to exclude vital aspects of reality. Whatever is experienced or experienceable is real. As a result, critical aspects of student experiences include not only observable behaviors but also students’ inner lives, comprising their emotive as well as their rational selves. The most significant aspect of the inner lives of students is their search for comprehensive meaning and purpose. A primary role of the university, therefore, is to determine how best it can help students to develop, realize, and test their ideals. James’s philosophy of education can be summarized in this statement from Bruce Wilshire’s book The Moral Collapse of the University, a work in which he often cites James’s writings on education. Wilshire observes, “there is no substitute for human relationship and presence, for listening, for sharing silence and wonderment, and for caring. There is no expert knowledge of the human self which can be claimed by any particular [policy, practice, or] academic field” (1990, p. 282). Introduction Often in his essays about education, James points to the misuse of abstractions in the forms of over-professionalization and over-specialization that prevent administrators, faculty, and staff from setting up conditions conducive to students developing into flourishing human beings. The most insidious misuse of abstraction that a university can commit is to treat students in such a way that they are viewed as individuals who only perform tasks to advance the projects of professors, administrators, or the university, not as having ideals, thinking for themselves, or having emotions; that is, to treat students in ways which neglect the importance of many crucial dimensions of their human experience. Neglecting the importance of any aspects of human experience is a potentially vicious and brutal misuse of abstraction and is what James calls “blindness in human beings” (1899/1958a). Applying the fundamental ideas of James’s criticism of intellectualism linked in the previous chapter with the philosophy of rationalists and Humean empiricists, Victor Lowe

defends the intellectual freedom of professors in a famous 1952 essay. In “A Resurgence of Vicious Intellectualism,” Lowe argues that James’s concept of vicious intellectualism can be directed beyond James's criticism of abstract, purely logical reasoning in absolute idealism to help defend an indictment of harmful policies and practices in large scale institutions. Lowe demonstrates that the intellectualist method to which James points in philosophical arguments can also underlie university policies, such as those that discriminate against professors in hiring practices (Lowe, 1951). Following Lowe’s lead that James’s criticism of intellectualism can be of value in assessing institutional policies, I characterize James’s criticism of the institutional habit of substituting one’s focus on standardized procedures for attention to the richness and vastness of direct experience as institutional intellectualism. My contention is based on the fact that an organization can become so rooted in its own rules and regulations that it becomes an end in itself rather than the servant of ends beyond itself and as a result, insensible to its own inadequate grasp of reality, freezing and arresting experience. Human Being as a Concept To know something concretely for James is to become familiar with its many relationships, that is, its connections and disconnections. To understand the meaning of concepts or abstractions is to ask how they function, what is their use, how they make a difference that leads to further action or thought. For James, the concept person is a being who experiences the world physically, emotionally, and rationally; that is, person functions not only as a physical and rational being but also as an emotive being. In order to understand more fully the rich and diverse pluralistic universe in which we live, we must be open to as many aspects of experience as possible, including the experiences of others, which are every bit as “real” as our own experiences. To begin to understand a person as fully as possible is to seek to know that person in as many dimensions of that person’s experience as possible, which includes an appreciation of the inner complex life comprised of many kinds of emotions, anticipations, memories, desires, interests, and values (1899/1958a; 1899/1958c). For James, a deep understanding of a person begins with trying to learn what that person values most (1899/1958c, pp. 170–172). What a person values most highly influences the ideals and goals that a person sets for herself. James conceives of a “significant” life as a life devoted to lofty ideals, goals, and aims which are worked out in ongoing experience (pp. 183, 189–190). He is characteristically vague about what defines lofty ideals, for each person must decide that for herself. Ideals cannot be

imposed from the outside because a person cannot be devoted to someone else’s ideal. Instead, an ideal must be stamped as truly one’s own as a result of personal reflection and experience (pp. 170, 183–186). But James does describe some general characteristics of ideals that can have positive influences in one’s life. Worthy goals and aims do not necessarily pertain to moral integrity exclusively, but help us to strive toward human excellence in many different facets of our lives. One important characteristic is novelty, in the sense that an ideal is something that is associated with unique experiences, pointing us into new directions, and compelling us to view things differently. Second, a worthy ideal is something whose pursuit demands our attention and dedication (1899/1958c, pp. 186–187). Third, it must be pursued with some significant degree of struggle and is thus not quickly nor easily attained (pp. 177, 185). Fourth, an ideal is something whose achievement must alter one’s life in truly meaningful and constructive ways (pp. 170–191). Fifth, an ideal’s worthiness must be judged on the basis of its consequences in experience (p. 185). Next, we must believe it to be feasible (1911/1996c, pp. 225-231). Finally, the pursuit of an ideal must at least be compatible with others’ pursuits of ideals so that there is an achievement of balance of goods for all people in the world (1891/1977b; 1899/1958c, p. 170; 1911/1996c, pp. 228–231). Paying close attention to the ideals for which people strive has many purposes for James. For one, understanding what others value most “is the basis of all our tolerance, social, religious, and political” (1899/1958c, p. 170). For James the universe is a pluralistic one, which means that there is a multiplicity of needs, wants, desires, interests, and capacities among human beings and other life forms. The best possible world is one where persons continually seek a balance of fulfillment of all wants for themselves and for others. In order to be able to allow individuals to satisfy their needs and interests, a society or institution should seek to determine what those needs and interests are. Identifying what others value and need is a step toward the sympathetic understanding of other peoples and their cultures. In fact striving to know what others value for James is not just something desirable but is necessary, for to neglect to understand what others hold dear can have catastrophic results in contexts as wide ranging as international affairs, nations, societies, and institutions. Thus learning to value others’ ideals and interests helps to promote international peace and understanding among different cultures and peoples and takes us out of our own narrow perspectives (1899/1958a). The second purpose of recognizing and respecting what others hold dear is an educative

one. It leads to a greater understanding of what characterizes and does not characterize virtue. A keen eye that can identify exceptional individuals who exemplify high ideals is crucial for any nation, especially a democratic one where the concept popularity tends to be confused with the concept quality, for citizens of a democratic society are susceptible to the insidious influence of the popular media who appeal to shallow interests. James writes that popular magazines such as McClure’s Magazine, the American Magazine, and Collier’s Weekly, were beginning to compete with higher education in the education of citizens to recognize, as well as be, great individuals. An educated class must be able to discern what characteristics make the best leaders and thinkers in all facets of life, and it is the role of higher education to provide the means for students to learn what these qualities are and to recognize those who possess these qualities (1907/1987e, pp. 111–112). The third purpose of learning and respecting what others hold dear is that it can serve as a basis for guiding young people in their educational experiences and in helping them to identify for themselves what personal and professional paths they should pursue. A superior university for James is one that recognizes that students undergo varied experiences that include, among others, emotions and anticipations. Students, who attend college, are preparing for lives that will demand of them tools and resources for ethical, professional, social, and personal decision making. Therefore, it is critical for a university to guide students in formulating their own high ideals. For James, however, there must also be action, some “pluck and will” to back up one’s ideals (1899/1958c, pp. 187–188). He explains that to have a deeper understanding of what a flourishing life means, one must have both high ideals and the will, courage, and means to put them into practice and assess their merit: “The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing,—the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man’s or woman’s pains” (p. 189). Therefore, another crucial role of the university is to help to provide the means for students to actualize and test the usefulness and worthiness of their ideals and goals. The best way to help students formulate and test their own ideals is by providing the conditions for them to experience emotionally, sympathetically, cognitively, and spiritually what it means to be a human being. After having experienced diverse locales, cultures, classes, courses, books, and activities that present humanity in its many guises, manifestations, in its depth, and in its breadth, the student is able to form her own critical sense and to recognize those

qualities automatically. She begins to form her own ideas of what makes a moral human being and internalizes these ideas into ideals. James proposes at least two ways to support the mission of higher education: to cultivate the whole person. The first way is to insure that there is meaningful and purposeful interaction between exceptional adult leaders and students in students’ active engagement in learning. These leaders, who are not restricted to any classification such as social status, economic background, or ethnic group, seek solutions to problems in creative, original, and processive ways, are of high moral integrity, and emphasize the importance of concrete human experience over abstract bureaucratic structures and policies. They seek to get to know what students hold dear and work to provide the best means possible to guide them in formulating, realizing, and testing these ideals. Providing “the best means possible” includes (a) determining students’ needs, (b) making available the tools and conditions for them to acquire the skills and knowledge to address these needs, (c) helping students to engage in many kinds of activities and experiences, and (d) showing them that what they experience is valued. They can then go out into the world with confidence and direction, not just expertise in a given field. (In this study, I will look primarily at faculty as guiding adult leaders, for at the time of James’s tenure at Harvard, those whom we describe today as “student affairs administrators,” who can play a largely influential role in the lives of college students, were almost nonexistent with the exception of, for example, coaches and theater directors.) The second proposal James presents is the integration of pluralistic biographical, historical, philosophical, and literary components with basic courses in order to emphasize excellence in all human endeavors. Excellence, for James, means giving one’s best efforts in all that one does, not only in one’s career, but in living a virtuous life, in seeking enriching activities, in helping to balance the conflict of goods in the world. Excellence can be found in any “wrapping,” and does not describe any particular social class, ethnic group, or perspective. Students must be exposed to excellence in all of its various disguises so that they can formulate their own ideals of what it means to be a “good” human being. Thus each course in the curriculum is connected by a humanities orientation that focuses on human experience in its rich and diverse contexts. Human experience is always pluralistic for James, and students should study human “masterstrokes,” representative of different social classes, ethnic backgrounds, and cultures.

Helping to cultivate the whole person can be a difficult challenge for the college and university. For one thing, it is a challenge because an all inclusive knowledge and appreciation of others’ inners lives are impossible, for what we see is only partial, and many significant aspects of experience are found in various venues and versions, which we fail to understand when we see persons as objects of our senses. Second, as “practical” individuals, we are in the business of taking care of our own responsibilities, and we tend to value what relates to our own lives over what relates to others’ lives (1899/1958a p.149). As the size of an institution increases, so does preoccupation with institutional responsibilities and the myriad policies and practices that are involved. Consequently, the individual’s interests, needs, and aspirations are increasingly neglected or impeded (1903/1987b). James, like most of the educated and progressively minded people of his day, was far from oblivious to the arrogance and power of giant organizations such as big oil corporations and big governments which tended to ignore the welfare of the individual. James was especially concerned about the United States’s increasing involvement in the governance of other nations. Although prior to the 1880s, large scale organizations were seen as an overall benefit to the nation as a whole, increasingly bigness, as James terms it, was perceived as a threat to the quality of life in America (McGerr, 2003. pp. 147–181). Seeing the increasing threat to the lives of Americans as well as to others, James expressed his opposition to big government and big business by frequently writing editorial letters to the Boston Transcript and other newspapers at the end of the nineteenth century. Criticizing the US military conquest of the Philippines and McKinley’s colonialist policy, which he regarded as a symptom of the corruption and tyranny of American institutions, he describes in the letter the American “performance” in the US takeover of the Philippines as one that “reeked of the infernal adroitness of the great department store, which has reached perfect expertness in the art of killing silently and with no public squealing or commotion the neighboring small concern" (1899/1987c, p. 156). Historian of psychology Deborah Coon writes that James often identifies the use of dogmatic abstractions as oppressions of the “concrete individual instance” in all facets of life, “be it a concept, a belief, a developing body of thought, a human being, or a small nation. . . .” She adds that “James opposed abstract, universal standards because they held the same dangers as big institutions—they were impersonal, hollow abstractions that tended either to colonize or to crush the individual instance” (Coon, 1996, p. 94). Abstract universals in their many forms create a gap between the organization and human experience, and James’s individualism is most likely

a result of his insistence that the farther away a person moves away from experience, the more potential there is for error and the less opportunity there is to develop compassionate understanding: “The bigger the unit you deal with, the hollower, the more brutal, the more mendacious is the life displayed” (1899/1920, Vol. 2, p, 90). In turn, James pointed to what he believed to be the threat to the university mission at the beginning of the twentieth century: the increasing layers of bureaucratization as a result of mounting specialization and professionalization that forced faculty and administrators to treat subordinates in their organizations, not as persons of value in themselves, but as a means to promote their own interests. In this practice, individuals are treated as instrumental goods, not as goods in themselves. James’s criticism of the institutional habit of substituting priority of policies and procedures over attention to concrete experience, or what I call institutional intellectualism, points to the beliefs and actions of an organization that has become so rooted in its own rules and regulations that it becomes self serving. This is an institutional version of a logical system in philosophy that is unaware of its failure to take adequate account of the concrete world and its complex interrelations. James’s resolution is always to return to direct experience, continuing to test practices and policies in light of worthy goals and aims. Summary To begin to understand a person as fully as possible is to seek to know that person in as many dimensions of that person’s experience as possible, which includes an appreciation of the inner complex life comprised of many kinds of emotions, anticipations, memories, desires, interests, and values. James conceives of a “significant” life as a life devoted to lofty ideals, goals, and aims. Worthy goals and aims help us to strive toward human excellence and cannot be imposed from the outside but must be truly our own. James points to certain qualities that describe a worthy ideal: it points us to new directions, it demands our attention; its pursuit involves a certain degree of struggle; it changes our lives in meaningful ways; its value depends upon its consequences in experience; it must be feasible; and it must be compatible with others’ pursuits of ideals. Paying close attention to the ideals for which people strive (a) allows individuals to satisfy their needs and interests and helps to promote peace and understanding among different individuals and cultures; (b) helps to clarify what exceptional individuals value and provides insight into what promotes human excellence; and (c) provides a guide for educators in helping

young people to pursue their own interests. James proposes at least two ways to support the mission of higher education: to cultivate the whole person. The first way is to insure that there is meaningful and purposeful interaction between exceptional adult leaders and students in students’ active engagement in learning. The second proposal James presents is the integration of pluralistic biographical, historical, philosophical, and literary components with basic courses in order to emphasize excellence in all human endeavors. For James, the threat to the university mission of helping young people to pursue their interests is the increasing layers of bureaucratization as a result of mounting specialization and professionalization that forces faculty and administrators to treat subordinates in their organizations, not as persons of value in themselves, but as a means to promote their own interests, a practice I call institutional intellectualism. James’s resolution to problems that result from such a practice is always to return to direct experience, continuing to test policies in light of worthy goals and aims. Meaningful and Purposeful Interaction Between Students and Exceptional Adult Leaders Closely connected to James’s proposal for meaningful faculty and student interaction is the concept university. James explores the different meanings of the concept university and student in essays, lectures, and other works such as “The True Harvard” (1903/1987h), “Stanford’s Ideal Destiny”(1906/1987f), and Talks to Teachers (1899/1958b). The Concept University In “The True Harvard,” James describes the university as many types of organizations in one, including such things as a social club, a place for old friends to gather each year to reclaim their youth, a place where symbols inspire sentimentality, and a place where people go to be entertained by watching sports or plays and by taking part in other means of cultural enjoyment. Those who have earned BAs belong to a fraternal organization, and its alumni continue close personal and lifelong relationships with each other. They walk together on Commencement day with fellows of their class and are bound forever with a “family tie.” James explains that celebrations such as commencement tend to make Harvard synonymous with “the Yard and the Bell, and Memorial and the Clubs and the River and the Soldier’s Field. . . ” (1903/1987h, p. 75). But to think that the nature of a university is restricted to its social networks alone, as some overzealous alumni do, is to restrict its character too narrowly. Such rituals, James would say, have their place in the need for paying tribute to the traditions that stir people’s affections.

