A GROUNDED THEORY COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE HUTCHINS PLAN PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AND THE HUTCHINS COMMISSION PHILOSOPHY OF THE PRESS By SUSAN DELL GONDERS GOLIKE Bachelor of Arts University of Oklahoma Norman, Oklahoma 1973 Master of Education University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, Oklahoma 1991 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION December, 1995 j . COPYRIGHT By Susan Dell Gonders Golike Doctor of Education December, 1995 A GROUNDED THEORY COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE HUTCHINS PLAN PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AND THE HUTCHINS COMMISSION PHILOSOPHY OF THE PRESS Dissertation approved: Dean of the Graduate College ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. IN"TRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1 Background ...................................................................................................... 1 Problem ............................................................................................................. 2 Questions ........................................................................................................ 14 Significance .................................................................................................... 18 Endnotes ......................................................................................................... 22 IL METHDOLOGY ............................................................................................ 28 Strategy ........................................................................................................... 29 Limitations ..................................................................................................... 51 Scope ............................................................................................................... 52 Endnotes ......................................................................................................... 53 III. FIN"DINGS: BACKGROUND ..................................................................... 61 Appeal. ............................................................................................................ 61 Historical influences on Hutchins' education philosophy ...................... 62 Ancient Greece, Medieval Europe, The Collegiate Way, The Emergence of the University, Neohumanism, Great Books Endnotes ......................................................................................................... 83 IV. FIN"DINGS: EARLY YEARS ....................................................................... 87 Youth ............................................................................................................... 87 Yale .................................................................................................................. 89 Chicago: the beginning ................................................................................. 94 iii The Hutchins Plan ......................................................................................... 97 Endnotes ....................................................................................................... 111 V. FINDINGS: THE CHICAGO BATTLES ................................................ 115 The battle to gather like-minded men ...................................................... 115 The battle over the manifesto .................................................................... 124 The battle for someplace to go .................................................................. 132 The battle against the faculty .................................................................... 143 Sabbatical projects ....................................................................................... 148 Great Books Program, World Government, Hutchins Commission on Freedom of the Press Endnotes ....................................................................................................... 158 VI. FINDINGS: THE COMMISSION ............................................................ 166 Historical influences on Hutchins' press philosophy ............................ 167 Ancient Greece, Medieval Authoritarianism, Soviet Totalitarianism, Enlightenment Libertarianism, 20th Century Positive Freedom The Commission: its creation .................................................................... 185 The Commission: its deliberations ........................................................... 189 The Commission: its conclusions and recommendations ..................... 192 Reactions ...................................................................................................... 200 Repercussions ............................................................................. ·,· ............... 209 Hutchins: continuing press critic .............................................................. 212 Endnotes ....................................................................................................... 213 VIL FINDINGS: AFTER THE COMMISSION ............................................ .222 World Government ..................................................................................... 223 Departure from Chicago ............................................................................ 226 Ford Foundation.......................................................................................... 230 Fund for the Republic ........................................ ,........................................ 237 Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions .................................... 247 Endnotes ....................................................................................................... 262 iv VIII. ANALYSIS: SYNTHESIS OF FINDINGS .............................................. 267 The education philosophy of Hutchins .................................................. .269 The press philosophy of Hutchins ........................................................... .271 Similarities between his education and press philosophies ................. 271 Intolerance of disorder ....................................................................... 272 Distrust of freedom ............................................................................. 275 Socialistic authoritarianism ............................................................... 277 Impracticality ....................................................................................... 284 The philosophical foundation of social responsibility ........................... 288 Endnotes ....................................................................................................... 290 IX. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .................................... 295 Conclusions .................................................................................................. 296 Recommendations ....................................................................................... 307 Endnotes ....................................................................................................... 310 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 314 APPENDIX A. GENEAOLOGY .............................................................................. 338 APPENDIX B. CHRONOLOGY ............................................................................ .339 V CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This is a grounded theory comparative analysis of the education philosophy and the press philosophy of Robert Maynard Hutchins, architect of the Hutchins Plan for higher education and chairman of the Hutchins Commission on Freedom of the Press. Background Hutchins was born in January 1899 in Brooklyn, New York. At Yale University, where he was named secretary of the Yale Corporation at age 28 and dean of the Yale Law School a year later, he began developing his vision of the purpose and structure of institutions of higher education. At the University of Chicago, where he was named president at age 30, he tried for 21 years to implement the Hutchins Plan, which called for severe alterations in structure, administration, procedures, curriculum, content and evaluation; he outlined the philosophies on which the Plan was built in The Higher Learning in America, published in 1936. A decade later, during a 1946-48 leave of absence from the University of Chicago, he directed the completion of reports by two panels he had created; the Committee to Frame a World Constitution called for renunciation of national sovereignty and global reorganization under the authority of a single world government, and the Commission on Freedom of the Press called for changes in the philosophy and operations of American mass 1 2 communications, as outlined in A Free and Responsible Press, the Commission Report edited by Hutchins in 1947. In 1951, he left the University of Chicago to join first the Ford Foundation, then the Fund for the Republic, and finally the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Hutchins died in May 1977 at age 78 in Santa Barbara, California. Problem The Higher Learning in America (1936) remains an important part of the study of the history and philosophy of higher education, particularly in regard to current calls for a neoclassical and neohumanist curriculum, but absent from the literature of higher education is any in-depth consideration of Hutchins' press philosophy and how it