Robert M. Hutchins: Portrait of an Educator (Centennial Publications of The University of Chicago Press)
This interesting if somewhat pedestrian book examines the University of Chicago's most famous president and his two missions: Hutchins's "stand on academic freedom" and his "challenge to examine and reexamine the ends of educational institutions." Dzuback, professor of education at Washington University in Missouri, astutely observes how the "evangelical culture" of Hutchins's "quasi-religious" collegiate training at Oberlin relates to the "mixed success" he experienced as dean of Yale Law School and then as head of the University of Chicago: "In effect, when Hutchins 1899-1977 argued for a liberal education . . . in the 1930s, he was arguing for a secular mission for the University of Chicago," a "contemporary translation of Oberlin's nineteenth-century religious mission." While the author notes how Hutchins's "typical short-term commitment to the innovations he devised" during his Chicago tenure (1929-1951) undercut those innovations, her book is full of admiration for the man, alternating between "enormous respect for Hutchins and sheer mystification at his arrogance and stubborn adherence to a collection of ideas that seemed incompatible with the realities of twentieth-century higher educational institutions."Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.