THE COLLEGE St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland Santa Fe, New Mexico October 1973 THE COLLEGE Vol. XXV October, 1973 No.3 IN THE OCTOBER ISSUE: The Liberal Arts Movement: From Ideas to Practice, by Amy Apfel Kass Report of the President, 1972-73 . 9 News on the Campuses . 27 Alumni Activities . 3 0 Editor: Beate Ruhm von Oppen Managing Editor: Thomas Parran, Jr. Editorial Advisory Board: William B. Dunham, Michael W. Ham, Paul D. Newland, Barbara Brunner Oosterhout '55, E. Malcolm Wyatt, Robert S. Zelenka. THE COLLEGE is published by the Development Office of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. Richard D. Weigle, President, Paul D. Newland, Provost. Published four times a year, in January, April, July and October. Second class postage paid at Annapolis, Maryland, and at other mailing places. THE LIBERAL ARTS MOVEMENT: FROM IDEAS TO PRACTICE by Amy Apfel Kass On the morning of November 19, 1929, the number of new buildings. We urge that the following editorial appeared in The Daily Maroon, the new administration take heed of its primary student newspaper of the University of Chicago: responsibility and its greatest opportunity­ Today amid scenes of academic grandeur, the progressive guidance of educational Robert Maynard Hutchins will be inaugu­ policies. ratedas the fifth president of the University The students got their wish, with interest. of Chicago. It is an occasion of vast moment Hutchins' ideas rapidly became common knowledge in the history of the University and we as and the entire campus became a place of debate and undergraduates are inspired with its signifi­ conflict, sometimes verging on open· warfare. cance. We are confident of the progressive Mortimer Adler's cryptic note to Hutchins on the eve ~pirit and the sympathetic understanding of of his inauguration had been more knowingly the new administration. We are further prophetic: "I trust that the University's funds are convinced that the program of educational securely invested. Otherwise they may have to pawn emancipation which has distinguished the the crown jewels before your inauguration. But you University in American college circles will will probably wear the crown lightly in either not be neglected. ·circumstance.. '' In a consideration of the occasion's whole significance one aspect appears to us most The Department of Philosophical StudieS distasteful. The functions and duties of a college administrator have changed radically As soon as Hutchins was appointed President of in the course of recent years. He is no longer the University of Chicago, he invited Mortimer Adler an educator, but a salesman and extortioner to join him as his philosophical guide. Although Adler ne plus ultra. The planning and execution of did not move to Chicago until the Fall of 1930, by the Spring of 1930,;the end of Hutchins' first year at educational policies is no longer his prime consideration. He must secure donations and the University, a scheme had been hatched by Adler endowments; he must acquire funds for the to institutionalize work he had begun at the People's University's physical expansion. The Institute in New York with Scott Buchanan and importance of this mercenary and unsavory Richard McKeon. function of the administrator is particularly Adler proposed that Hutchins create a new depart­ evident here where the grey towers continue ment in the University, a Department of Philosoph­ to rise on a Gargantuan scale. ical Studies. Adler thought that such a department would provide by example a way to integrate learning It is to be hoped that the pressure of this within the University. The proposed Department of work will not require the whole devotion of PhilosophiCal Studies would be independent of but President Hutchins. We feel that he, like related· to all existing departments in the University. former President Max Mason, possesses "It would have no more or less to do with the regular educational ideals which if given Department of Philosophy," Adler said, "than it opportunity for development, will place the would have to do with the Law School, Medical University of Chicago in far greater School, or the Departments of Physics or Fine Arts." prominence than the addition of any The members of the Department would be "student- 1 The College professors," "a third class of professors along side of McKeon. the already recognized classes of teaching-professors Though the "student-professors" were to be and research-professors." Their work would be to vagabonds within the University, they were to be analyze and evaluate the principles and methods of appointed to a separate official department in order the various subject matters and to relate these to each to· make it possible to get an endowment and thus other. insure their financial independence from other "First of all," Adler suggested, the student­ departments. Adler innocently thought that if his professors department had its own budget it would require minimal