The Philosophy of the Curriculum-The Need for General ...

General Education: The Minimum IndispensablesSidney Hookjohn Dewe said that there are three important reference pointsthat must be -Y;f const ered in developing a curriculum on any level. Thefirst is the nme and needs of the student; the second is the nareand needs of the societv of which students are a part; the third is thect~hiect ---,--- - matter bv which the students develop themselves as personsand -. .-relate to other persons in their society.Our problem, a; I see it, is this: Given our society, our potentialstudent body, the accumulated knowledge, traditions, and skills of alarge number of disciplines, given the spectrum of conflicting values inthe present juncture of history, can we as educators devise a programof studies (I do not mean specific courses) that we can and should requireof all students on their way to adulthood and vocation? Or, to useone of the felicitous distinctions of Professor deBary: Has the university,in the exercise of its "magisterial role" rather than its "prophetic orpontifical role," not only the authority but the intellectual confidenceand courage to say to all students, "Here in our considered judgment,based on experience and reflection, are the minimum indispensablesof liberal or general education for the modern man and woman. Weshall require a certain proficiency in these minimum indispensablesbefore you are allowed to do your own curricular thing. We are preparedto sit down with you to discuss the educational validity of a curriculum,listen carefully to your criticisms and suggestions in the neverendingprocess of curricular modification, experiment, and revision,and make allowance for your special aptitudes and conditions. But inthe end, the decision will be ours if you elect to stay and continue yourstudies."If we were to stop at this point, we might as well have not begun.For the thrust of the a&ument hay be accepted and yet the content ofeducation consist of a miscellany of studies that will not reflect thecommon needs of students and of our society. I hope we can be sufficientlyconcrete to reach a consensus not only on the desirability ofgeneral education but also, allowing for some peripheral diversity andvariation, on its basic content. I shall very briefly put forward somecurricular proposals to that end.Permit me first to address myself to some of the larger considerationsthat I fear may distract us from our task. By striving to do toomuch we may achieve too little. There is a danger in the overly ambitiousattempt to envisage and plan for the general or liberal educationof students over their entire educational career, including their technicalor specialized education as well as their vocational or professionaleducation. As I understand general education, it is an integral part ofliberal education, defined as the knowledge and sensibility, the attitudesand intellectual skills that men and women, in Professor deBary's words, "can reasonably be expected to have in common as abasis for their individual development and participation in the humancommunity." It introduces students in a coherent and systematic wto "those areas of human experience [and knowledge],values, and ends [and problems] that extend into virtually all forms ofstudy and give them relevance both to the inner life of theand the common human enterprise."Granted that this does not exhaust the range and depth of liberaleducation, that it is desirable for students to renew and strengthentheir liberal orientation regardless of their subsequent experience, orsubsequent specialized or professional education. But that is somethingwe cannot plan for, for our primary concern is with the foundationalyears. To be sure, liberal learning is lifelong learning, but how itshould be integrated into the professional education of lawyers, physicians,architects, and engineers must be worked out by educators inthose disciplines, with reference to their own problems. Having sewedon committees that have sought to humanize the curricula of law andmedical schools, I am convinced of both the relevance of liberal educationand its concerns for professional education and also the wisdomof leaving the curricular broadening in these fields to the professionalpractitioners, in consultation with others. After all, most students donot go on to professional or graduate schools. The best we can do istry to make liberal education so intense and meaningful an experiencebefore the onset of specialization that the interest evoked will feeditself in all subsequent experience.The second danger I wish to caution against is the attempt to derivethe liberal-education curriculum from some metaphysical or philosophicalor theological conception of the nature of man, or from someoverall view of "first and last things," about which the possibility oftablishing a consensus is impossible. Instead of trying to devise a criculum that will fit some antecedent beliefs about what differentiaAnd now, I wish to sketch very briefly the areas of study thatshould, I think, constitute the curricular substance of general educa-Ii