However, James argues that the meaning of the concept university should not be reduced to only its fight song, athletic teams, alumni, social events, homecoming day, or even its buildings, policies, and reputations. These are merely outward decorations, and a university functions and should function in many more ways than these (1903/1987h, pp. 75–76). On the other hand, some think, as does President Eliot, says James, that the primary function of the university is to provide more “book learning” as the “panacea for the vices of society” today (p. 75). However, James argues that if studying books has not eradicated crime and other forms of vice by now, just asking students to study more is not the answer; such thinking, James would be inclined to say is like the intellectualists who, when seeing that some concept or theory does not work, think that the solution is to add more of the same, going farther and farther from experience. In fact, a Harvard education could well provide some former Harvard students with even more ways to be clever in their hypocritical dealings. By means of deceit and fraud, they, like many in our current society, may have devoted their lives to gaining power and money on a large scale, equating such a goal with their “idealization of ‘success’” (p. 76). James mentions Harvard men of his own day who (a) worked for Tammany; (b) pushed for aggressive invasion of the Philippines (James alludes to his former student Theodore Roosevelt); and (c) as journalists, wrote for any side whose stories would provide the most readership of their newspapers (James is referring to William Randolph Hearst, another former pupil of his). Thus it is not merely the curriculum or imposed discipline that makes a university great (p. 76). There is much more in experience that characterizes a university, and what is most important for James of all of a university’s qualities is its inner or “spiritual quality” (1906/1987f, p. 103). James describes the spiritual tone or quality of a university as its exceptional human beings: “Tone” is “the alpha and omega in a university,” and it “is set by human personalities exclusively” (p. 104). These persons make up (a) its faculty and administration who have an ongoing commitment to encourage the rich and diverse human experiences that distinguish one person from the other and its (b) students who express their own individuality (1903/1987h). Faculty. James writes that a superior university is best characterized by the old story of Mark Hopkins (theologian and president of Williams College from 1836–1872) and the student. It is “a log by the roadside with a student sitting on one end of it, and Mark Hopkins sitting on the other end. . .” (1906/1987f, p. 104). For James, the administration and faculty are the most

important resource of a university, and they are the most significant influence on students’ lives. He emphasizes this point on the occasion of Founders’ Day at Stanford in 1906: You may have your buildings, you may create your committees and boards and regulations, you may pile up your machinery of discipline and perfect your methods of instruction, you may spend money till no one can approach you, yet you will add nothing but one more trivial specimen to the common herd of American colleges, unless you send into all this organization some breath of life, by inoculating it with a few . . . [people], at least, who are real geniuses. And if you once have the geniuses, you can easily dispense with most of the organization. . . . Above all things, offer the opportunity of higher personal contacts. (p. 104) Students. James writes that that are many loner students at Harvard who come without affiliation or connection. They may not, for example have parents who are alumni who provide them with a ready-made social network. They often must work in order to support themselves. On days when school spirit is at its height, such as at homecoming, they feel that they do not fit in, and recede to more secure and familiar places. Often they are unable to become members of students’ organizations. As a result, they are frequently less understood than those who find comfortable roles in social groups (1903/1987h, p. 76). These individuals come to Harvard, James says, because Harvard encourages the contributions and nurturing of many different perspectives on the world, and even though they may not fit in to the social network, their radical ideas are nurtured by professors, whose differences are also encouraged by the college. James praises Harvard for allowing the inner lives of these unique individuals as well as other students to flourish by not forbidding “exceptionality and eccentricity” (p. 76). While many other colleges assume that all students are alike and thus offer all students the same courses and classes by professors who think in the same ways, James sees the Harvard of his time as providing students many kinds of courses and encouraging diverse opinions of its faculty. In contrast, James criticizes both Germany and England for educating students to conduct a certain type of prescribed behavior—either as an “efficient instrument of research” or as “an English gentleman” (1958b/1899, p.38). Regarding the German university, James writes The German universities are proud of the number of young specialists whom they turn out every year,—not necessarily men of any original force of intellect, but men so trained to research that when their professor gives them an historical or philogical thesis to

prepare or a bit of laboratory work to do, with a general indication as to the best method, they can go off by themselves and use apparatus and consult sources in such a way as to grind out in the requisite of months some little pepper-corn of new truth worthy of being added to the story of extant human information on that subject. (p. 38) Of the English universities, he says, the purpose of an Oxford education is to teach young men to behave according to “a bundle of specifically qualified reactions, a creature who for all the emergencies of life has his line of behavior distinctly marked out for him in advance” (p. 38). If a university does not do its duty, James said, in guiding the natural cultivation of these independently thoughtful young adults, it cannot call itself a noble institution. In contrast, a “true” university must provide opportunities for students to flourish, but not dictate to them exactly how to do so: “The day when Harvard shall stamp a single hard and fast type of character upon her children, will be that of her downfall” (1903/1987h, p. 77). Faculty and Student Interaction One of the most effective ways a university can help young people to flourish is by means of meaningful and purposeful interaction with their teachers in guiding them to be active and engaged learners. James incorporated both his pluralistic philosophy and his pluralistic philosophy of education into his daily life with his community of students and colleagues. For example, James and many of his colleagues in the Harvard Department of Philosophy viewed close interaction between teachers and students as inseparable from the process of successful teaching and learning. “James did not just make his subjects accessible. He was himself humanly present for the students” (Townsend, 1996, p. 160). James fostered students’ individualism in three ways: by his ongoing active engagement with students (a) outside of the classroom and (b) inside the classroom; and (c) by his vocal insistence on student self-governance. Together these ways assisted in making available the tools and conditions for them to acquire the skills and knowledge to address their individual needs, to engage in many kinds of activities and experiences, and to feel that their experience is valued. James wanted his students to have confidence and direction and not just proficiency in a certain field. Non-classroom Engagement. Students of James recall that they had many conversations with their professor after his classes that often resulted in James inviting them to his house for lunch (Perry, 1935,vol. 1, pp. 444–445; Delabarre, 1996, p. 114). In fact, dining in James’s home was one of the most frequently mentioned events that students cited when recalling their

experiences with James as their teacher. For example, Edwin Diller Starbuck writes of James: Absorbing the social formalities and conventions into a congenial mental weather, he would, for instance, make an appointment with a student for a personal conference over some “problem” at his house at, say, eleven or five o’clock, and make that device a way of inveigling him into participating in the gracious hospitality of a perfect home. (Starbuck, 1996, p.169) Another student recalls that as a freshman he met James at a bookstore. James surprised him by inviting him to dinner at his home, and their discussion went on for a considerable length of time before the freshman knew who James was (Richardson, 1996, p. 316). James offered him cigars, discussed opera, and gave him social advice (Townsend, 1996, p. 42). James’s motivation for spending so much time with his students outside of class was primarily that he desired to understand his students’ opinions, to determine their interests, and to ascertain and encourage as much hidden talent and good in them as possible. James felt it was important to show sympathy and interest when students had new ideas, and he often took a major role in promoting those ideas. What at first might have appeared to be an error in judgment of overrating his students’ abilities would actually be an intended way to encourage those who had “struggling talent” (Angell, 1996, p. 138). No effort however small went unnoticed. He suspended his judgment of others, including his students, as long as possible. This suspension of judgment was obviously an expression of James’s philosophical outlook of a world always in the making with hidden possibilities, and of his conviction that premature verdicts of people’s behavior were a serious mistake. John Elof Boodin writes that “Nothing could exceed James’s tender interest in the prospective birth of an original idea in one of his students” (1996, p. 215) and that James perceived it to be “his business to stimulate latent genius and bring it to its fruition” (Boodin, 1996, p. 214). Boodin explains, He would express naïve surprise and delight at a new idea or a new mode of presentation by a student and almost overwhelm such a student by the warmth of his appreciation— brag about him before the seminar, bring him home to dinner, spend a whole evening with him, talking the idea over. You would think he was the veriest freshman from the number of things he could learn from others. (p. 213) One time after class, James asked his student Edwin Diller Starbuck about a questionnaire he had seen floating around on campus that surveyed individuals on their religious beliefs and attitudes (Starbuck, 1996, p. 169). Starbuck admitted that he was the author of the survey. James

expressed his concern that not many people would answer such a survey, but Starbuck surprised him when he said that several people had already completed it. James took a copy of the survey and asked if he could use it in his own research, which he later did. He was very pleased to endorse its use and congratulated his student for his initiative and creativity in devising such an instrument on his own. Walter Lippmann’s relationship with James began with James standing at his dormitory door. Lippmann, the famous journalist and activist, was another student who felt grateful to James for encouraging him to be an individual even when it caused him much personal criticism. When Lipmann, who was Jewish, had entered Harvard as a college freshman, he had been denied invitations to Harvard’s clubs and organizations. Instead of retreating from campus life, Lippmann founded the first Socialist Club at Harvard. James came to his dorm one day to congratulate him on a scathing criticism Lippmann had written in a student publication of an English professor at Harvard. The professor was Barrett Wendell, author of The Privileged Classes, and a conservative member of Harvard’s genteel community. As a result of James’s recognition of Lipmann’s thinking for himself and willingness to speak his mind, James invited him for weekly tea and conversation at his home (Horowitz, 1987, pp. 84–85). “James encouraged Lippmann’s iconoclasm, hopes for reform, commitment to action and belief in the power of science,” (Horowitz, 1987, p. 85). In his memoirs, W.E.B. Du Bois, another famous student of James, writes that James was a powerful figure in his own life as a teacher and mentor. Of James he said, “I was repeatedly a guest in the home of William James; he was my friend and guide to clear thinking” (Du Bois, 1968, p. 143). In addition, James spent many hours raising money (and donating from his own personal funds) for talented students who could not afford the Harvard tuition. Boodin remembers: One year the scholarships had been awarded and a somewhat bashful, though able student had failed to get on the list. He had been invited home by James and had spent the evening talking philosophy with him. James discovered the mistake that had been made and was very much excited about it. He insisted that the student simply mustn’t be allowed to leave Harvard. The result was that a special fellowship was raised for him for the next year. (Boodin, 1996, p. 215) In the Classroom. James also tried to get to get to know his students as individuals during class time and to help them to develop their own means of critical analysis (Boodin, 1996, p. 213). Dickinson Sargeant Miller writes,

He bore questions [from us students] which really were criticisms with inexhaustible patience and what I may call (the subject invites the word often) human attention; invited written questions as well and would often return them with a reply penciled on the back when he thought the discussion of too special an interest to be pursued before the class. (Miller, 1996, pp. 125-126) While encouraging students to give their opinions, he gave the impression that he was just another student who was learning with them (Delabarre, 1996, p. 113). He was emphatic that students not merely repeat word for word what he as the teacher said but should challenge and criticize views they opposed and to offer unique opinions. Some younger students objected to his leaving them little chance of merely repeating lectures on tests and assignments and found his informal approach unprofessional. Later on they would realize that he had been an inspiring teacher and had moved them to think on their own. The graduate students from the beginning, however, thought that James’s way of teaching was perfect, for it taught them methods of inquiry that remained with them (Boodin, 1996, p. 213). Self-governance. James not only felt that students should be given a wide berth of independence as thinkers and learners but also felt that they should be taught to be responsible for their own behavior and that they should have complete self-governance in this respect. James thought that to overemphasize the rules of conduct to the point that they become ends in themselves rather than tools to teach students to be conscientious adults was a misuse of abstractions. In a letter to Harvard’s Daily Crimson in 1885, James argues that one of the most important purposes of college is to teach students self-discipline and “the sense of responsibility [that] comes with freedom. . . .” A college can devote too much of its energies in imposing and enforcing superfluous rules such as “matters of outward form, dress, manners, language, etc.,” and not teaching students to monitor their own behavior is “one of the most damaging things to the college” (1885/1987a, p.123). The university should be “investing students with power” (p.123). And “each student” should be made to feel in his own heart “that he is in some degree responsible for the behavior of the community.” For example, when celebrations in the Harvard Yard become too loud and dangerous or destructive, students should be given resources and encouragement in “actively promoting celebrations of a handsome and orderly kind” (p.124). Instead of imposing rules from the outside members of clubs and organizations who cause problems in the Yard should be encouraged “to pass votes simply requesting their own members not to dabble with bon-fires or

cannon-crackers, and to abstain from winding the unmelodious horn” (1886/1987g, p. 126). James advocates having only one violation of conduct: “behavior disrespectful to the college” and only “one punishment, expulsion. . . .” He implores, “What I personally wish we might see growing up here is a complete system of self-government by the students,—the faculty only regulating studies, and having nothing to do with conduct except in altogether unusual emergencies” (1885/1987a, p.123). High Standards. Although James was often idolized by his students, he was not always as jolly and agreeable as many of his students’ fond reminisces of him would lead one to believe. At times he could be “insensitive, officious, even bullying” (Richardson, 2006, p. 317). He easily became “bored by the mediocrity and slovenliness of other students.” One young man remembers that James turned to a student in the middle of a class discussion and abruptly said, “Mr. X, I can’t stand your God Almighty air.” He wrote on one student’s examination, “damn it, why don’t you make yourself more clear” (Boodin, 1996, p. 213). Some students, however, appreciated what they deemed to be an unshakeable devotion to high standards in his expectations of students. George Gordon writes: There was . . . in reserve a judgment, absolutely upright, that could not be twisted by kindness or by comradeship; in that true mind there was a standard that was fixed as fate. We debated with him, but without avail. This sort of thing will show the comradeship that existed between James and his students and his absolute integrity as a teacher. He loved and trusted us, but we could not fool him, if indeed we had ever wanted to do so. (Gordon, 1996, p. 47) Barriers to Meaningful and Purposeful Interaction Between Students and Faculty In his essays and other writings, James points to three barriers to meaningful interaction between students and faculty: (a) overspecialization and overprofessionalization; (b) large scale institutionalization; and (c) not recognizing the limits of scientific methods applied to pedagogy. Overspecialization and Overprofessionalization as a Barrier to Direct Experience James observed that a high degree of bureaucracy in the forms of overspecialization and overprofessionalization was emerging in colleges and universities in the US and becoming an obstacle to the nurturing of students’ academic success and well being. Often academic snobbery ensued. Professors can be prone to such snobbishness, he writes in “The Social Value of the College-Bred,” for “priggishness is just like painter’s colic, or other trade-disease,” and such a “microbe haunts the neighborhood of printed pages” (1907/1987e, p. 111). One former Harvard

student who later expressed his dismay at not having studied under James found that the faculty and student relationships had become too impersonal and faculty had become so devoted to their professional goals—“They had been ‘Germanized and depersonalized into a pure intellectualism’”—so that students were not able to work with faculty on an individual basis (Townsend, 1996, p. 132). James explains throughout his essays and writings on educational topics that academic snobbery can be exhibited in at least two ways: (a) in an exclusive inner academic circle and (b) by means of highly technical and obscure language (over-technicality). When professors belong to an exclusive inner academic circle and speak only in overtechnical language that only a few can understand, they communicate to students that success is achieved when one can boast of their exclusion and denigration of others’ perspectives. Exclusive Inner Academic Circle. In A Pluralistic Universe, James expresses his displeasure that in some institutions where departments of philosophy have become so professionalized, professors talk only to fellow professors and others who are sympathetic with their own theories and models. James writes that the “rules of the professional game” demand that professors “think and write from each other and for each other and at each other exclusively,” and thus they avoid the “open air,” where there is an interchange of diverse and original ideas (1909/1996b, pp. 17–18). What follows from this attitude and practice by an exclusive inner circle of professors is that students are not taught to think for themselves but merely repeat the ideas of others. James is worried that he sees all around him in the United States young scholars aping their professors who have been trained in German institutions. He notes that students who are not encouraged to think for themselves simply follow the bad habits of their professors by making the merits of any claim dependent, not on the degree of empirical truth of the claim, but only on the prestige of the one who pronounced it! Students are not encouraged to test conclusions by talking to others about these conclusions, and assessing them in relations to the experiences of others—especially those who may not share the outlook of authors or teachers of texts that have greatly influenced them. For students to be barred from having any original and spontaneous thought is to James abhorrent (pp. 16–17). James also points to the fact that German students and professors are pressured to research and teach only what is consistent with theories set forth by highly esteemed and influential ordinaries of the day who control the institutes: In Germany the forms are so professionalized that anybody who has gained a teaching

