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The Education of Man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Extract

IT is for man that education must exist. Such a statement may seem too obvious to make at all. Yet its meaning is rarely understood today. Too many contemporary educators fail to recognize the central point of man in the educative process. There is lavish talk of education for the masses, education for today, education for tomorrow, education for democracy, education for business, education for science and industry, education for power and even education for death. But the real problem is education for man. Man may make various uses of his education in contributing to political and social enlightenment, in increasing our technological control, in elevating the standards of the multitude, and in diminishing human pain and suffering (or in increasing the agony of men by multiplying methods and instruments of war and death). These uses, however, are after-products. The particular product — and the root-problem — is man and his personal and spiritual awakening, growth and fulfillment.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1944

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References

1 Maritain, Jacques, Education at the Crossroads. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1943. Pp. x-120. $2.00)Google Scholar.

2 Maritain, Jacques, True Humanism, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938)Google Scholar, ch. 1.

3 That Hutchins doesn't grow weary or humorless in his attempt to make American education meaningful is quite apparent in his latest book. Education for Freedom (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1943)Google ScholarPubMed.

4 See Newman, , Idea of a University, Discourses IIGoogle Scholar, III, and IV, on the place of theology in the order of knowledge. Also note Maritain, , Degrees of Knowledge (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938)Google Scholar; von Hildebrand's, Dietrich “Conception of A Catholic University,” from The University in a Changing World, a symposium, edited by Kotschnig, Walter M. (London: Oxford University Press, 1932)Google Scholar; and Gilson's, Elienne actually magnificent essay, “The Intelligence in the Service of Christ the Kina.” in Christianity and Philosophy (New York: Sheed and Ward. 1939)Google Scholar.

5 See Nef, John U., United States and Civilization (Chicago University Press, 1942)Google Scholar. Also note his essays in The Review of Politics. “American Universities and Western Civilization” (July, 1939); “On the Future of American Civilization” (July, 1940); “Civilization at the Crossroads” (July, October 1941); “Philosophical Values and American Learning” (April, 1942); and “Philosophical Values and the Future of Civilization” (January, 1943).

6 New York: Pantheon Books Inc., 1943. Pp. 42.

7 The Universities Look for Unity, ch. 1.

8 The poverty of the teaching in American colleges and universities has also made it fairly clear that the familiar Ph.D. routine is not a good preparation for a teacher. Although the average Ph.D., as one might expect, ably rationalizes about the necessity for his existence in the college, his proper place, in the educational system of Maritain. is in the Institute of Advanced Research.

9 Because the life of the teacher requires such a completely unselfish and undistracted dedication of a man's energies, T. S. Eliot suggested, some years ago, that true teachers band together into lay communities, not unlike the communities of religious. These societies of teachers might indeed be the redemption of teachers and teaching.

10 Doren, Mark Van has now published a pleasant and successful essay on Liberal Education (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1943)Google Scholar but has nothing startling to add to the Hutchins-Adler theory which is his guide.