Evening star., 1948-05-16
What's Wrong With American Colleges?
Some Punqent Remarks From John Erskine
Reviewed by CARTER BROOKE JONES
MY LIFE AS TEACHER
BY John Erskine Iippincott; s3J

MY LIFE AS A IEACdEH
BY John Erskine. fLippincott;'
Reviewed by CART
Although commencement 81
utter platitudes about how our /
DR.. Erskine doubts that the a.
such thing.
Most schools, he feels, have
In character building than in n
He exempts the military sch
Annapolis, which teach response
bility and train characters" though
he adds that preparation for war
should not be the chief business of
civilized society -" 80 Apparently,
he says, the schools which prepare
for peace do not believe that the
peaceful need courage or endurance
or the spirit Of devotion" He ex-
cepts the Roman Catholic schools,
which "inculcate a system of per-
sonal ethics and develop character"
DR.. Erskine hastens to explain
that he does not indict the schools
exclusively for this indifference to-
ward making students more indus
trious, dependable and honorable
and more sensitive to unselflsh
ideals. Parents rarely give the mat
ter much attention, he points out,
and their hope is that their on
spring will come out not much
weaker morally than they went IN.
And where morality-personal obn-
CATION and responsibilities not
taught from the cradle up, he ADDS,
"an educational system may become
. costly folly"
Keeping the Secret.
As for the mental training, DR..
Erskine comments: THE student
can pass the course by mastering
part of it. An incomplete knowledge
of enough courses leads to a de-
gree"
To describe the result of this "un-
digested nibbling" we misuse the
noble. word culture. This kind
of culture is supposed to spring
from intellectual Incidence sur
rounded by architecture, preferably
Gothic" What little the students
learn, he says, could be acquired In
a short time, but wed rather keep
that secret to ourselves for the sake
of tuition fees" And so the notion
Is spread that the more slowly cul-
ture is acquired, the thicker it is
and the longer it sticks.
rs this education" DR.. Erskine
asks, "or is it a racket"
Toward the end Of his stimulating
book, DR.. Erskine has something to
say about the tendency in educa-
ton to follow the past slavishly. To
him Gothic buildings in American
colleges seem anachronistic and in
absurd contrast to American life"
And he adds: IF education does not
help us to live wisely in the day to
which we belong. then education, I
fear, is a mischievous enterprise.
The tragedy of European culture is
the extent to which it tangles itself
inextricably with the past
To Be Remembered.
DR.. Erskine's important career as
a professor Of English literature at
Columbia and Amherst has been
overshadowed, except in academic
circles, by his success as author OF
THE Private Life of Helen of Troy"
and other popular novels. The ver-
satile teacher and novelist has
achieved distinction in third field,
as a concert pianist. Despite the
more spectacular and tangible re-
suits which a novelist and mu-
sician can attain, it is easy to see
from this book that teaching has
claimed DR.. Erskine's particular de-
votion. And the academic world will
remember him for his innovations.
The most conspicuous of these is
the course in great books which he
initiated at Columbia and which
has been taken up SO widely else
where. He required each upper
classman to read one great book
week, aside from his classroom COM
mitments The books were dis
cussed at weekly meetings.
Dr. Erskine, who is not ashamed
of his Christian faith, insists,
though the thought Is somewhat
out of fashion, that the successful
teacher of great books of Western
Europe for the last two or three
thousand years must have some
form of religious philosophy" 1t
is. as he sees it, impossible to in
terpret these masterpieces by i'm
poverished PHILOSOPHERS which de-
fine man as biological or chemi-
cal accident or as the byproduct Of
economic forces"
Last year DR.. Erskine published
"The Memory of Certain Persons"
more of a general autobiography.
This was a discursive and not al
ways too-abscybing series Of remi-
niscences. My Life as a Teacher"
seems to me much more interest
ing. 1t is filled with pungent and
opposite observations about the field
which the author apparently has
loved best The book should in
terest not only educators. but the
casual reader For who Is not con-
cerned with the education of some
one?
THE LIVING is EASY
BY Dorothy West. (Houghton-
Mi6fin;; So 60)
Most of the novels about COL
ored Americans in recent years have
depicted their hard struggle against
prejudice and meager opportunity,
the injustices dealt them. This
story follows a new pattern.
In the early part of the century,
few Negro families Of Boston,
after three or four generations
there, had attained wealth and
certain social position. They asso-
ciated with one another and with
white people and would have no
more to do with the lower strata
of their race than their white breth-
rem on Beacon Hill would have to
do with slum dwellers. There were,
of course, some Negro families on