chair and written a book, however distorted and eccentric, has the legal right to figure forever in the history of the subject like a fly in amber. All later comers have the duty of quoting him and measuring their opinions with his opinion. (p. 17) For the German and American philosophers James criticizes, the definition of good idea is not that it is useful, advances the good, or brings pleasure or insight, but that a notable and highly respected person expresses it. Those who do not follow the “rules of the game” of the inner circle are seen as threats, especially those individuals who have ideas of their own that may challenge theories espoused by the highly reputable. Innovative thoughts that could eventually transform a program, department, or university for the good are immediately repressed, ignored, or rejected. For James an institution can never make progress if the only criterion for the concept good idea is that it is just like ideas already established. Yet neither is being a new idea sufficient for its being a clever or fine idea. Its usefulness is dependent on how it cashes out in experience. Challenges to any claim are valid only for the German and American professors, he argues, if those counter-claims and arguments are “wrapped in proper names, as if it were indecent for a truth to go naked” (p. 15). These “proper names” also belong to historically famous thinkers. Students and professors cite these thinkers instead of offering any original ideas themselves: This is the habit most encouraged at our seats of learning. You must tie your opinion to Aristotle’s or Spinoza’s; you must define it by its distance from Kant’s; you must refute your rival’s view by identifying it with Protagoras’s. Thus does all spontaneity of thought, all freshness of conception, get destroyed. Everything you touch is shopworn. (p. 16) Over-technicality. Essential in this “professional game” is that professors make language as obscure as possible and use highly abstract terminology to the point that discussions are unintelligible to anyone who does not know the jargon, what James calls over-technicality (1909/1996b, p. 16). The reason for this intention of obfuscating one’s ideas, James says, is “too much following of german [sic] models and manners” (p. 17). He notes that German philosophy professors have a great fear that their writings may be too popular. If works are written that are comprehensible beyond their academic circle, then these words are considered shallow: “if by chance any one writes popularly and about results only, with his mind directly focussed [sic] on the subject, it is reckoned . . . ganz unwissenschaftlich [unscientific]” (p. 18). An established professor once remarked, “Yes, we

philosophers, whenever we wish, can go so far that in a couple of sentences we can put ourselves where nobody can follow us.” James responded to this statement by saying, “the professor said this with conscious pride, but he ought to have been ashamed of it” (p. 18). Although James is disgusted at those who use jargon for no other purpose than to elevate themselves in others’ opinions, he writes that he is most upset that students are seduced by the seeming sophistication of the technique supporting these claims. To assess the value of anyone’s ideas merely upon the degree of their obscurity is outrageous, he argues (p. 19), and teaches students’ false notions. When philosophers or students tend not to think for themselves on the basis on their own experience, refuse to talk to others whose ideas may be at odds with their own ideas, or refuse to traverse the boundaries of academia to speak in the public, they violate what James would see as a characteristic of intellectualism, that is, violating the personal and social tests of experience. Eventually, if one does have ideas of one’s own and/or does not evaluate ideas outside one’s own narrow interest and purview, “all true perspective gets lost, extremes and oddities count as much as sanities, and command the same attention . . . ” (1909/1996b, p. 18). James cautions that it is crucial to understand that superior individuals come in various “wrappings” and labels or without any labels at all (1907/1987e, p. 111). Because, as we have noted, the inner natures of others are hidden from us, we cannot easily recognize their greatness (1899/1958a; 1899/ 1958c). For James human merit can be found almost in any milieu, for new ideas can ferment in the least expected locales and from the most surprising people. And for James there can be many types of merit. Developing our own ideals in the most extensive and meaningful way can be limited if we reject opportunities to learn from others because we dismiss outward or superficial packaging such as a person’s appearance, lack of sophisticated language, or other accidental properties. James’s philosophy as well as his attitude and behaviors toward others reflect this egalitarianism, for to be elitist is to reject many different kinds of experience in the world, experiences that can, for all we know, bring about a better society. Without extensive exposure to human excellence in its many manifestations, it is tempting to carp and complain about others before we take the time to uncover the excellence that is hidden (1907/1987e, p. 111). But culture that is rich with possibility is a culture that does not emphasize condemnation but lives by sympathetic understanding and appreciation. Those who have an authentic critical sense are able to see quality in the midst of misleading labels. So it is necessary that when one learns what high standards are, one learns that these high standards can be found anywhere, even where we least expect to see them.

Return to Diversity of Experience. Breaking the stodgy, fixed inner academic circle necessitates the inclusion of others and the deep respect of their various experiences, including students, with varying ideas and theories and the means for professors to interact with each other and with their students in hospitable as well as challenging ways. The university should always be a catalyst for new concepts, themes, ideas, and theories and for the testing of these ideas, and the university should be in the business of seeing students as one kind of resource for the infusion of these ideas in addition to faculty and established scholars. James Jackson Putnam, James’s former fellow medical student and life time friend, writes that James’s appreciation for diversity showed itself in his interaction with colleagues whose views differed from his own: It was an especially rare treat to see him in friendly contest with one or several colleagues from whose views his own diverged. Such encounters brought out his own attitude and theirs as if with a rapid series of flash-light illuminations. He realized also that the fire of genius is distributed widely among men, as radium is found in minute quantities among baser minerals, and his generous instinct and intellectual zeal prompted him to seek its traces out. (Putnam, 1996, p. 12) The custom for those in the Harvard department of philosophy was to hold a special and deep respect for different opinions. Their usual practice was to hire candidates for professor appointments with philosophical perspectives that were not already represented in the department. George Herbert Palmer, James’s colleague in the department, writes: “We thought our students were best stimulated to form convictions of their own if they were invited to consider opposing views presented by those who heartily believed them.” Even with a lively contrast of beliefs and attitudes, faculty in the department remained close friends (Palmer, 1996, p. 33). James and Royce, for example, were of two quite different philosophical minds but held a great respect for each other and were close friends all of their lives together. Wanting students to see that diversity of perspectives should be encouraged and valued, they divided their year-long metaphysics course into two semesters. James taught the first semester from the pragmatic perspective, and Royce taught the other from the idealist perspective (Boodin, 1996, pp. 226– 227). They put into place the conditions for students to form their own opinions on the basis of their personal experience and reflection. James also welcomed relationships with others outside the department who were of

different opinions, abilities, and interests. His attitude toward those who offered different perspectives was not that of mere tolerance but one of delight. A frequent description of James was that he was anything but a snob. In today’s era of professional boasting and vying for prestigious reputations, it is somewhat baffling that James’s students for a considerable time of his teaching at Harvard did not know that their professor was an internationally well known scholar. He was such a down-to-earth and humble person, Santayana writes, that he had no interest in boasting his reputation with students or masquerading his faults. Often colleagues outside the department who did not know him well made fun of him because he “didn’t talk like a book, and didn’t write like a book, except like one of his own” (Santayana, 1996, p. 105) and because he held no prestigious academic degrees. Although he was acclaimed for his scholarship the world over, he was present in his students’ lives as just another person seeking to find fulfillment in his life. Large Scale Institutionalization as a Barrier to Direct Experience Another barrier to faculty and student interaction is the increasing number of rules and policies that universities put in place that can create layers and layers of institutional blockades to personal student growth. When far reaching and wide ranging rules are established for a university to fulfill a presumed need, there is an inclination to “run into technicality and to develop a tyrannical Machine with unforeseen powers of exclusion and corruption,” a consequence of “large scale” ‘institutionizing [sic]” their “need and motive” (1903/1987b, p. 70). As a result, the “Machine” focuses only its own needs and not that of its students, either undergraduate or graduate. In James’s famous essay “The PhD Octopus,” he expresses concern that Harvard is in danger of heading in this direction by valuing too highly its reputation as an institution to the exclusion of what is best for the particular student. For James the aim of an institution’s policies and practice should be to nurture the individual, beginning with the student’s needs—not the institution’s. To neglect the needs of students is an act, James would say, of institutional intellectualism. The purpose of the PhD, for example, was initially to encourage young people to engage in new scholarship by offering some means of motivation. This motivation consisted of the hope of gaining impressive titles and “bread-winning” positions (p. 73). James explains that he recognizes that scholarly research is necessary for professors to be good professors (and few if any scholars were more well read nor more productive in their field of study than James). Devotion to research is understandable and quite effective, James says. It is important “to have

research in abundance” and offering motivation for those who do the research is often a psychological necessity (p. 70). However, the practice of conferring the doctoral degree to graduate students was creating the need for colleges and universities to compete with each other to appoint as many scholars with PhDs as possible. James writes that colleges who lack prestige cannot recruit prominent professors to come to their institutions, so they try their best to compensate for the obscurity of the names of their officers of instruction by the abundance of decorative titles by which those names are followed on the pages of the catalogues where they appear. The dazzled reader of the list, the parent or student, says to himself, "this must be a terribly distinguished crowd—their titles shine like the stars in the firmament, Ph.D.'s, S.D.'s, and Litt.D.'s bespangle the page as if they were sprinkled over it from a pepper caster.” (p. 69) James is distressed that the policy has grave consequences for students, causing universities to see them only as a means to boost the universities’ reputations. As a consequence faculty are not encouraged to give attention to the special needs that students have and the unique gifts and talents that they can offer. He makes his point by recalling that he once had a graduate student who was quite accomplished and was appointed to teach English Literature at another college. However, immediately following his appointment, the officials of the college realized that they had hired someone who did not hold a PhD. The authorities concluded that without the right credentials, this person could not be the suitable person for the job. They related to the young man that he had been hired as a result of a “misunderstanding” (p. 67). His appointment was rescinded, and his position could not be reinstated until he could earn a PhD from Harvard. James continues: Although it was already the spring [sic] of the year, our Subject, being a man of spirit, took up the challenge, turned his back upon literature (which in view of his approaching duties might have seemed his more urgent concern) and spent the weeks that were left him, in writing a metaphysical thesis and grinding his psychology, logic and history of philosophy up again, so as to pass our formidable ordeals. (p.68) The PhD committee read the young man’s dissertation, but it was rejected because “brilliancy and originality by themselves won't save a thesis for the doctorate; it must also exhibit a heavy technical apparatus of learning; and this our candidate had neglected to bring to bear” (p.68). Thus the committee informed the young man’s institution of a perceived obstacle which had nothing to do with the young man’s accomplishments as a real scholar or his ability to teach. The

focus on the exam’s technical requisites of the dissertation obscured the importance of the ideas themselves. After hearing that the young man was indeed a brilliant scholar, but had not complied with the technical requirements, the institution (to which he was applying in order to teach) would not concede; they were not to be impressed with anything, James says, but “the three magical letters” (p. 68). This college had enjoyed for years of having a long list of decorated faculty members who were regarded as stars for the college so as “to make a gap in the galaxy, and admit a common fox without a tail, would be degradation impossible to be thought of” (p.68). Although James and his other professors knew by first-hand experience the brilliance, various talents, and moral assets of the young man, what was to be counted as truth was what was expressed by the appointment committee of the college, whose final word declared what qualities the young man had or did not have. Finally, after writing numerous letters praising the young man’s intelligence and ability and that a PhD in philosophy would not suddenly make him a better professor of literature, the committee members persuaded the institution to give him a provisional appointment. The young man revised his dissertation, which has been since known as an inspired contribution to the field of metaphysics, and passed with high marks, having “wiped out the stain and brought his college into proper relations with the world again” (p. 68). James notes that although outside observers might argue that the example he presents is an exception, situations similar to that of the young man “happens daily and hourly in all our colleges” (p.71). James writes that the growing tendency to adhere to a policy that demands that every student earn a PhD order to teach in any institution of higher education to be insidious for one primary reason: The policy makes the degree an end in itself, that is, such a requirement makes the title entirely sufficient as testament to a person’s ability to teach. For James, nothing is more important in a university than finding the best and most productive ways for young people to pursue their own interest by using their distinctive talents. This practice should include putting opportunities in place for young people who want to teach in college (and who have what he considers to be the most important relevant qualities) to do so. When a university regards the earning of a PhD as more than one useful tool for universities to assist in preparing and discerning good teachers and scholars, many destructive effects can result. First, such a sweeping policy redirects the aim of young people from “direct dealings

with truth” to academic requirements, and, as a result, hinders the “free development of talent,” (p.70). By this criticism, James means that all students are expected to behave the same way to pass a particular fixed set of prerequisites, and are not often encouraged to pursue their studies in radically different ways that would make use of their talents by the fullest means possible. The practice hinders caring and guiding faculty to help students form and pursue their ideals, talents, and interests in distinctive ways. The requirements for the degree, he argues, are based on highly questionable criteria of assessment. Institutions were beginning to value the sophistication of the technical aspects of instruments used to assess human performance over their actual ability to evaluate the whole person. Such a misguided practice discounts important assets that a student may have that can make him an excellent teacher but are not formally measureable. Second, James is displeased at Harvard’s making the PhD a very attractive goal for all students, but at the same time making the qualifications so demanding that only the very few with exceptionally high native intelligence can be able to earn one. James writes that the purpose of higher education in a democratic society is to educate as many individuals as possible in as many ways as possible. The stiff qualifications creates an elitist class and bars students with many natural gifts other than exceptional intellectual brilliance. James emphasizes that universities and colleges are “creating” a “new class of American social failures” by establishing stiff requirements while at the same time being aware that many different sorts will be attracted to the favors that earning the PhD will bestow (p. 72). Young people who do not have exceptionally high intelligence endure failures that leave eternal scars because of the delicate time in their lives. James laments that “we say deliberately that mere work faithfully performed, as they perform it, will not by itself save them, they must in addition put in evidence the one thing they have not got, namely this quality of intellectual distinction” (p. 72). Third, sometimes implementation of these standards by faculty is inconsistent, and the result is that some “favored” students are treated with “partiality” in contrast to “the unfavored” (p. 72). Fourth, such practices, for James teaches students that the value of a human being is an “outward badge” rather than her inner quality (p.70). Such an obsession with titles is not appropriate for American democracy, he claims, and motivates students to attend college merely for the external rewards it can bring rather than for pursuing their own high ideals for purpose and meaning. The desire to have the reputation that a PhD can afford can ruin the sincere aspirations of many who once perceived learning and teaching as goods in themselves. Instead they go to

graduate school as a result of “invidious sentiments,” of seeking reputation and honor (p. 70). “We dangle our three magic letters before the eyes of these predestined victims,” James laments, “and they swarm to us like moths to an electric light” (p.72). Just as the PhD requirements may not measure important qualities that would make a great teacher so in turn the doctor’s degree by itself is no assurance that the person is a fine teacher or scholar. Seeing their role as only bestowing credentials to students based on a particular kind of performance may cause faculty and administration to overlook the fact that while some young people may score brilliantly on academic exams, they might have highly unsuitable “moral, social, and personal characteristics” for teaching in the “class-room” (p.70). American institutions are heading on a course similar to the German obsession with titles, James writes, thus showing their an infection by the “Mandarin disease” (p. 69), and he worries that if the “popular belief that our diplomas are indispensable hall-marks to show the sterling metal of their holders” (p. 72) becomes so far reaching and entrenched as it is in European countries, than it will take many decades for the once American favored “personal and spiritual spontaneity” to return (p. 73). With the PhD, America is beginning to claim its own symbol of snobbery, reminiscent of the “institution of knighthood in England.” Those who clamor for the PhD are similar to those who desire an “aristocratic title,” which “enables one's wife as well as one's self . . . to dazzle the servants at the house of one's friends.” Their obsession with titles is similar to the “spectacle of the ‘Rath’ distinction in its innumerable spheres and grades in which all Germany is crawling today” (p.74). He goes on to ask are we Americans ourselves destined after all to hunger after similar vanities on an infinitely more contemptible scale? And is individuality with us also going to count for nothing unless stamped and licensed and authenticated by some title-giving machine? (p. 74) James further demonstrates how these detrimental effects can influence the individual student. He describes three kinds of students who pursue the PhD. First there are those individuals who are brilliant and have no problem fulfilling the requirements. Second, there are individuals who may not have as much intelligence as the first, but are stimulated by the challenge of the obstacles that they must confront. They eventually pass gain the degree after much toil and anxiety. But there is a third class of persons: these individuals want to earn the PhD because they are passionately devoted to a given subject and to teaching and are willing to persist with

