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Liberal Education on the Great Plains American Experiments, Canadian Flirtations, 1930-1950

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Liberal Education on the Great Plains American Experiments, Canadian Flirtations, 1930-1950 University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Spring 1997 Liberal Education On The Great Plains American Experiments, Canadian Flirtations, 1930-1950 Kevin Brooks Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Brooks, Kevin, "Liberal Education On The Great Plains American Experiments, Canadian Flirtations, 1930-1950" (1997). Great Plains Quarterly. 1938. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1938 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. LIBERAL EDUCATION ON THE GREAT PLAINS AMERICAN EXPERIMENTS, CANADIAN FLIRTATIONS, 1930~1950 KEVIN BROOKS In 1929 the University of Chicago plan for cialized and disjointed in the first thirty years liberal or general education was first proposed of the century, although it was far from being by its young president, Robert Maynard the only general education experiment of its Hutchins. Sociologist Daniel Bell, in his his­ day. The Experimental School at the Univer­ tory of general education in America says, "The sity of Wisconsin and the General College at Chicago plan sought to draw together the dis­ the University of Minnesota are usually iden­ ciplines in three fields-the humanities, the tified, along with Chicago, as the three most social sciences, and the natural sciences-and significant general education experiments of Jo consider problems which, by their nature, the early 1930s. 2 These experimental programs could only be understood by applying concepts served as models, in whole or in part, for re­ from different disciplines. "1 Hutchins' proposal forms throughout the Great Plains region of became the most discussed plan for balancing Canada and the United States during the 1930s university curriculums that had become spe- and 1940s. In this essay I will identify two trends that emerge out of these initial experiments-a trend combining liberal education traditions and a trend combining liberal and professional education-and show to what extent those trends were taken up by the land-grant col­ leges, state universities, and provincial univer­ sities of the Great Plains. David R. Russell Kevin Brooks is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Iowa identifies three communities within the gen­ State University. He has articles on education in press eral education movement: those who saw util­ in Textual Studies in Canada and Rhetoric Review. ity and efficiency as the primary goal of education; those who saw culture as the pri­ mary goal; and those who saw social reform as [OPQ 17 (Spring 1997): 103-17) the goal. This paper will focus primarily on 103 104 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1997 the goals and actions of the first and second of liberal education and its manifestations in communities.3 I use "liberal education" here nineteenth-century Canada and the United to speak mainly of traditions in education. States, I will be able to formulate more clearly Twentieth-century experiments like those at the questions that need to be asked about gen­ Chicago, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are best eral education on the Great Plains. described as "general education experiments" because they attempt to offer a broad or gen­ LIBERAL EDUCATION IN THE EAST eral education. They are informed, however, by the liberal education traditions extending Bruce Kimball's Orators & Philosophers ar­ from Greek and Roman education to nineteenth gues that two distinct traditions ofliberal edu­ century versions of liberal education. To cation have, at various times, guided education clarify this distinction, I am arguing that this in the western societies. Liberal education in comparison of American and Canadian schools the Hellenic and Roman worlds was for the will show that western Canadian universities orator, the free citizen, and the curriculum that were more influenced by general education ex­ came to characterize this education-the seven periments on the Great Plains than by the nine­ liberal arts-was called the artes liberales. Stu­ teenth-century liberal education tradition in dents educated in the oratorical tradition were eastern Canada. The term "general education" not encouraged to discover new knowledge but was seldom used by Canadian educational re­ to support the knowledge and values of the formers, but was more common than "liberal ruling class to which they belonged. Not un­ education" in the US I will frequently refer to til the Enlightenment and the re-emergence of American general education experiments and the philosophical tradition of education in Canadian liberal education flirtations, but the the form of science did liberal education take two are synonymous. on the notion of being able to set its pupils I have limited my study of American schools, free through knowledge. Socrates and Plato besides Chicago and Minnespta, to those in represented the philosophical tradition of edu­ Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska because I am pri­ cation in classical times, while Isocrates repre­ marily interested in establishing educational sented the dominant oratorical tradition. patterns, not advancing research into the his­ Eighteenth-century university students in Eu­ tory of education or the curriculum at the rope and North America were still educated in American institutions. The archival research I the artes liberales and still admired the ancients, have done in western Canada, however, will Kimball says, "But their 'folk-hero' was Socrates shed some new light on the nature of Ameri­ with his uncompromising, never-ending search can educational and cultural influences on for truth." In contrast to the free-citizen of the western Canada. This comparison will also classical period replicating the values and show that much of the appeal of these Great knowledge of the ruling class, Enlightenment Plains experiments is their similarity to a Brit­ free-thinkers challenged conventional wisdom ish, Arnoldian conception of higher education, about science and society. The philosophical an issue that may complicate our understand­ ideal of education eventually began to influ­ ing of national and regional identity forma­ ence university curriculums by demanding more tion. attention be paid to the sciences, but those Before examining the general education demands were still made in the name of "lib­ experiments and flirtations on the Great Plains, eral education" generally.4 I need to clarify what I mean by "liberal educa­ Nineteenth century North American uni­ tion traditions" and provide a brief account of versities matured during the time when educa­ the history ofliberal education up till the twen­ tors were divided about the purpose of a liberal tieth century in the eastern regions of Canada education: to inculcate traditional values and and the United States. By sketching the history truths-the oratorical tradition-or to seek new LIBERAL EDUCATION ON THE PLAINS 105 truths and the clarification of values-the Hegelian and Arnoldian thought in Canada philosophical tradition. The Yale Report of extending through to the 1960s.9 McKillop, 1828, for example, was a defense of the ora­ however, is more sensitive to the turbulent and torical tradition and the classical curriculum transitional conditions of a westward expand­ against the onslaught of demands for practical ingCanada: and popular educaiton informed by the philo­ sophical tradition.5 Canadian historians of The English-Canadian university of the first education, most notably A. B. McKillop, ar­ quarter of the twentieth century, like the gue that this tension was not an important part society itself, was one in a state of precari­ of postsecondary education in nineteenth-cen­ ous balance between the weight of tradi­ tury Anglo Canada-"Virtually all English­ tion and the currents of change. Hence, the speaking educators in British North America academic could no longer be certain at mid-nineteenth century agreed that the prime whether his role was to safeguard social sta­ function of education was to instil into their bility or to facilitate social improvement. students sound principles of morality." Allan The first quarter of the twentieth century Smith argues that challenges to the traditional was not generally a happy time to be in Ca­ curriculum in Canada were made in the name nadian academic life. 10 of the stereotypically American myth of the self-made man.6 What McKillop and Smith One can certainly see vestiges of tradition in agree on is that Canada and the United States the curriculum and arrangement of the provin­ were both influenced by Scottish educators and cial universities of western Canada, but signif­ their Common Sense philosophy in the first icant attempts to provide a general education half of the nineteenth century and by Hegelian in western Canada, I will argue, were largely and Arnoldian idealism in the second half of influenced by American experiments and not the century.7 But where nineteenth and early nineteenth-century Canadian traditions of ora­ twentieth century Hegelian and Arnoldian torical liberal education. After the turbulent thought in eastern Canada largely curtailed the quarter century or more that McKillop de­ scient ism, pragmatism, and materialism that scribes, the
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