co-operation from other departments, and would study a subject-matter maturely therefore, that his plan would not be viewed as a and critically. Secondly, they would threat or a challenge. actively participate in the work of the department, in class and out. And lastly, The "Chicago Fight" and Its Consequences after they had trained themselves and educated themselves sufficiently, and if Many faculty members were, however, they had achieved a critical re-organiza­ immediately wary of the plan and became increas­ tion or approach to the subject matter, ingly suspicious of its proponents. Members of the they might give others the benefits of this Philosophy Department were especially alarmed, insight by giving a course which might be seeing in the plan the seeds of a revolution against equally profitable to undergraduates, their kind of philosophizing. Others saw the plan as a graduate students, and professors of the "power conspiracy on the part of the administration, other two varieties. which was pictured as a 'baby president,' aided by Savonarola and Richelieu" (Buchanan, Poetry and In practice, the student-professors would go from Mathematics, page 23). They regarded Hutchins as a one department of the University to another, staying radical upstart against the revered "Chicago School,'' in one place only as long as they_ found it useful to as a man in search of a new religion. Still others saw themselves. (Adler assumed that when they ceased to Hutchins as dangerously conservative, as a man learn from a given department, they would no longer seeking to resurrect beliefs and practices of less be useful to that department.) As the student­ enlightened ages. professors passed from one department to another, United by a common enemy, these various groups they would create "new lines of inquiry into border­ joined forces and prepared themselves for a long and line areas and promote integration by offering inter­ bitter crusade. Their battle cries became "Facts vs. disciplinary courses. For example, as students of Ideas," "Empiricism vs. Speculation," "Science vs. philosophy they could bring philosophy to the Law Dogma." The "Chicago Fight" was quickly over­ School; after immersing themselves in the study of shadowing the "Chicago School." One can better law they would offer a course in the philosophical understand the severity of the faculty reaction if one foundations of law. They ·could then bring appreciates the long-standing and pervasive influence philosophy and law to the next department in which of the "Chicago School." they decided to study, and so on. In addition, The "Chicago School" was originally identified because they were continuing their own education in with the names of John Dewey, George Herbert different fields, these student-professors would be Mead, James R. Angell, and James H. Tufts. In a unusually well-suited to offer courses in the great review of some of the early philosophical papers by books, an additional means of promoting the "integra­ these men, William James wrote, shortly after 1900: tion of learning. Moreover, Adler thought that these courses would educate good undergraduates "in such The rest of the world has made merry a way that they might be recruited for the work of over the Chicago man's legendary saying the Department of Philosophical Studies." Thus, that 'Chicago hasn't had time to get round Adler's scheme provided for its own perpetuation as to culture yet, but when she does strike well as a congenial home for himself and his fellow her, she'll make her hum!' Already the "liberal artists," Buchanan and McKeon. For Adler prophecy is fulfilling itself in a dazzling insisted to Hutchins that the success of his and manner. Chicago has a School of Hutchins' plans for the University required the Thought!-a school of thought which, it is reunion of the "triune," Adler, Buchanan, and safe to predict, will figure in literature as 2 October 1973 the School of Chicago for twenty-five 1904. Dedicated to their separate disciplines, the · years to come. faculty correctly perceived Hutchins' animus against specialization, They made it impossible for Hutchins . to create the Department of Philosophical Studies by He concluded with the comment that the work of going through the normal academic channels. Also, it Dewey and his colleagues and disciples presented "a became exceedingly difficult for him to find a home view of the world, both theoretical and practical, for Mortimer Adler anywhere at the University which is so simple, massive, and positive that, in spite outside of the President's office. of the fact that many parts of it yet need to be Hutchins' negotiations with the Philosophy Depart­ worked out, it deserves the title of a new system of ment on Adler's behalf were doomed from the philosophy." beginning. Prior to coming to Chicago, Adler sub­ John ·Dewey had come to the University of mitted a list of the courses that he was interested in Chicago in 1894 as Professor of Philosophy.