unwavering effort to teach that subject. Although they are diligent, persistent, and loyal, they lack the extremely demanding intellectual aptitude to fulfill the requirements. Even if these persons also have exceptional gifts—that of diligence, persistence, together with a single minded love for their disciplines and students—lacking a PhD immediately disqualifies them as official candidates for university positions. They are never placed in the pool of eligible candidates. James observes that there are young capable students who have qualities that would make them exceptional teachers, qualities such as an intense passion for their subjects and high moral character. He believes such qualities to be exceptional gifts and just as important as having the “native” intelligence that enables one to conduct obscure research or pass demanding exams (p. 71). Yet, faculty and administrators act as though there are only two aspects of experience that are important to be professors: native intelligence and the motivation to complete the academic requirements. James says that this “pestilence” can be curtailed in at least four ways: first, by enacting practices that allow faculty to experience the student’s capabilities first hand (p. 73). Second, students and their advisers can also help. Students who are working on a degree should resist fulfilling some requirements if they see that they hinder their “more immediate intellectual aims” and should not be penalized (p. 73). Instead James suggests that students utilize reference letters that attest to their devotion, hard work, and mastery of the subject. Professors in turn should encourage their students to resist the requirements “upon occasion” and to support students when they go out into the world to find university appointments (p. 73). Third, the universities can also change degree requirements by conferring degrees to those who have completed the course requirements in graduate school as is done in the undergraduate school, a degree based on “faithful labor, however commonplace, and years devoted to a subject” (p. 73). Furthermore, both colleges and universities should not see the number of PhDs as the primary evidence of prestige but should turn to something more substantive such as closely encouraging and supporting students as whole persons. Not Recognizing the Limits of Scientific Methods Applied to Pedagogy as a Barrier to Direct Experience For James, scientific methods cannot provide certainty, for “the popular notion that 'Science' is forced on the mind ab extra, and that our interests have nothing to do with its constructions, is utterly absurd” (1890/1950, vol. 1, p.667). Rather in the hands of the scientist, the world becomes “plastic” and malleable (p. 667), for scientific laws such as “mathematico-

mechanical theory” are translations of sensible experiences into other forms, substitutions of items between which ideal relations of kind, number, form, equality, etc., obtain, for items between which no such relations obtain; coupled with declarations that the experienced form is false and the ideal form true, declarations which are justified by the appearance of new sensible experiences at just those times and places at which we logically infer that their ideal correlates ought to be. (p.669) James writes that the scientist seeks to find a rational and orderly means of explaining what he observes and that he finds such order and rationality in classifications; it is this “craving to believe that the things of the world belong to kinds which are related by inward rationality together” that is after all “ the parent of Science. . .” (p. 667 ). James describes the scientist, intent on a neatly rational system, as a sort of blind intellectualist in his eagerness to simplify. Once the scientist has the “world in this bare shape,” he can fling . . .[the] net of a priori relations over all its terms, and pass from one of its phases to another by inward thought-necessity. . . .The sentimental facts and relations are butchered at a blow. But the rationality yielded is so superbly complete in form that to many minds this atones for the loss, and reconciles the thinker to the notion of a purposeless universe, in which all the things and qualities men love, dulcissima mundi nomina, are but illusions of . . . fancy . . . .(p.667) James notes the analogy of scientists confusing precise and exact laws with “sentimental facts and relations” to educators who confuse pedagogical and psychological precepts and principles with the thickness of the organic classroom environment. Such an environment changes each day and is made up of numerous cross influences, and much of what goes on is tacit or ineffable. Thus it is an error to believe that one can draw directly from psychology, for example, particular methods of instruction that can be applied neatly and simply in every classroom. “Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves. An intermediary inventive mind must make the application, by using its originality” (1899/1958b, pp. 23–24). A creative person must make the connection between what psychology says it is as a science and how or to what extent such a science can be used most effectively in the classroom. For instance, science can only help us in limited ways: it can help us along the way to monitor and adjust our behaviors if we begin to “reason or behave wrongly.” Its purpose is to offer parameters “within which the rules of the art must fall,” rules which the person who is

following the art must not violate. But what falls inside those artistic boundaries should be reserved for the teacher’s “own genius,” for “one genius will do . . . [her] work well and succeed in one way, while another succeeds as well quite differently; yet neither will transgress the lines” (p. 24). To know psychology inside and out is no assurance that a person is a good teacher. Pedagogical science by itself cannot make a teacher anymore than the study of “the laws of perspective can make a landscape painter of effective skill” (p. 82). The key to good teaching and successful learning is first to determine what the student’s interest is by the teacher’s getting to know her on a personal basis and then guiding her through the individual path of learning she makes for herself. The art of teaching was born out of “inventiveness and sympathetic concrete observation” in the classroom (p. 24). The “alpha and omega of the teacher’s art” are “meeting and pursuing the pupil” in a “concrete situation” (p. 24) in instilling interest by connecting new knowledge to that in which students are already interested (p.82). Much of successful teaching is dependent upon the natural attributes of the teacher, the ability to “seize the right moment” and to present (p. 49) opportunities to spark the student’s “voluntary attention” in the learning process (p. 127). James writes that Education in the long run is an affair that works itself out between the individual student and his opportunities. Methods, of which we talk so much, play but a minor part. Offer the opportunities, leave the student to his natural reaction on them, and he will work out his personal destiny, be it a high one, or a low one. (1906/1987f, p. 104) As a teacher James let no method come between him and his pupils, for “his teaching was essentially a personal relation infused with his personal qualities” (Perry, 1935, Vol. 1 p. 445). Not perfecting his lectures as scripts before he presented them in the classroom, he advises teachers, “Prepare yourself in the subject so well that it shall be always on tap; then in the classroom, trust your spontaneity and fling away all further care” (1899/1958b, p. 145). James views an important role of the professor to be that of a bibliographer. In one class in 1893, Philosophy 3, Perry recalls that James provided students with a bibliography of hundreds and hundreds of titles (Perry, 1935, pp. 490–491). Boodin writes, “James himself was quite one of the students. He not only brought armfuls of books and references, which showed his own live interest in what was going on; but he was all the while taking a vital personal part in the work” (Boodin, 1996, p. 213). Instead of a formal lesson, he often talked with students in a discussion format. Some students and colleagues criticized him because his lectures were far too unstructured and his

mood usually dictated what he would talk about on a given day (Palmer, 1996, p. 32). However, others described his classes differently. Edwin Diller Starbuck recalls On the occasion of the opening lecture period of the first semester, Professor James appeared, almost late, moved smoothly and unobtrusively up the middle aisle to the slightly elevated platform, placed a small bundle of books from his arm on the desk, paused, gave the class a split second of a friendly glance, lifted the index finger of his right hand above the forehead as if it were the symbol of a new idea and remarked, “Oh, excuse me, I forgot something.” A minute or two following the time signal he returned, seated himself serenely at his desk and began, not lecturing to us or at us, but discussing with us, some of the men and movements in psychology. He showed two or three significant recent books; we should help decide if we wished to use a text and, if so, which it should be. His “lectures” were always vitalizing. No studied rhetoric. Always happy turns of intriguing phrases, a glow of warmth and meaning. Never a moment wasted on shop- made humor. We were always thinking together. (Starbuck, 1996, p. 168) James was thought to be one of the first teachers to use student evaluations (if not the first as one of his students believed) and was one of the first professors at that time to invite students to ask questions and not depend only on recitation of a lecture (Miller, 1996, p. 126). Summary The most important quality that characterizes a university is its inner or spiritual tone. James describes the spiritual tone of a university as its exceptional human beings. These persons make up (a) its faculty and administration who have an ongoing commitment to encourage the rich and diverse human experiences that distinguish one person from the other and (b) its students who express their own individuality. James and many of his colleagues in the Harvard Department of Philosophy viewed close interaction between teachers and students as inseparable from the process of successful teaching and learning and fostered his students’ individualism in three ways: by his ongoing active engagement with students (a) outside of the classroom and (b) inside the classroom; and (c) by his vocal insistence on student self-governance. James identifies three barriers to meaningful interaction between students and faculty: (a) overspecialization and overprofessionalization; (b) large scale institutionalization; and (c) not recognizing the limits of scientific methods applied to pedagogy. To remove these barriers, James argues that the university be open to varying ideas and theories and provide the means for professors to interact

positively with each other and with their students; be a catalyst for new concepts, themes, ideas, and theories; and continue to test the adequacy of far reaching and wide ranging rules and practices by taking into serious consideration the knowledge faculty gain by their first hand experiences of student’s capabilities and interests. The key to good teaching and successful learning is first to determine what the student’s interest is by getting to know her on a personal basis and then guide her through the individual path of learning she makes for herself. Humanities Oriented Curriculum For James it is not good enough to train students to have only a judicious sense of estimating the quality of things, of evaluating exceptional methods and techniques that are required in carrying out a good job. A university should educate students to have a critical eye for excellence in human beingness—in knowing what makes a worthy human being in the broadest sense. A Critical Sense of Human Excellence To bring about an understanding of what characterizes a worthy human being, colleges and universities should cultivate in their students a sense of what constitutes “human masterstrokes”: The sense for human superiority ought, then, to be considered our [the educated class’s] line, as boring subways is the engineer’s line and the surgeon’s is appendicitis. Our colleges ought to have lit up in us a lasting relish for the better kind of man, a loss of appetite for mediocrities, and disgust for cheapjacks. We ought to smell, as it were, the difference of quality in men and their proposals when we enter the world of affairs about us. Expertness in this might well atone for some of our awkwardness at accounts, for some of our ignorance of dynamos. The best claim we can make for the higher education, the best single phrase in which we can tell what it ought to do for us, is then . . .to know a good . . . [person] when we see . . . [her]. (1907/1987e, p. 108) Pluralistic Outlook. James is vague in his characterization of human excellence. Does it mean moral virtue? Does it mean using our best efforts in applying our skills or knowledge in some way that positively contributes to the world? James appears to mean at least these two qualities when he speaks of human excellence. But James’s idea of excellence is pluralistic. In order for us to recognize and become familiar with the character or quality or a thing, we must be able to have experienced it—in its many guises, in its many manifestations, in its depth and in its breadth. We recognize the color yellow, for example, after having the experiencing of seeing

what the “general” color yellow looks like in its varying shades and contrasts: When we observe the “rare and precious” in many different contexts, we see how diverse the types of excellence may be, how various the tests, how flexible the adaptations, we gain a richer sense of what the terms “better” and worse” may signify in general. Our critical sensibilities grow both more acute and less fanatical. (p. 108) For James we are able to recognize qualities that make a virtuous person, a distinguished artist, an inspiring musician, a notable scientist, an imaginative poet, and an overall noble and thriving human being by knowing what excellence is in general. But also like seeing a color, we see it through our own interpretation; it is filtered through our own senses and what we see may not necessarily be the very same as what others see. Being able to recognize a good person is a result of becoming acquainted with a variety of worthy human virtues in a multiplicity of contexts, with developing “a general sense of what, under various disguises, superiority has always signified and may still signify” (1907/1987e, p. 108). Humanities as a Source of Diversity of Human Experience. Students can delve deeply into the many faceted worlds of human experience by becoming familiar with these qualities of human excellence in diverse locales, approaches, media, structures, and events. In this way, the student is able to recognize those qualities instinctively. One of the most compelling ways for students to cultivate a habitual recognition of best human efforts is by a humanities education. Humanities, means, for James, the “study of masterpieces in almost any field of human endeavor” or the “sifting of human creations” (1907/1987e, p. 107). Students can be exposed to pluralistic notions of human excellence through biographies, histories, and literature, which abound with examples of heroes and heroines from all walks of life, social classes, ethnic groups, and cultures (1907/1987e). For example, students can examine human sympathy, emotion, sadness by means of literary study. James says literature is the ideal humanities course in that students actually study the great masterpieces—while studying the methods, resources, genius, techniques that go in to creating these masterpieces, in addition to the lives of the geniuses themselves! Cultivation of a Critical Sense In James’s own lectures, he enriched his teaching of philosophy with literary, historical, and autobiographical elements. His high esteem of a humanities education no doubt was greatly influenced by his own educational experiences as a young adult.

When James was a medical student in his twenties, for instance, he had been drawn to the work of German physiologists Du Bois Reymond, Hermann von Helmholtz, and Wilhelm Wundt. However, seeing scientists first hand at the University of Berlin devoting all of their efforts to one aspect of one field soon shocked him. This kind of attention contrasted significantly with his image of the ideal scholar (as exhibited by his father)—a person of extensive and varying interests, who would set about the task of pursuing his own topics of research in the context of broad general studies. He knew that he would need to give up the goal of achieving this ideal if he were to become a successful scientist. He regretted that his having had a broad education was a disadvantage in pursuing a career in science because he lacked the rigorous training demanded in certain fields. Seeing the remarkable Berlin scholars conducting research in one specialized field and devoting all of their attention to that particular endeavor made him feel that in order to be notably successful in any discipline of science, he was obligated to specialize in that discipline, and as a result, attention to one such facet of study would require his neglecting studies in other disciplines. He wrote to his friend Tom Ward that instead of “being anything,” he must set his mind to only “doing” (1867/1995a, p. 226). James, however, soon realized that as a human being in a universe of many kinds of events, circumstances, consequences, and possibilities, his experienced world extended beyond the university laboratory. While in Germany he put aside his highly technical German physiology texts and returned to his earlier loves, literature and art, reading Schiller, and also Goethe, whom he especially favored. James noted at that time as a young man of twenty-six that it was inadequate to ignore or disparage some “department of experience,” an outgrowth of a habit of limited thinking (1868/1995c, p. 307). Reading literature, especially Goethe, James experienced a joy of learning and an insight into the interrelatedness of the whole of experience, which he felt he would not have experienced had he continued only with his scientific research that year in Berlin. James’s diverse self-education as a child growing up in an unusual family of accomplished intellectuals had included an exposure to a wide breadth of experiences in art, languages, history, philosophy, and literature. His father had made sure the cultural exposure James and his siblings received ranged from contact with the sophisticated and highly intellectual to the common and farcical. These encounters, for example, included attending plays and perusing galleries. His father’s objective, it might be argued, was to cultivate his children’s

own critical judgment on the basis of their interpretations of their myriad experiences (Simon, 1998, pp. 41–48). Barrier to Humanities Oriented Curriculum For James, a barrier to learning about human excellence in a pluralistic sense and to developing one’s own ideals is to learn only practical or technical skills throughout one’s whole life. He was in no way opposed to professional and practical training. He writes that those who pursue such interests are the “backbone of the country”: These excellent fellows need contact of some sort with the fighting side of life, with the world in which men and women earn their bread and butter and live and die; there must be the scent of blood, so to speak, upon what you offer them, or else their interest does not wake up; the blood that is shed in our Electives, fails to satisfy them very long. (1891/1987d, p. 37) However, students should be exposed also to educational experiences that allow them to become “good company. . . mentally,” relieving a person of a “boorish or caddish mind” (1907/1987e, p. 107). A person with a broad background, can as a result, speak on many topics, look at things from many perspectives, can draw from various subjects, and has a greater sense of how things relate to the whole of life—not just one aspect of it. James says that there are huge advantages for society and for the students themselves to go to college and to “broaden their intellectual outlook, gain the sense of kinship with intellectual things, become once for all members of the free-masonry of the Educated, and continue to be voters for ideal interests during the remainder of their life” (1891/1987d, p. 37). Students should never only study one particular subject in any field exclusively. Once responding to a student who thought he would be pleased that he was going to enroll in only philosophy classes to obtain his degree at Harvard, James said “Jones, don’t you philosophize on an empty stomach!” (Palmer, 1996, p. 31). Curricular Solutions James proposes two ways that all college students, regardless of their professional paths, can be broadly educated: (a) shortening the AB degree and (b) incorporating a humanities context into each college course. Shortening of the College Course. In light of the importance of every student needing some sort of broad education, James argues in his essay “The Proposed Shortening of the College Course” (1891/1987d) that the college course of study for the earning of the A.B. in the

