Theoria - DISA

from a Scottish document, a very remarkable document that
some of you, I dare say, have read. This is a report on secondary
education issued last year by the Advisory Council of Education
in Scotland—a blue book, but full of mature wisdom, generous
in outlook, and (unlike many a blue-book that I have had to
read) uncommonly well written.
There has been (say this Advisory Council) a fresh awakening
to the value and precariousness of our liberal way of life. It
is clear now that the marriage of freedom and order which
democracy presupposes is possible only for a people conscious
of its inheritance, united in purpose, and proof against the
attacks of sophistry and propaganda ; and that these qualities
require not merely a literate, but an educated, nation, capable
of a high degree of self-discipline, objective judgment and
sustained vigilance.
Those of us who believe in the liberal way of life, and are
prepared to defend it against attacks from without and within,
will, I believe, accept that paragraph as it stands. It is followed
immediately by another paragraph that goes to the root of the
matter.
But we cannot now, as in ages of less rapid change, equip
our young with a stock of ideas, conventions and sentiments
adequate to life's situations. Their world is shifting and
changing with a rapidity that precludes all such provision for
unborn tomorrow : " the breaking of new ground rather than
the treading of safe ground " has become the task of all
education. And so there must be a change of emphasis. There
must be less store set by knowledge often irrelevant and
quickly antiquated, and more concern to create in the young
certain attitudes of mind. Above all the new generation needs
to unite with mental poise and serenity a nimble intelligence,
a high degree of adaptability and a wider range of understanding.
There you have it, a nutshell statement, if you will allow me
so to call it. Whether mental poise and serenity is attainable in
this our time may be doubted. But •the Scottish Council has
named, in the last sentence of that paragraph, the means by which
it might be attained : " nimble intelligence, a high degree of
adaptability, and a wider range of understanding ". These, I
would urge, should be the governing aims in a liberal education,
whether at the school or at the university level. Any method,
any discipline, any subject (if we must have subjects) which
fosters a nimble intelligence, a high degree of adaptability, and
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