Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-09-10
Garrett
Continued From Page GID

nndllV acquired, marks series OF
isolated hurdles, jumped at random,
and not even standing on single
race track. The successful passing
of a specific course all too frequently
represents an excuse for remaining
permanently injurious about count
less other fields and topics which
ought to challenge the thought of
every educated man. Our colleges
successfully prepare few later spe-
cialists for excellent work in their
chosen fields only to sacrifice in the
same classroom the intellectual well
fare of the majority of students who
are not destined for any such spe-
cialized work. In this way speciali-
cation operates as hindrance to
genuine education.
The second barrier to learning in
our schools and colleges is indoc-
trination. At the same time that
American educators unite in con-
demning the interference of politi-
cal authorities with academic free
dom In halls of learning, individual
teachers in our schools and colleges
use the prestige of their chairs to
inculcate, specific social, political
and philosophic creeds.
Balanced Picture Essential.
Now the essence of intellectual
freedom consists in allowing every
teacher the right fearlessly to spread
whatever ideas he has honestly al
rived at. But right implies duty
The right to indoctrinate does not
mean that any and every exercise
of it is wise. After all, the teacher
who has an urge to cry 10, here,
or 10, there" must remember that
he is not addressing a community
of scholars but group of young
uniformed minds. While his intel
lectual integrity requires him to
speak out in the learned journals,
his integrity as teacher of young
people demands that he give his
young listeners a balanced picture
of his field before proceeding to
state his own particular convictions.
The believer in some specific po-
litical or economic creed may have
truth on his side, but he is a poor
teacher If he fails to give other,
opposing views a fair hearing. The
advocate Of some specific theory Of
social science or psychology may
be sincerely convinced that all OPP
posing doctrines are mere super
stitions, but he is a poor teacher
if he fails to present to his students
the honest claims of the defenders
of those doctrines. No teacher needs
to be an intellectual straddle-bug
but a man turns his classroom into
the mouthpiece for some political
or philosophic movement or creed
at the price of his own intellectual
integrity and the risk of perma-
nent injury to the minds of his
students. Fanaticism has always
claimed to be in behalf of worthy
cause: Savonarol was quite con-
WINGED that he spoke in the name
of truth and religion.
A third impeachment to education
in our modern institutions of learn
ing is the host of diversions of
school and college life-athletics,
clubs, festivities, or, in & word, ex-
tra-curricula activities. The young
student finds himself in \ world
of football rallies, newspaper pub
fishing, fraternity rushing, teas,
dances, etc. Unless he is an I'M
usually hardy soul. he finds it i'm
possible not to fall in line with
the majority of his fellows, to do
what they are doing, to value what
they are valuing. and seek what they
are seeking. Be well-rounded, he
is told. The contacts which you
make at college will be more valu-
able than your courses.
Now some extra curricula activi-
ties are, indeed, helpful to some
students in many ways. But no
unbiased person who surveys our
average American school or college
scene would deny that these activi-
ties are vastly overemphasized in
the lives of many students.
Apologists for the system usually
fall back upon the argument that
Satan finds some mischief still for
idle hands to do, and unless stu
dents were occupied with extra
curricula tasks they would probably
get into mischief, make trouble for
the college authorities, etc. All of
this is quite true, but entirely ir-
relevant. If education is the goal
of our institutions, then both idle
ness and excessive xtra-curricula
activities are hindrances.
Mind Contacts Mind.
Aristotle distinguished between
the essence of thing and neces-
sary accident of it. For example,
he believed that the essence Of man
is nationality, while two-leggedness
Is a f1eceSsarv accident. While all