US is just too long. After students graduate from high school, and if they attend college, they must wait four years before they can pursue professional training. This is not the case, he says, for students in Germany and France, where students attend the Gymnasium and Lyceum until the age of 19 or 20 and then enter the research university or professional school for specialist training. Many students in the US, says James, are yearning to get on with their lives to pursue their careers in medicine, law, and engineering or in other practical fields. Some see the interim between high school and professional school as too long and too irrelevant to their lives. James says that there are generally two kinds of students. One who is “born for the theoretic life, and is capable of pressing forward indefinitely into its subtleties and specialties” (p. 36). The other type of student is not “theoretical.” The interest of the latter type reaches its saturation-point when the broader results and most general laws have been reached. When such men get into higher courses of study where minute questions have to be discussed, they feel as if it were all unreal and fastidious; and what is worse, they make the teacher feel so too, as he tries to subdue their practical and active young natures to the turning over of those remote abstractions and pale points of scholarship which are all he has to offer. . . . And their teacher also realizes heavily enough the weight of those eternal laws which render it impossible to make an herbivorous animal out of a carnivorous one by offering the latter a continuous diet of hay. Listlessness, apathy, dawdling, sauntering, the smoking of cigarettes and living on small sarcasms, the “Harvard indifference,” in short, of which outsiders have so frequently complained, are the direct fruit of keeping these men too long from contact with that world of affairs to which they rightfully belong. (1891/1987d, pp. 36–37) James worries that many students of the second sort will skip a broad education experience altogether and go only to a technical school. He proposes that the undergraduate years be shortened to three years so that these students can get on sooner with their specialist training. Whereas James argues that all students should have a broad education as a foundation, all students should be provided the best educational conditions available to follow their particular ideals. Incorporating Humanities Contexts into Basic Courses. But James also says that although some students are not interested in theoretical subjects, they can obtain a broad education in other ways, by means of taking courses such as geography and mathematics that are imbued with the human element, the historical-cultural dimension of human life. Therefore,

courses that have a humanities orientation or flavor do not have to be restricted to philosophy, literature, or history (1907/1987e, pp. 107-109). The qualities of human merit can be accomplished by integrating the content of the subject itself with the historical and biographical accounts of the “successive achievements of the geniuses to which these sciences owe their being” (p. 107). James explains that “literature” without such humanistic value is only “grammar,” “art” is just a “catalogue,” “history” is a “list of dates,” and, finally, “natural science” is only a “sheet of formulas and weights and measures.” He explains that by the university’s tempering subjects with a human dimension, students learn to judge those events of “human endeavor,” which exhibit excellence (p. 107). Teaching students to recognize human excellence in science, for example, involves more than teaching students scientific methods and terminology; it also involves teaching them to recognize the qualities that make a great scien-tist, that is, a human-being-who-does-science. James would argue, as would Mill, that scientists are individuals who, by interacting with the world around them (as we all do), influence and in turn are influenced by their environments, environments that include not only the laboratory setting but also things outside of it. Scientists are required to make many kinds of decisions—moral, rational, aesthetic, and practical. Scientists do not acquire knowledge about the world only by relying on logical reasoning, abstract interpretations, or knowledge gathered from their five senses. Knowing for the scientists, as for all individuals, involves memories, anticipations, causal relations, intentions, efforts, appreciations, and values—in addition to sensations and formal reasoning. Reading biographical accounts as well as literature helps students to gain insight into the inner natures of great thinkers, about their greatnesses and weaknesses. They learn what it is to be a person in the deepest sense in terms of values and importance. It is important to continue to emphasize that James was no proponent of a strictly classical education for all or even some students. He argued for a pluralistic exposure to many fields, disciplines, courses, activities, and resources. He saw that one of the important aims of the university is to broaden its appeal to the greatest number of students. An important role for the university is to make sure that “higher education” is “widely shared” (1891/1987d, p. 35). James fought often for inclusion and diversity in many dimensions, curricula included. Our diverse world, in order for it to flourish, requires many different sorts of leaders, activists, thinkers, doctors, scientists, engineers, construction workers, farmers, factor workers—not just academics!

Yet, for James, pluralistic does not mean neutralistic: To have spent one’s youth at college, in contact with the choice and rare and precious, and yet still to be a blind prig or vulgarian, unable to scent out human excellence or to divine it amid its accidents, to know it only when ticketed and labeled and forced on us by others, this indeed should be accounted the very calamity and shipwreck of a higher education. (1907/1987e, p. 108) Summary A university should educate students to have a critical eye for excellence in human beingness—in knowing what makes a worthy human being in the broadest sense. Human excellence (a) is pluralistic in that it can be found anywhere, not just in certain social classes, cultures, or groups; (b) considers the needs and values of others; and (c) is a result of one’s best efforts. For James we are able to recognize human excellence by experiencing what excellence is in general in many contexts. One of the most compelling ways for students to cultivate a habitual recognition of “best efforts” is by a humanities education. James proposes two ways that all college students, regardless of their professional paths, can be broadly educated: (a) shortening the AB degree and (b) incorporating a humanities context into each college course. Conclusion For James the final word is that there is no final word: there is always a not-quite—not- yet aspect of any object, thing, person, and event. Students can learn from their courses what qualities exceptional human beings possess but learning about is not enough. These qualities should be modeled by exceptional teachers and administrators in the classroom, on the campus, and outside the campus, and they should be tested in experience by student’s engagement in many facets of campus life. Just having role models to emulate is not enough either. Students need a diverse foundation of ideas, principles, and outlooks that provide avenues for the constant exposure and testing of values and virtues. Thus the two important proposals James makes are circular and integrated and dependent upon the other—connected in many ways—and one should always reinforce the other. One of the aims of college education for James is to broaden the world of experience as much as possible and in order to accomplish this aim, policies should never be viewed as ends in themselves and should never prevent administrators, faculty, and staff from making student well being their ultimate goal. An institution of higher learning whose mission is to educate the whole person and espouses James’s ideas on education is what I call a “pluralistic university,” a place where

faculty and administration respect and encourage the autonomy, freedom, and positive potential of all students where diverse points of view are encouraged in their students as well as in themselves. It is a place where students are taught the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in the many facets of their lives and where they learn to connect these skills and knowledge with their own experiences. What makes a pluralistic university different from many universities today? A pluralistic university strives to do the following: 1. Puts in place a focused and coordinated effort by faculty, administration, and staff dedicated to cultivation of the whole human being, an effort which takes into account the aesthetic, physical, intellectual, spiritual, and moral needs and interests of students. Each course, discipline, department, and program is devoted to this goal and strives to understand and respect the efforts of others in achieving this goal. Some practices that are directed toward this goal would be restricting the size of classes; offering a variety of activities and experiences that account for the diversity of students’ backgrounds, interests, abilities, and goals; and providing multiple ways students and faculty can interact. 2. Recognizes that because experience is a blend of connections and disconnections, and because possibilities in situations of interpretation and choice generally outrun actual interpretations and choices, the complexity and fullness of experience cannot be entirely captured by conceptual tools such as definitions, abstract terms, theories, simulations, and models and their logical relations by isolated academic disciplines. Although these conceptual tools and disciplines are a means to the interpretation of concrete experience, they are not ends in themselves. Therefore the university encourages cultivation of the whole human being by offering students a broad curriculum and a variety of experiences in the undergraduate years that teach the concept of human excellence in its many forms over a highly specialized curriculum and narrowly focused experiences. Through multiple ways of assessment, the university does not define itself solely by national rankings, nor does it define a student merely on the basis of one particular type of assessment tool. 3. Encourages exploration of the integrity and interrelations of diverse points of view. Makes a concerted effort to hire professors and administrators in departments and programs who represent disparate views while encouraging open dialogue. Provides

conditions where students can build relationships with others who are different. Encourages diversity of faculty, staff, administration, and students. 4. Strives toward a balance of research and teaching. Does not promote professors primarily on the basis of published research but equally on professors’ efforts to get to know their students’ needs and interests and to help them develop, strive toward, and test their ideals. 5. Achieves a balance between the satisfying of needs of individuals and the needs of the institution. Puts rules and policies in place to serve the needs, promote the positive growth, and to protect the rights of its individuals. Amends or rejects rules or policies that tend to ignore or neglect individual interests. 6. Motivates students, faculty, and administration to take risks by participating in novel and challenging activities that help them to realize worthy goals and aims they set for themselves which are compatible with the goals and aims of others. The purpose of the following chapter is to examine what contemporary research in higher education says about James’s proposals for a “pluralistic university” and to consider some criticisms of James’s ideas on education.

CHAPTER 5 THE PRAGMATIC TEST—IMPLICATIONS OF JAMES’S THEORIES AND PROPOSALS FOR EFFECTIVE PRACTICE

The purpose of this chapter is to show how James’s ideas on education and his proposals for good educational practices are supported or not supported by a sample of relevant contemporary research in the area of student success in higher education. In keeping with the spirit of James’s Pragmatic Theory of Truth that a claim to truth should be tested in experience, we look at how his proposals bear out in practice. The chapter also explores and presents some possible criticisms of James’s ideas while offering suggestions for further research that might build upon, apply, and/or modify those ideas. This chapter seeks to answer the research questions: What are the implications of James’s proposal for higher education today? How does today’s research concerning college student success and well being support or not support James’s arguments and proposals? What limitations and possible difficulties must be considered when examining James’s proposals for educational practice? This chapter is organized into five main sections, Introduction: Nurturing the Inner Life, Faculty-Student Interaction in the Active Engagement in Diverse Student Learning, Pluralistic Humanities Oriented Curriculum, Reflections and Criticisms, and Conclusion. It is not the aim of this overall study to do an extensive survey and analysis of research on policies and practices in higher education that reflect James’s ideas on education. However, it is helpful to see how James’s ideas, which were published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are supported by a sample of relevant research in the areas of student academic success and well being today. This study on James’s educational perspectives should pave the way for original research that can explore in more comprehensive ways how his particular suggestions for practice might be defended and applied in practice by experts in the field of college student learning. Introduction: Nurturing the Inner Life A pluralistic university is an institution of higher learning whose mission is to educate the whole person. It is a place where faculty and administration respect and encourage the autonomy, freedom, and positive potential of all students by teaching them how to think for themselves,

critically, creatively, and independently. It is a place where they encourage diverse points of view in their students as well as in themselves. It is a place where students are taught the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in the many facets of their lives and where they learn to connect these skills and knowledge with their own experiences. Educating the whole person involves the cultivation of individual differences that can contribute to a pluralistic society that is complex, thick, dynamic, and diverse. Faculty and administrators recognize that both an inner life and an external life make up the whole human being. This inner life includes not only thoughts but also emotions, values, and ideals. The external life is largely devoted to “doing,” performing tasks that are observable and accessible in some way. These experiences overlap and, like James’s description of the experienced world, have aspects that are similar and different, that influence and are influenced by each other, and have no fixed or discernable boundary between them. As a result, an important role of higher education is to guide students in formulating their own ideals, goals, and objectives, personal, career, and professional, and to help provide them with the emotional, cognitive, academic, spiritual, and practical resources to achieve and test those ideals—a combination of the two realms of “being” and “doing.” It is evident that leaders today in the field of moral and spiritual development of college students echo James’s appeal to higher education to help guide students in their quest for exploring their inner as well as their outer lives. For example, Sharon Daloz Parks in Big Questions Worthy Dreams writes that young people often have dreams or goals that center on their becoming a particular kind of person. Places where students can begin their search for the “ideal” are those organizations and institutions where students can “push away from the safe but constraining harbor of conventional knowing in order to achieve an initial sense of self aware integrity.” Even though young people are “often accused of youthful idealism,” this stage in their lives is actually “the birthplace of adult vision” (2000, p. 146). The Higher Education Research Institute’s The Spiritual Life of College Students: A National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose indicates that a majority of college students report high levels of interest in spirituality, with three-fourths saying that they are “searching for purpose/meaning in life” (Higher Education Research Institute, 2004). Parker Palmer, who writes extensively on the nurturing of the inner life of college students, explains in A Hidden Wholeness, that in our modern society we tend to erect barriers between our inner and outer lives as we grow into adults. Palmer describes this inner life as one

of “ideas, intuitions, feelings, values, faith” as well as “mind, heart, spirit, true self, soul, or place-beyond-all-naming” (2004, p. 40). The problem with erecting these barriers is that our focus comes to be centered only on the outer life, and, as a result, we live divided and shallow lives (p. 44). He regrets that in his own experiences as a college professor he neglected to see the holistic needs of his students, and concentrated only on what he perceived to be his role, that of tending solely to their academic success. Jon C. Dalton writes that “specialization and bureaucratization in higher education” have increased the “fragmentation” of the college experience. Often on a large university campus, when students ask for help in solving the smallest of dilemmas, they encounter big problems (Dalton, 2006, p. 169). The “impersonalization and fragmentation of campus life help explain why students are so powerfully affected when a friendly faculty or staff member genuinely welcomes them.” Where there is a “separation of learning from the process of spiritual search for meaning and purpose,” education becomes depersonalized and loses its “transforming power” (p. 170). Alexander and Helen Astin write about the danger of higher education’s neglect of the inner life: Although higher education can justifiably take pride in its capacity to develop the student’s ability to manipulate the material world through its programs in science, medicine, technology, and commerce, it has paid relatively little attention to the student’s “inner” development—the sphere of values and beliefs, emotional maturity, moral development, spiritually, and self-understanding. (Astin & Astin, 2006, p. vii) What is “ironic” about the fact that students’ inner lives have been largely ignored, the Astins observe, is that the “maxim” “know thyself” is at the center of the meaning of a “liberal education.” They continue: This imbalance in emphasis on outer versus inner development has enormous implications for the future not only of our society but also of our world. Self- understanding is fundamental to our capacity to understand others: our spouses, partners, parents, children, friends, coworkers, and neighbors, not to mention people of different races, religions, cultures, and nationalities. If we lack self-understanding—the capacity to see ourselves clearly and honestly and to understand why we feel and act as we do—then we severely limit our capacity to understand others. (p. vii) These thinkers agree that colleges should not ignore the fact that students’ purposes in their lives

should be the guiding principles of their education and cultivation. Students should be reminded in all of the facets of their collegiate experiences that life is not just about adding to a bank account (Braskamp et al., 2006 p. xvii). In order for a university to teach students how to live whole and meaningful lives, it must reconsider “what it means to be a human being” (Wilshire, 1990, p. xxiv). But as James emphasizes, cultivating an inner life cannot be separated from having the personal and practical skills to back up the ideals and goals to which students aspire. For students, this means a holistic college experience that promotes academic success as well as social, personal, and moral development—each influences and is influenced by the other. In this chapter I discuss two practices that James advocates for helping students to formulate and reach their goals, and I show how research in student learning and overall success in higher education largely supports or does not support these practices. His first proposed practice is that colleges need to provide the conditions for meaningful and extensive constructive faculty and student interaction in the ongoing active and diverse engagement in student learning. His second proposed educational practice is that there should be a curriculum in place that focuses on positive human achievement through the provision of a pluralistic biographical, historical, and literary context. A fundamental barrier to cultivating the whole student is an overemphasis on professionalization and specialization, which leads to too much bureaucratization and neglect of individual human experience. To remove these barriers, for James, is always to appeal to human experience directly, to continue to test practices and policies in the light of a university’s goals and aims. There are many other factors that have been found to promote student learning and well being (Astin, 1993; Kuh et al., 2005; Hamrick et al., 2002; Baxter Magolda, 2002; Pascarella, & Terenzini, 2005). These include, but are not limited to, a focused and lived institutional mission, parental involvement, participation in certain types of student organizations, academic support structures, seamless learning between student affairs and academics, and interaction with diverse populations. These other areas James would most likely heartily endorse, but they are not included in this study. Faculty-Student Interaction in the Active Engagement in Diverse Student Learning After peer relationships, the second most important type of influence on student growth is faculty relationships (Chickering & Reisser, 1993, p. 316). To help to cultivate the whole life of students, a pluralistic university “puts students first” (Braskamp et al., 2006). An institution that

