Evening star., 1938-05-08
TW0Y0UTHA|DES
ADDRESS COUNCIL
Education Group Hears DR..
Robert N. Hutchins and
Dorothy c. Fisher.

UOrOlny =. FiSner.
Two noted members of the Ameri-
can Youth Commission presented diff
ferent phases of the education prob
lem before the closing session Of the
2lst annual convention Of the Ameri-
can Council on Education at the May
flower Hotel yesterday.
They were DR.. Robert M. Hutchins.
youthful head of the University of
Chicago, who enumerated five schools
of thought that oppose education de-
signed to develop social consciousness,
and Dorothy Garfield Fisher, writer,
who discussed Schooling for Youth
in the Light Of Adult Education"
The council was joined at its con-
cluding Saturday afternoon meeting
by members of the Middle Eastern
Library Association, which met during
the morning at National Archives and
finished last night with their annual
banquet at the Carlton Hotel
Dean Herbert E. Hawkes. of Colum-
bia College, Columbia University, was
elected chairman of the council for
the coming year, succeeding DR.. Ed
ward Charles Elliott, president of Pur-
due University.
Fav0rs Social Consciousness.
1T seems obvious to me-" Dr. Hut
chins said in his address delivered
shortly after he landed at Washing
ton Airport from Chicago plane and
only an hour before his departure at
the same place, that the kind of
education I have been urging is the
kind that helps to develop a social
consciousness and social conscience.
Why isn't 1t obvious to everybody else?"
To answer his own question, he set
forth five cults of thought-skep-
ticism, immediacy or presentism, SCI
entism, anti-intellectualism and SEN
timentalism, to illustrate his subject,
Education and the improvement of
Society"
Discussing the cult Of immediacv.
he said I'VE attack old problems not
knowing they are old and make the
same mistakes because We do not
know they were made. So today
Stuart Chase and Thurman Arnold
assistant Attorney General and ex-
Yale professor those great discoverers,
are renewing the medieval contro-
Versy between the nominalists and
the realists without realizing that
the subject was ever discussed before
and without the knowledge or train
ing to conduct the discussion to any
intelligible end"
Wide Anti Intellectual Range.
DR.. Hutchins said members of the
cult of nti-intellectualism range
from Hitler, who says he thinks with
his red corpuscles, through the mem
bers of the three other cults to men
of good WILL Who since they are men
of good will. are at the opposite pole
to Hitler, but who can give no rational
justification for being there.
The quest for social improvement
is perpetual one Men always have
wanted not different society but a
better one. Only those who recognize
the important place that philosophy
and the wisdom of the race must hold
in education for citizenship can hope
to educate men and women who can
contribute to the improvement of So
ciety and who will want to do SO.
The cults of skepticism, presentism
scientism and anti-intellectuaiism can
lead us only to despair. not merely
of education, but of society,"" DR..
Hutchins concluded
Mrc Eichor toll aI, ~,
believed there is one bright and hope
full new aspect of their work, the new
opportunities offered by the modern
organization of society for creative
living by people in their mature years.
if the education given them in their
youth conditions them to take ad-
vantage Of these opportunities.
Hobbies Not Adult Education.
1t is plain that adult education "is
not merely pleasing entertainment for
the spare time created by the labor
saving machine" the writer said Nor
is it. God forbid, the riding of 50
called hobbies.
I'D welcome some Jonathan Ed
wards vitriol poured into the state
ment that not the speediest automo-
biles. not the strongest gin. not the
most violent amusement park. not the
dirtiest stories and actions can long
distract human attention from the
terrible inner emptiness that comes
when they have allowed themselves to
be cheated out of their rightful heritage
Of doing or constructing, or creating,
or thinking. or growing something
skillfully.
THE people to whom you make
inaugural and commencement ad-
dresses and lectures really do not fully
take in the intimate, close, inescap-
able connection between education for
youth in our times. and adult educa-
tion," Mrs. Garfield concluded.
Others Address Session.
Speakers at yesterday mornings ses-
sion of the council were Chancellor o.
c. Carmichael of Vanderbilt Univer-
sity; President Alan Valentine of the
University of Rochester and DR.. John
A. Sexon, president of the American
Association Of School Administrators.
Other officers named by the council
were: Daniel A. Prescott, Rutgers Uni
versity, first vice chairman: Dean
Grayson N. Kefauver, Stanford Uni
versity, second vice chairman; Dean
Ernest O. Melby, Northwestern Uni
versity, third vice chairman, and Cor
coran Thorn, president of the Ameri-
can Security & Trust Co.. of Wash
ington, treasurer.