puts students first is a place where “leaders and faculty make a concerted effort to respect the personhood of everyone, simultaneously advocating unity of purpose and diversity of viewpoints, perspectives, and people” (p. 207). Therefore, educationists who work toward a campus culture that fosters student academic success and well being know that staff and faculty are the most important resource. Colleges and universities that put students first appoint faculty and administrators who are not only good teachers and good researchers but who devote much of their time and energy to their students’ overall well being and who make students a priority (Braskamp et al., 2006). Faculty as Positive Mentors and Teachers Colleges and universities who believe that higher education should apply their greatest efforts to the total development of students—intellectual, academic, social, civic, physical, moral, spiritual, and religious—expect their professors to do more than advance their personal research and scholarship. They are also expected to be mentors of students to further the students’ learning and development. As valuable mentors and role models, teachers engage in practices that increase student learning and confidence as well as over all academic success and well being (Braskamp et al., 2006, pp. 63–85). Chickering & Reisser (1993) describe four characteristics of teachers that are constantly described in empirical studies and personal experiences as nurturing college students’ “competence, autonomy, purpose, and integrity.” These are accessibility, authenticity, knowledge about students, and an ability to communicate with students (p. 335). Accessibility is translated to mean conditions where generally students do not feel that they are intruding upon their teachers’ “valuable time” (p. 335). Chickering and Reisser explain that accessibility does not mean that professors need to be on call every moment; neither does it mean that every student needs the same amount or kind of attention (pp. 335–336). Authenticity is a quality that communicates what a person honestly values and believes. Students often want to know how others feel about meaningful issues and why they feel as they do. Professors who are honest about their beliefs and do not hide behind what others assert help to model integrity and honesty for their students (p. 336). Knowledge About Students includes the awareness of students’ “social cultural, and spiritual backgrounds from which their students come, and the attitudes, ideals, and developmental problems they bring with them” (p. 336). Chickering and Reisser argue that teachers need to know more than just their subject matter; they should also

try to remember how they felt when facing college or graduate school. They should be attentive to learning theory, student characteristics, current issues affecting students, and strategies for making education meaningful to diverse adults with different learning styles and abilities. (p. 336) Closely tied to the important areas of knowledge about students is the ability to communicate with students (pp. 337–340). Important features of effective communication include showing empathy and warmth and a nonjudgmental attitude in listening to what the student has to say, another way to describe what James calls sympathetic understanding. Listening actively demands all of a person’s attention, his or her “eyes, voice, gestures, and body language” and “demands restraint” from doing other things to which professors would rather attend (p. 339) without offering “patronizing advice or quick solutions” (p. 338). Effect of Faculty-Student Interaction on Student Success Inside the Classroom. Teachers in a pluralistic university come to class with a genuine respect for student input into the ongoing search for knowledge. A genuine learning community is built on the commitment of professors to validating students and their contributions to knowledge (Baxter Magolda, 1992, p. 376). When teachers respect the values of their students’ experiences as a basis of student knowledge, young adults see a connection between what they have learned through their own experiences and new knowledge that they gain in their academic life. They see themselves as active constructors of new knowledge not just as repositories of knowledge (p. 378). But when professors think that they must convey knowledge that they assume is complete and irrefutable before they communicate it to students, they build barriers between themselves and their students (as James pointed out in his criticism of academic snobbery) (1909/1996b). Thinking that they have the ultimate authority for what they say, they create barriers that hinder “genuine connection,” and that fail to take “students’ experience into account,” that would lead to making “meaning with, rather than, for students” (Baxter Magolda, 1992, p. 390). What follows is that students’ unique voices are excluded from the learning. It is much easier to tell students what one thinks they should know instead of making the effort to build genuine connection with them. Building a climate of genuine connection where students can incorporate their experiences into the learning process takes “constant assessment of students’ needs, adjustment and reorganization based on assessment data, and flexibility to respond to the directions sparked by students’ experience” (p. 389). “Contextual

knowing” is achieved by “validating students’ contributions to learning, situating learning in students’ own experience, and defining learning as joint construction of meaning” (p. 391). James’s students, when remembering him as their teacher, commented that he took them along with him in the process as he thought through issues, reasoned out arguments, and reached conclusions (Simon, 1996). They were given the confidence they needed to help them know that they could succeed. Outside the Classroom. Students are more willing to take part in the college environment as a whole in positive ways when faculty members become more involved in their lives. Why is non-classroom faculty-student interaction found to be so crucial? Parks (2000) emphasizes that many students have a “hunger” for meaningful “conversation” and interaction with their professors and other adult role models (p. 155). They often are uncertain about what they want to do with their lives, how to deal with a loss or crisis, or how to make decisions independently of their parents. Chickering (2006) argues that After all is said and done, strengthening authenticity, spirituality, purpose, and meaning depends first and foremost on how individual faculty members are authentically present with their students, individually and collectively and on the sophistication they bring to the learning environments they create. (p. 144) Although there is limited empirical evidence that indicates that students’ moral reasoning can be positively influenced by their teachers specifically, the synthesis of research points out that students are affected by interaction with those who are at more “advanced stages of principled reasoning,” and this evidence suggests that teachers as positive adult role models can influence students’ moral development (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005, p. 363). In studies of universities that implement the most effective academic practices, it is found that many different kinds of student faculty interactions positively influence student learning. Largely the interactions that most benefit student development are those that happen outside the class period, but are related to classroom or intellectual problems or questions. These include working on outside projects and discussion and clarification of feedback. The more often these interactions occur, the better it seems for the student. In fact “working on a research project with a faculty member just once during college could be a life-altering experience. . .” (Kuh et al., 2005, p. 303). Pascarella & Terenzini (2005) found that student/faculty non-classroom interactions which build upon the intellectual climate and stimulation of the academic experience

have considerable positive effects on “general cognitive development such as postformal reasoning, analytical ability, and critical thinking skills” (p. 209). Hamrick et al. (2002) concluded that students benefit when they have routine informal contact with faculty outside the classroom. In spite of the potential drain on their time, faculty serve students well if they are available for serious discussion related to class work outside of class, be it in a faculty office, in the student union, or in the resident hall cafeteria. The experience benefits students and can be quite rewarding for faculty as well. (p. 171) Although James advocated meaningful faculty/student interrelation, building constructive relationships with students also means refraining from making moral and ethical decisions for them. James’s recommendation that students have total self governance over their behavior (1885/1987a; 1886/1987g), as well as Paulsen’s defense of the German university’s allowing students total freedom (Paulsen, 1894/1895), are supported to some degree by research today. Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) write that regardless of an institution’s size or academic selectivity, those that have student-enforced honor codes or honor systems are most likely to have fewer incidents of student dishonesty (according to what students report to researchers). These findings may be interpreted in at least two ways. One interpretation is that honor codes help to create an overall climate of, and emphasis on, academic integrity. Another is that those with institutions who have honor codes are the ones that attract students who already tend to value academic integrity (p. 368). Although James gave his students special attention, he would agree with the findings of Kuh et al (2005, p. 303) that suggest that there is a point where teachers can spend too much time with their students. Chickering & Reisser (1993) argue that there are circumstances when not interacting with students by letting them solve problems and dilemmas on their own without an adult nearby can be most conducive to their maturity (pp. 335–336). Students whose needs have been closely tended to before they come to college by parents and others benefit from learning what it is like to be on their own and to think independently. Sometimes it is better for them to pick themselves up after they stumble than to depend on others to pull them up. There are some students who do not want or need to have a large amount of interaction with their teachers. Each student has different requirements and needs that can foster his or her learning. If students’ time with their professors is to have the greatest impact on student learning, however, Kuh et al. (2005, p. 303) found that it should be directed on the whole toward academic, intellectual, or

career interests. Discussing grades, working on projects with teachers, and discussing career opportunities once or twice a semester should be adequate for most students—one need not invite them to weekly tea as did James! Ways for faculty and Students to Interact Braskamp et al. (2006) in their study of colleges that make students a priority, found that office visits were by far mentioned most frequently as meaningful student faculty interactions to both students and faculty (pp. 148–151). During office hours, students were able to feel more comfortable about requesting for help in their studies and to move to more challenging levels regarding subjects introduced in the classroom setting. In the faculty office students are more likely not to feel pressured by peers to behave in a certain way, such as getting the only right acceptable answers to questions in front of others, and as a result, are more engaged in critical and creative thinking than in the classroom. But office hours are also a time where students feel more at ease to discuss controversial topics which in turn leads to greater rapport and subsequently greater involvement in academic efforts. Therefore, the faculty office hour is a way not only to expand the classroom environment but to take students to a more profound level academically and personally. To make these visits successful, it is important for faculty to be committed to keeping their office hours, have students sign up, and to know their boundaries when it comes to addressing students’ personal concerns. Another meaningful faculty student interaction is students’ visits to faculty homes (pp. 151–153). Faculty home visits are particularly meaningful to students because students are able to get to know their teachers as persons with many different interests. Faculty home visits extend the intellectual community of the campus for students. It is understandable that faculty cannot constantly host students for many reasons, and life is not as simple as in James’s time when students could walk over to his home on Irving Street in Cambridge to have lunch with him and his wife. Nor do many (if any) faculty members have omnipresent servants as did the James family. However, it is shown that faculty home visits do foster holistic student development when they occur (p.152). Other settings that allow for meaningful faculty-student interaction are immersion experiences such as spring break and summer study abroad experiences, field trips, research projects, and program and paper presentations at conferences (pp. 153–156).

Doctoral Students Creating an intellectual community where doctoral students can become effective leaders and thinkers is an essential part of a successful and productive graduate school experience. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching examined what factors influenced the quality of doctoral education. Their research found that overall faculty members and students consider a supportive and challenging intellectual community as vital to the effectiveness of doctoral training and crucial for a quality doctoral student experience. One of the most important factors in creating an intellectual community is how faculty engage, respect, challenge, and support doctoral students (Walker, Golde, Jones, Bueschel, and Hutchings, 2007). A flourishing intellectual community is one that is not only diverse but encourages and values diversity. As James emphasized, a truly intellectual climate is one that encourages the expression of many perspectives and promotes a vigorous but constructive debate about these perspectives (1909/1996b). Crucial to a dynamic intellectual community, according to the Carnegie report, is that graduate students are not seen merely as students by faculty but as novice colleagues. They are viewed and treated as ones who contribute new outlooks and alternatives ways of thinking. But building meaningful faculty and student relationships takes concentrated commitment from both professors and students and develops over a long period of time (Braskamp et al., 2006, pp. 147-148). To integrate the living and learning process takes a deep commitment from the university. A pluralistic university sees the crucial importance of the interface between academics and personal life. This interface is not just restricted to faculty, but includes professional staff as well, including advisors, coaches, campus ministers, and counselors. Pluralistic Humanities Oriented Curriculum A pluralistic university takes into account the diversity and the inescapable multiple aspects and their relations that are involved in human experience. James characterized human excellence as “human master-strokes” in contributing to the world in some positive way (1907b/1987e, p. 107). We learn what human excellence means by our multiple experiences of observing, studying, and acting out what it is like to be human in a complex world. For James, one of the ways that students can learn the meaning of human excellence is by studies that have a pluralistic humanities orientation. Jacques Barzun writes that the history of science has now

become a part of the curriculum in many colleges today. In a time when so many science courses are required, its making its way into the pages of the course catalog is proof that James’s idea in integrating humanities with non-humanities courses provides an enduring “lesson for culture” (Barzun, 1983, p.5). There has been, however, limited empirical research concerning how studies in the humanities influence the academic success and overall well being of students. Although, thinkers for thousands of years have argued for the value of a humanities course of study, to begin to know the extent of the value of a humanities education, one must have had that experience (Berkowitz, 2006/2007). Some experts in the field of higher education, however, have examined how an academic major in humanities or attending a school whose core curriculum has a strong humanities orientation might influence moral development, attitudes and values, cognitive development, and academic success. The principal way colleges primarily can encourage moral reasoning is by “providing a range of intellectual, cultural, and social experience from which a range of different students might potentially benefit” (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005, p. 353). As James suggests, a variety of contexts, can help us to “recognize a good” person “when we see” her, and literature that depicts characters in situations where ethical decisions must be made can be one avenue for deeply thoughtful thinking. Astin’s research suggests that formulating a philosophy of life is significantly associated with discussions which revolve around race or ethnic issues, along with the number of writing courses, pleasurable reading, and behaviors that involve considerable thinking and reflection (Astin, 1993, pp. 155–156). These activities are often associated with courses that depict aspects of human experiences. For instance, majoring in the humanities is associated with discouraging students from seeing education only as a means to make money (pp. 372–373). Humanities oriented curricula also positively influence students’ engagement in campus protests ( p. 176), which can be interpreted as taking a stand when they feel that injustice has been done. Astin’s studies found that majoring in some field of humanities has positive effects on students’ GPA (p. 189) and that colleges that have curricula with a strong humanities focus and orientation show students reporting increases in both their writing and critical thinking skills (pp. 349–350). Aside from strictly empirical research, many thinkers who write on higher education argue, as did James, that education should be about educating a person to be rather than merely to do. Chickering’s (2006) ideas on curriculum and its potential to enhance and nurture

wholeness in students is very similar to James’s argument for the assimilation of the human element in all courses (1907/1987e). Courses such as business, engineering, and nursing can “address issues of spiritual growth, authenticity, purpose, and meaning” (Chickering, 2006, p. 113). This assimilation can be accomplished by the integration of “pertinent pedagogy, experiential learning, and human interactions.” Chickering argues that “experiential encounters” with the material takes students farther than any “pedagogical technique” (p. 113). He writes that there are particular curricular content that are most “powerful” in addressing “human life and thought,” and “meaning and values” (p.114): In every age and country, literature has recorded what it means to be human, to love and to hate, to experience ecstasy and pain, to be good and to be evil, to face death and to see G(g)od [sic]. . . . Reading and discussing literature, reflecting, and writing help students experience new relationships and ideas, new values and lifestyles, with minimal risk. They can observe varied forms of authenticity and fakery and test their own struggles against these. (p. 114) Also Chickering adds that “Historical trajectories and portraits of key leaders document the moral and ethical dilemmas associated with past times and cultural contexts. They give perspective on current social and political dilemmas and decisions and help inform personal judgments about key issues” (p. 114). Bob Connor, president of the Teagle Foundation, explains that as courses in Western civilization and the Great Books have been left behind for new curricula, so have many works that have asked questions about meaning and purpose in life and the place of education for seeking meaning and purpose. Connor’s suggestions to educators are also similar to that of James and Chickering: Students often have no idea that anyone else ever thought about the questions that concern them most. No wonder they feel alone and isolated. So introduce them, in class or out, to the authors, artists, biographers, philosophers, writers of texts sacred and secular, and musicians whose struggles with the Big Questions have been most meaningful to you. Do not limit yourself to those that provide neat answers. And do not think you have to be the expert. It is the questions that count and those who ask the questions well render the greatest service. My friends have, for the most part, been dead for a couple of thousand years— Homer and Socrates and that crowd. But you know, if you share them, they come alive

again. Try it and watch that miracle happen. (Connor, 2008, p. 10) Connor writes that critics may react by saying students should not ask and seek to answer the “Big Questions” because there are no easy, single correct answers to them. Conner responds by saying that the fact that they demand more than simple answers is just the point of exploring them, to learn how to find solutions to problems that arise in each day of our lives, when we must adjudicate options based on their worth in terms of values and usefulness. Connor explains: Most of the big issues we struggle with have no single, universally applicable, solution. Varying solutions can be proposed based on values, judgments, worldview etc., but how effective they will be is less a matter of definitive proof than of alertness to context and long term consequences. Some approaches are richer and more revealing than others. (p.9) As James would argue, more than thought based on intact logical systems is needed. Connor writes that the teaching of this type of reasoning, what is called postformal reasoning, is “what makes higher education genuinely ‘higher.’ But it is not something we have focused on, even at the finest universities” (p. 9.) Yet, he says we clearly should assume the responsibility. Universities, he continues, need to set the development of postformal reasoning capacities as a clear goal for our institutions, our departments and programs, our courses and our counseling, to help students develop that kind of reasoning. And we have to develop ways of assessing how well we are doing in this most challenging, but most rewarding part of our professional lives. That is not easy, I know, but it can be done. (p. 9) Other critics may suggest that one type of an agenda or set of values is forced upon students when particular courses involving human achievement are offered. Such agendas can marginalize particular groups who do not share the same values. Edward M. Hundert, chairman of the AAU (Association of American Universities)-ACLS (American Council of Learned Societies Humanities) Task Force, responds with the following: humanities typically doesn’t construct a handy-dandy system of meaning and values to live by, but rather informs us [on] how such constructions are ideologically vested, culturally biased, or unstable in some other way. Indeed, by revealing the complexity in what initially might seem simple, their goal is often to provide a context in which people might learn to live with ambiguity. (Hundert, 2006, p. 3) Martha Nussbaum (1997) suggests that an education that integrates the teaching of critical

thinking skills with a pluralistic content (as James argued for), composed of works and contributions of those represented by many different types of groups from many kinds of cultures, not just our own, is necessary for students to begin to understand the humanity of others as well as to nurture the humanity in themselves (p. 293). Nussbaum, like James, argues that such a curriculum is not only good but necessary in a world where people of many perspectives must get along with each other. Nussbaum’s argument, it can be suggested, is a synoptic synthesis of James’s essays “On a Certain Blindness” (1899/1958a); “What Makes a Life Significant” (1899/1958c); and “The Social Values of the College Bred” (1907/1987e). She writes, We do not fully respect the humanity of our fellow citizens—or cultivate our own—if we do not wish to learn about them, to understand their history, to appreciate the differences between their lives and ours. We must therefore construct a liberal education that is not only Socratic, emphasizing critical thought and respectful argument, but also pluralistic, imparting an understanding of the histories and contributions of groups with whom we interact, both within our nation and in the increasingly international sphere of business and politics. If we cannot teach our students everything they will need to know to be good citizens, we may at least teach them what they do not know and how they may inquire. We can acquaint them with some rudiments about the major non-Western cultures and minority groups within our own. We can show them how to inquire into the history and variety of gender and sexuality. Also we can teach them how to argue, rigorously and critically, so that they can call their minds their own. (Nussbaum, 1997, 295) Nussbaum argues that it is relatively easy to create and implement a curriculum whose primary purpose is to educate a gentleman who is a member of a homogeneous and elite group. It is far more difficult to prepare people of highly diverse backgrounds for citizenship in a complex world. Curricula aiming at such an ideal cannot be standardized for all students and can fit no general mold (p. 295). Boylan and Donahue (2003) write that as a result of interest in the use of stories to promote character education, researchers are challenged to examine the effects of different kinds of narratives, including autobiography and biography, on students’ ethical decision making. Similar to James, some researchers argue that studying the lives of those who are regarded as “saints, “heroes,” or “ordinary folk” provides instructions on how to live moral lives in ongoing

experience in contrast to memorizing isolated and fixed principles which do not take into account the complexity of the whole of people’s lives. Through this learning process, ethics pertains to “‘becoming a type of person’ rather than focusing explicitly on doing or performing certain actions” (p. 42). Boylan and Donahue explain, Character ethics through the use of the concept of narrative helps to account for the idea of development and change within the moral life. Narrative and character, in that they imply the ongoing communication and connection of ideas and events over time, suggests [sic] that the moral self and the moral tradition are in the process of continual transformation. (p. 42) Reflections and Criticism Although much of the research in the moral development of college students supports James’s ideas on the importance of the cultivation of the inner life of students and the significance of exceptional adult leaders and teachers as positive influences on students’ academic success and well being, and many thinkers in higher education agree with James’s emphasis on the benefits of a humanities-oriented curriculum, some difficulties in James’s proposals for higher education arise with further analysis. Often his proposals seem too simplistic and seem to ignore many details that are obvious to educationists who teach in a diverse society today. These difficulties arise, it may be argued, from his lack of understanding of the societal problems that existed during his life time, as well as his lack of understanding of the complexity of organizational structures in general (Garrison & Madden, 1977, p. 212). Moreover, James’s role as teacher and scholar must have been highly influenced by the particular population of students who attended Harvard as well as Harvard’s own particular prestige and resources. For example, students who attended one graduate seminar James taught included George Santayana, as well as Messrs. Mezes now President of the City College, New York, Pierce, Professor at Smith College, Angell, President of the Carnegie Foundation, Bakewell, Professor at Yale. . . Alfred Hodder . . . later author of a brilliant book The Adversaries of the Skeptic. . . . (Miller, 1996, p. 127) An envious class of students by any teacher’s standards! James’s own personal affluence and background were also surely factors that influenced his outlook on social issues (Garrison & Madden, 1977, p. 221).

Faculty-Student Interaction in the Active Engagement in Diverse Student Learning Home Visits. James’s frequent invitations to students to his home for lunch can hardly be widely adapted by professors in American campus settings today. James’s situation was unique; he lived a few steps from the campus and had many servants in his home to take care of domestic duties for his family. Although James had sizeable classes as a popular teacher (in 1888, for example, he had 87 students in his Philosophy 2 class, [Richardson, 2006, p. 284]), he did not have to encounter the impersonal masses of students that we see often on the university campus today, and it was thus much easier for him to get to know his students personally. James could see the advantages of Harvard’s small size in contrast to large scale institutions that made it more difficult for students to have the personal guidance and instruction they needed from their professors. James’s argument for appealing to students’ needs first and his relationship with students should be viewed as helpful in assessing how professors can have strong influence on their students’ academic and personal life and his patience and attentiveness to students viewed as a general guide for practice. Extensive research on how particular kinds of faculty/student interaction influence student moral behaviors, attitudes, and values, cognitive skills, and academic achievement in today’s world of technology could be useful to help provide more human scale in large universities. Such interaction includes online conversations by means of college course management systems such as Blackboard, or by email exchanges. This type of interaction would allow students and their teachers to interact, but their interactions would not depend upon meeting on or off campus. In this way, teachers might help to make students feel more comfortable in seeking advice about their school work and other challenges, and strengthen faculty members’ mentor/mentee relationship with students. Exceptions for Students. James advocated making exceptions for students from policies that he considered to be unfair or that he regarded as hindering student learning. George Herbert Palmer, his colleague in the department of philosophy at Harvard, thought James to be too lenient and says in a memoir of James that “His judgment of men was not good; it was corrupted by kindness.” Palmer writes that when James served on doctoral committees, he always pleaded for mercy for the student if the student showed that he had put forth his best efforts. According to Palmer, if a student’s future was in doubt, James would likely protest, “Of course Smith is n’t [sic] a genius. But, poor devil, how he has worked!” (Palmer, 1996, p. 31). His vocal opposition to rules and regulations often seemed at times to deemphasize the

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crucial importance of policies that are put into place to protect the rights of individuals not threaten them. An account by Gertrude Stein in her Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, may not be completely accurate, but is still in keeping with James’s sometimes anarchist sentiments: It was a very lonely spring day. Gertrude Stein had been going to the opera every night, and also to the opera in the afternoon and had been otherwise engrossed and it was the period of the final examinations, and there was the examination in William James' course. She sat down with the examination paper before her and she just could not. [“]Dear Professor James,[”]she wrote at the top of her paper, [“]I am so sorry but really I do not feel a bit like an examination paper in philosophy today,[”] and left. The next day she had a postal card from William James saying, [“]Dear Miss Stein, I understand perfectly how you feel. I often feel like that myself.[”] And underneath it he gave her work the highest mark in his course. (Stein, 1933, pp. 97-98) If Stein’s recollection of the events is true, then one wonders how other students felt who might have studied long hours for the exam! As noted earlier, James encouraged students to oppose the PhD requirement if they felt it was detrimental to their education (1903/1987b). Although it is important for students’ maturity and independence for faculty to encourage a certain amount of questioning of rules and regulations that they see as hindering their growth, it can be easily argued that such encouragement could be potentially harmful to students if they blatantly refuse to follow procedures that are crucial to their academic success and future. Much reflection and caution should be undertaken before teachers ask students to ignore or refuse to follow university requirements. Yet, we must concede, that so much has been written about James’s life that he is an easy target for those looking for any faults he might have. His day-to-day teaching habits are far more scrutinized than the classroom behaviors of most professors. George Herbert Palmer, for example, writes that James lectures were not consistently good, “often lacking continuity,” and were subject to James’s moods (Palmer, 1996, p. 32). The Harvard Monthly revealed that he had canceled an exam on a day of a Princeton game in 1889 because students had complained—a not too harsh indictment we would say today (Townsend, 1996, pp. 125–126). To what extent should teachers be “lenient” with their students? James would most likely say it depends upon the degree of maturity of the students and the situation, and it is always best to maintain a tension between authority and freedom in any case. James it would seem, when in doubt, would always tip the scales to freedom and give students the benefit of the doubt.

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The Value of Pedagogy. James seemed to dismiss too offhand the complexity of the classroom environment and the need for thorough training and education of teachers about dealing with complex problems that may arise. Santayana quotes him as saying that to teach, one simply needs to know the subject well and leave the rest up to chance (Santayana, 1996, p. 93). This advice may not bode well for teachers who are often challenged by factors arising from different backgrounds, abilities, and interests of students, factors that James, the “favored child of fortune and a gentleman scholar” (Garrison & Madden, 1977, p. 221), most likely did not often encounter in his experiences as a teacher in a Harvard classroom. Although James spoke of the needs of the individual, he provided little guidance for teachers to help students overcome any unique limitations they might have. Finding ways to spark the interest of many types of students can be an often difficult and challenging endeavor, and James seems to appeal most often to a teacher’s natural abilities over acquired skills: But, when all is said and done, the fact remains that some teachers have a naturally inspiring presence, and can make their exercises interesting, while others simply cannot. And psychology and general pedagogy here confess their failure, and hand things over to the deeper springs of human personality to conduct the task. (1899/1958b, pp. 80–81) James’s assertion that some are destined to be good teachers (since evoking students’ interest is the key to effective teaching for James) while others are not seems to be inconsistent with his otherwise openness to future possibilities, and his attitude has the potential to discourage those who have hidden abilities and who might have early difficulties in particular classroom settings or challenges while performing well in others they have yet to discover. Pluralistic Biographical, Historical, and Literary Oriented Curriculum Problems with Teaching Narratives as a Means of Character Education. One of the problems with teaching moral decision making by means of narrative is that it is not apparent just how stories can influence moral judgment: “Do they instruct by intuition? Do they offer concrete guidelines for action? Are moral principles transposed from story to action?” Research does not, at this point, give clear answers (Boylan & Donahue, 2003, p. 43). It is also problematic that stories can be presented and interpreted in many different ways according to purposes and agendas that may have been brought to them. The criteria of selection of stories may be based on the degree to which particular narrative can capture students’ interest. Many teachers may not have the training and background to teach stories in light of their

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historical and cultural contexts (pp. 37–56). And upon what criteria is the notion of “human excellence” based? How does one define a “hero” or “heroine” or “saint” (p. 42)? They write The foundationalism vs. nonfoundationalism debate casts a shadow on the ethics of character. Issues of ethical pluralism, the debate about the rational or other foundations of an ethic, the possibility of cross cultural ethics all need to be addressed by those who propose an ethics of virtue and character. (p. 44) When looking at the connection between academic experiences and the education of moral individuals, some argue that thinking that a college education can prepare one for a moral life is confusing one set of values (i. e., academic ones) with another set of values, and this confusion can be detrimental to the quality of education (Fish, 2003). The debate will likely continue as the field of character development in education expands and wields more influence on college campuses. James’s proposal that a unifying vision of the university should focus on human flourishing can be seen as antiquated in a postmodern world. For this reason and others, James is often lumped with writers of the past who wrote about education to popular audiences. Most frequently thinkers in this category, such as John Henry Newman, are not highly regarded by scholars in the field of higher education research and thought (Newman, 1853/1976; Barnett & Standish, 2003). In response to this type of criticism, one can offer the views of David Hollinger who writes that James was “one of the first to take up the cause, for being among the great prophets of epistemic humanity, a founder of truly ‘modernist’ or even ‘postmodernist thought’” (Hollinger, 1997, p. 69). Bill DeLoach (2000) applies Jencks’s six points that characterize the “post-modern project” (Jencks, p. 7, 1992) to James’s thought. DeLoach claims that James passes the test to be considered a “postmodern.” What is relevant to our purpose in James’s pleading for a particular type of curriculum is that two of the characterizations Jencks and DeLoach cite are “An obligation to bring back selected traditional values, but in a new key that fully recognizes the ruptures caused by modernity” and “An intense concern for pluralism and a desire to cut across the different taste cultures than now fracture society” (DeLoach, pp. 1– 2; Jencks, p. 7, 1992). We should also keep in mind, as stated earlier, that a pluralistic universe does not mean “neutralistic” universe; neither does a pluralistic university mean a “neutralistic” university. An institution cannot avoid espousing a set of values, whether its members recognize that such is the case or not. For James, pluralistic values consist of openness, reason, examination, inclusion—

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“rais[ing] the prospect that any particular conception of truth we might have is fallible” (Kimball, 1995, p. 19). For example, James wrote the following about the “teaching of philosophy”: What doctrines students take from their teachers are of little consequence provided that they catch from them the living, philosophic attitude of mind, the independent, personal look at all the data of life, and the eagerness to harmonize them. (1876/1978b, p. 5) Santayana writes of him that “as a philosopher who is a teacher of youth” he was more concerned with giving his students “a right start” than “ a right conclusion” (Santayana, 1996, p. 100). Although James advocated a humanities curriculum, he did not advocate a core curriculum, and he wanted the curriculum to be as pluralistic as possible. He advanced the notion that any conception of truth is subject to revision or rejection and is always in process and thus incomplete, and he argued that even though all institutions should embrace certain values, the assessment of the worth of any guiding principle or course of action is always conditional upon its usefulness. Thus, the mission of any university should be continually tested in the context of its practices and policies, but this does not mean that the university should not have a mission. There is potential for further research, therefore, that focuses on the demonstration of how James’s advocacy for a particular type of curriculum that espouses a specific set of values (although pluralistic) can be viewed as a postmodernist reinterpretation of the university course of study. Scheduling. Knowledge since James’s time has become so sophisticated and complex that disciplines have splintered off into many sub-disciplines. The scope and extent of knowledge demanded for a profession allow no room for what some consider to be detours from the needed intensive training. Many college students feel pressured to begin a career as soon as possible that will allow them to pay back their loans and support themselves. Taking the time to add biographical accounts of “superior” individuals and to show how these individuals make critical decisions in the historical context of each subject of a public research university could hardly be feasible. Further research to show how humanities programs are successful that integrate biographical and autobiographical contexts of many different kinds of courses is needed. More texts and articles that highlight programs that focus on students’ search for meaning as Chickering, Dalton, & Stamm’s (2006) “Illustrative Course Syllabi” in Encouraging Authenticity

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and Spirituality in Higher Education can be used as models for curricula for first year experience seminars, small learning communities, and other programs that aid universities in increasing their psychological human scale. Criticism of Bureaucratic structures in Education Social Issues. James has often been accused of being naïve about the prevalent social issues of his time. He frequently offered what others have described as simplistic solutions to problems that he only encountered from a distance. Although famous thinkers who wrote on social issues at the turn of the century such as the economist Thorstein Veblen and sociologist Max Weber studied at length James’s work in psychology and religion respectively (Tilman, 1996; Ghosh 2005), there is no evidence at this time that James read their writings or had any sophisticated knowledge about social theory (Garrison & Madden, 1997, p. 212). Although James championed those “underdogs” he encountered in his professional, social, and personal life, James “was not ideally suited to understanding certain kinds of underdogs,” such as African Americans, women, the poor, and immigrants (p. 221). Yet, it can also be argued that based on the assertion that James was not likely sufficiently aware of the needs of certain populations, that he lacked an understanding of the types of problems that disadvantaged college students may encounter before, during, and after their college experiences. James elevated the masculine over the feminine in his language and exhibited attitudes in many of his writings such as “The Moral Equivalent of War” (1910/1977a), and in his personal correspondence that are offensive to postmodern pluralistic outlooks (Garrison & Madden, 1977, pp. 217–219). Although James wrestled with the issue of gender equality at times and often championed the right of women to have equal academic opportunities, he never offered satisfying resolutions to the problem. Charlene Haddock Seigfried in Pragmatism and Feminism for example, notes that although James exhibits obvious gender bias with his “ideology of separate spheres” (1996, p. 111), he offers much for feminists to build upon, and James should not be totally dismissed out of hand (pp. 111–141). Human Scale and Democratic Opportunity. James believed that the task of higher education in a democracy is to educate as many students as possible and as many kinds of students as possible (1891/1987d). He was opposed to standards he considered to be too high that tended to weed out many students who did not have exceptional intelligence (1903/1987b). He urged that students who were not interested in general college preparation but were more fitted for professional schools and who were not considered to be academic (in the traditional sense)

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attend college. He argued that social and economic status should not influence the student’s right to go to college. On the other hand, James fought hard against the oppressive effects of “bigness” in organizations, including colleges and universities, corporations, and government but did not offer any specific suggestions (so far that I have found) for how colleges and universities can educate masses of students to be future citizens while at the same time have a small enough human scale to provide the conditions that foster individual attention. Lack of Administrative Experience. James was the only one in his department at Harvard while he was there who declined to be department chair, and if he was persuaded to assume any administrative duties, he assumed these reluctantly (Palmer, 1996, p. 33). He had little experience in dealing with the many factors that influence the management of institutions, including the many types of challenges that administrators must face and the complexity of the problems in terms of conflict of goods they must solve. It could be argued that James had a bias against anything institutional, not seeing the good as well as the bad that institutions can do, for “his individualism kept him from acting in concert with others through effective organizations to bring to bear cumulative pressure” (Garrison & Madden, 1977, p. 211). James’s lack of administrative experience and obsessive individualism most likely limited his ability to appreciate in a comprehensive way the general benefits of policies such as the PhD requirement. James would agree that the underlying purpose of the PhD should be to give evidence that the faculty member can conduct original scholarship in her field, and that she can think for herself and teach herself, not just rely on others’ knowledge or scholarship. It can be argued that just as faculty should demand students to perform at the highest appropriate level, so also administrators and faculty peers should require the doctoral degree of professors as demonstrations of their ability to produce original research at a high level. James’s argument was that the original aim of the PhD was often ignored in order to further the reputation of the college. In many ways, he is right. It is highly probable that someone of James’s ability but who is largely self-educated as was James would not be able to teach in a university today. However, James overemphasized the disadvantages of the degree. James always felt himself to be an academic outsider because he had not earned a degree except an MD (1903/1987h; Richardson, 2006, p. 408). He never felt quite at home at Harvard with his fellow scholars. Some professors shunned him because he did not have a formal academic degree (Santayana, 1996). Feelings of resentment may have influenced his resistance

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to an across-the-board requirement of the PhD. In addition, he was especially affected by the academic struggles of his son Aleck, who was probably dyslexic and who would go on to fail the entrance exams for Harvard five times (Richardson, 2006, p. 440). Some of James’s sympathy for struggling students (1903/1987b) who are penalized for not passing exams may have been somewhat influenced by his son’s problems. While James’s argument that abstractions such as general administrative policies should not be viewed as ends themselves is a valid one, it should be noted that his vehemence against such practices might not have been so strong had he not had these personal experiences. The subject of James’s essay, “The PhD Octopus,” was Alfred Hodder, a lecturer for a short while at Bryn Mawr. James’s account of his treatment was disputed by Bryn Mawr’s President Martha Carey Thomas in a 1903 letter. In 1895, Hodder was appointed a lecturer in English. In 1898, he declined a reappointment. Richardson, in his account of James’s life and teaching, observes that although James often argues with considerable force against unnecessary rules and policies in his writings, he headed a committee that recommended academic robes so elaborately decorated with graded insignia that the university ignored their recommendations (2006, Chapt. 71: n. 4, p. 575). The gowns are described in “Academic Hoods, Caps, and Gowns” (James, Wambaugh, & Morgan, 1899, pp. 62–67. Critical judgment. James’s praise of individual achievement over institutional achievement, together with his fallibilistic philosophy, may have adversely affected his judgment of persons’ abilities. John Jay Chapman describes his friend as having “too high an opinion of everything.” Chapman writes that James exalted every book and every person he met because he “saw too much good in everything.” James’s judgment was “too indiscriminating” while “always classing things up into places they didn’t belong in and couldn’t remain in” (Chapman, 1996, p. 55). Santayana (1996) describes James in a similar vein, although more eloquently and affectionately: Until the curtain was rung down on the last act of the drama (and it might have no last act!) he wished the intellectual cripples and the moral hunchbacks not to be jeered at; perhaps they might turn out to be the heroes of the play. (p. 96)

He wished to protect the weak against the strong, and what he hated beyond everything was the non possumus [inability to innovate] of any constituted authority. . . . The suspense of judgment which he had imposed on himself as a duty, became almost a

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necessity. I think it would have depressed him if he had to confess than any important question was finally settled. He would still have hoped that something might turn up on the other side, and that just as the scientific hangman was about to dispatch the poor convicted prisoner, an unexpected witness would ride up in hot haste and prove him innocent. Experience seems to most of us to lead to conclusions, but empiricism has sworn never to draw them. (p. 99) Yet it is amusing to note that although James’s colleague George Herbert Palmer also says of James that his “judgment of men was not good,” Palmer also writes that James’s “over-estimate of Charles Peirce, and too ample acknowledgment of his own debt to Peirce’s thought, I believe to have sprung quite as much from pity as from admiration” (Palmer, 1996, p. 31). As history has borne out, James’s admiration of Peirce’s intellectual and philosophical abilities was not overrated, and James’s insistence on helping Peirce, raising money to support him when Peirce was destitute, is a touching and well known story in the history of American pragmatism (Richardson, 2006, pp. 371, 484). Other Suggestions for Further Research In “The PhD Octopus,” James presents an example of how rules and policies can interfere with empathetic understanding of others’ needs and wants. This study has cited examples of contemporary higher education policies such as the increase of class size (Baxter Magolda, 1992), devotion of considerable time and efforts in the quest for lucrative research projects (Bok, 2003), and the emphasis of research over teaching (Kuh et al., p. 290), which can be barriers to fostering students’ well being. More research that depicts specific examples of how university practices today can neglect the student “as individual” is warranted. For example, (Pope, Miklitsche, & Weigand (2005) point to “one-size-fits-all programs, services and pedagogies” as detrimental for some first year students (p. 61). They stress that all first year students are not alike and “must not be treated as a homogeneous group” (p. 62). Although students of color must deal with many of the same issues that White students face in their initial year in college, their “unique concerns are often not acknowledge or identified until they leave the institution or until later in their education” (p. 66). Schuh (2005), for example, provides an overview for assessing first year programs that focus on the identification of the needs of first year students (p. 148). There is a need to take into consideration in designing orientation seminars and courses the “considerable variability in individual circumstances based on membership in other groups (such as being gay or lesbian) and on individuals backgrounds and experiences” (Pope et al., p.62).

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Although treating all students as if they come to college with the same backgrounds and experience is frequently not done as a result of a genuine belief that all students are exactly the same, such practices of treating students in such a way as if it were intentional or based on belief, I argue, is an example of institutional intellectualism. James’s appeal for colleges and universities to value the many aspects of student experience includes educating young people for civic engagement. A feature of this role of the university, James would argue, is the involvement of faculty in helping students to be active citizens and leaders. Checkoway (2001) writes that a number of research universities were at one time dedicated to the mission of civic responsibility, but now he observes that many institutions have changed their focus in order to devote their time and efforts to being research machines. This change has caused many higher learning institutions to neglect their promotion of civic engagement. He suggests ways that faculty can engage students in civic responsibility and to conduct research that relates to social and political problems. As has been noted in this study, Astin (1993) found that curricula centering on the humanities are shown positively to influence students’ engagement in campus protests (p. 176), which can be interpreted as students’ taking a stand when they feel that injustice has been done. Research that connects a bio-historical context of non-humanities courses (for which James argued [1907/1987e]), such as geography, economics, and business, to civic engagement that relates to these fields would demonstrate more specifically how humanities oriented subjects influence students’ attitudes and behaviors when associated with particular fields of study. Conclusion When James attended classes at the University of Berlin in 1868, he discovered that continually throughout his young life his impatience in seeing the fruits of his hard work had caused him to give up too easily. He wrote to his friend Tom Ward about his experiences as a student in Germany: “I have been growing lately to feel that a great mistake of my past life, wh. [sic] has been prejudicial to my education, is an Impatience of Results. . . “ (1868/1995b, p. 250). His advice to his friend is to “Have confidence, even when you seem to yourself to be making no progress, that if you but go on in your uninteresting way they [the results] must bloom out in their good time” (p. 251). It was often difficult for James to take this advice himself when he became frustrated about his job or bored with his family life. But he knew that patience was an invaluable virtue, and he saw it as a necessary trait when working toward some ideal. For example, in order for a university staff and leaders to begin to take into account

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human experience in its widest and deepest sense, it takes patience. For James, this means having patience in getting to know students; patience in making big changes in the curriculum; patience in luring great individuals, teachers, and administrations as adult leaders; patience in testing new ideas that seek to enhance student learning; and patience in setting up conditions for students to learn to think for themselves. Effecting wide changes in higher education is not easily or quickly done, but can still be accomplished, according to James, if enough individuals devote their best efforts to high and worthy aims. James wrote, for instance, that students could learn to govern themselves without any faculty oversight. He cautioned however, that such a goal would take many years to accomplish: But it is obvious that such a consummation will have to be reached, if it ever is reached, step by step. . . . But any tone can be changed by the cumulative energy of individuals working in the same direction for a series of years; and if, every year, twenty men with position, resolution and tact, would make it their business to resent offenses against the tone of the college in character and conduct, we should end by imbuing the very atmosphere with an honor, manliness, pride and delicacy, to which all things could be entrusted, and which would be the most precious thing a young fellow coming here would gain,—worth far more to him than his learning or his degree (1885/1987a pp. 123– 124). Referring to higher education’s power to avert the harmful effects of popular media on a gullible society, he writes, Affections for old habit, currents of self-interest, and gales of passion are the forces that keep the human ship moving; and the pressure of the judicious pilot’s hand upon the tiller is relatively insignificant energy. But the affections, passions, and interests are shifting, successive, and distraught; they blow in alternation while the Pilot’s hand is steadfast. He knows the compass, and with all the leeways he is obliged to tack toward, he always makes some headway. A small force, if it never lets up, will accumulate effects more considerable that those of much greater forces if these work inconsistently. The ceaseless whisper of the more permanent ideals, the steady tug of truth and justice, give them but time, must warp the world in their direction. (1907/1987e, p. 110) Neither did James, when noting the ruthlessness of bigness, see that the war against its destructive forces could easily be won. Although large structures seem to be impervious to extensive changes, individuals if they are persistent can make huge differences:

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I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms; and with the invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, stealing in through the crannies of the world like so many soft rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, and yet rending the hardest monuments of man’s pride, if you give them time. . . . So I am against all big organizations as such, national ones first and foremost; against all big successes and big results; and in favor of the eternal forces of truth which always work in the individual and immediately unsuccessful way, under-dogs always, til history comes, after they are long dead, and puts them on the top. (1899/1920, p. 90) James never abandoned his faith in a melioristic universe, a universe that allows for a balance of individual needs and interests. When individuals’ ideals are put into practice in the concrete world, some dreams collide with other dreams, and often “some part of an ideal must be butchered” in order to accomplish the “right scale of subordination in ideals” in the world (1891/1977b, p. 622). Therefore, the “destiny” of a melioristic universe depends upon “a lot of ifs,” a world, that for James, is “unfinished” (1911/1996c, p. 229). To make changes so that many needs are met takes the dedication of individuals to do their best, to devote their greatest efforts—a combination of envisioning a world much better than our present one, trusting that we can make it become so, and the will to devote all of our energies to it: We can create the conclusion, then. We can and we may, as it were, jump with both feet off the ground into or towards a world of which we trust the other parts to meet our jump—and only so can the making of a perfected world of the pluralistic pattern ever take place. Only through our precursive trust in it can it come into being. (p. 230) For James, the university has a crucial role in “the making of a perfected world of the pluralistic pattern,” and it can only assume this role if it is pluralistic itself. It must be a place that values autonomy, freedom, creativity, and diversity of its students and faculty and that never loses sight of the distinctive needs as well as potentials of the individuals it serves. James never lets up in reminding us of the fragility of young people’s lives and the destructive forces that can possibly harm them. If his theories are at times simplistic or anachronistic, they can also be at the same time profound. James, unlike John Dewey (1916/1966), did not formulate a systematic philosophy or philosophy of education, and herein lies the primary weakness of his scholarship. According to Perry, James “had no interest in intellectual architecture: he was an explorer, and not a surveyor or map maker” (Perry, 1935, Vol. 1, p. 449). Although he was “more concerned

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with the new wine than with the old bottles,” (p. 449), it is important to keep in mind that James was working out and formulating a brand new kind of philosophy. Santayana writes that James was not the type of scholar who would “have a system in store, to be applied at a pinch” (Santayana, 1996 p. 105), and his “fresh imagination and vitality. . .led him to break through many a false convention” (p. 93). “Life and reality were for James too warm, too rich and colorful in detail, to be brought easily within the limits of any formal system” (Perry, 1935, Vol. 1, p. 468). It is tempting to interpret James’s arguments as false dichotomies. However, just as James emphasizes that abstractions have their proper place in our survival and understanding of the world, so too he would say that many policies and practices have their proper place in our colleges and universities. Although he argues in “The True Harvard,” that a college should not be reduced in meaning to rituals, rituals are important for “there are days for affection, when pure sentiment and loyalty come rightly to the fore” (1903/1987h, p. 75). Furthermore, he would also say that exams and requirements have their place, but any one instrument of assessment should not be regarded as an end in itself as he emphasizes in “The PhD Octopus” (1903/1987b). Keeping this in mind, we must continue to heed his warnings. In this age of increasing technology that exacerbates the already bureaucratic educational nature of our institutions, there is much we can learn from this “adorable genius” (Whitehead, 1925, p. 2). I have argued in this study that it is crucial for educators to take James’s wise entreaty to heart and put it into practice in their own experience: the most precious good of any institution is its human element and character.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Pamela Castellaw Crosby is co-editor of the Journal of College and Character, an online journal published by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). Crosby also serves as Director of Publications for the Hardee Center for Leadership and Ethics in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Florida State University and is associate editor of the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy. She grew up in rural western Tennessee, and is a former high school English teacher, department chair, and K-12 language arts specialist. Crosby is a Milken Family Foundation National Award Educator, 1997 Colorado Teacher of the Year finalist, and 1996 Poudre School District (Fort Collins, Colorado) Distinguished Teacher Award recipient. She earned an MS in English Education from the University of Tennessee-Martin and an MA in Philosophy from Colorado State University before entering the doctoral program in History and Philosophy of Education at Florida State University. Her research interests, in addition to William James’s philosophy and philosophy of education, center on the history and philosophy of German and American higher education and the history of ethical problems and issues relating to 19th and 20th century American colleges and universities.

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