Robert Hutchins

Robert Maynard Hutchins (January 17, 1899, Brooklyn, New York - May 17, 1977, Santa Barbara, California) was a philosopher.

Although both his father and grandfather were Presbyterian ministers, Robert M. Hutchins went on to become a renowned educational philosopher. Hutchins is now considered by many to be one of the most influential men from the school of Secular Perennialism. After completing two years of school at Oberlin College in Ohio, Hutchins served in the American and Italian armies' ambulance services during World War I. After returning from the war, Hutchins went to Yale University and Yale Law School, graduating from the latter in 1925. In 1927, Hutchins became Dean at Yale until he left in 1929 to become President of the University of Chicago. Hutchins served as The University of Chicago's President until 1945 when he became the Chancellor of Chicago University, a position that he held until 1951. After leaving his position at the University, Hutchins founded the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in 1959, which was his attempt to bring together a community of scholars to analyze this broad area. Hutchins described the Center's goal as examining democratic institutions "by taking a multidisciplinary look at the state of the democratic world -- and the undemocratic world as well, because one has to contrast the two and see how they are going to develop." He further stated, "After discovering what is going on, or trying to discover what is going on, the Center offers its observations for such public consideration as the public is willing to give them".

Throughout his career, Hutchins was a fierce proponent of using those select books, which have gained the reputation of being great books, as an educational tool. In his interview in 1970 titled, "Don't Just Do Something", Hutchins explained, "...the Great Books [are] the most promising avenue to liberal education if only because they are teacher-proof." Illustrating his dedication to the Great Books, Hutchins served as Editor and Chief of Great Books of the Western World. Additionally, he served as coeditor of The Great Ideas Today, Chairman of the Board of Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica from 1943 to 1974, and published his own works, No Friendly Voice (1936), The Higher Learning in America (1936), Education for Freedom (1943), The University of Utopia (1953), and The Learning Society (1968).

According to Hutchins in The University of Utopia, "The object of the educational system, taken as a whole, is not to produce hands for industry or to teach the young how to make a living. It is to produce responsible citizens". In The University of Utopia, Hutchins describes a country that has evolved to become the perfect society, Utopia, as well as their educational system, which has the well-defined purpose of "promot[ing] the intellectual development of the people". Hutchins also explores some of the improper directions educational institutions have taken in the United States. He argues that education is becoming nothing more than a trade school, and a poor trade school at that. Hutchins discusses the relationship between a foundry and the local college in a particular Californian town. This college offers courses on doing foundry work, which instruct students to become workers at the foundry. In this way, the college is satisfying the need of the community for foundry workers rather than the intellectual needs of the individual. Further, Hutchins asserts that the foundry students actually receive poor training since educators do not have the practical experience of working in the foundry. Hutchins believes the students would receive a much more efficient and thorough education on working in a foundry by actually working in that foundry. He claims Universities should instead teach intellectual content, specifically the intellectual content related to the occupation, but that the occupation itself should take responsibility for training its employees. Hutchins also warns that education has shifted its focus from being educational to custodial. He charges that many schools have become no more than baby-sitting services for adolescents, protecting them from the tumultuous world of youth. He cites courses in home economics and driver's education as focusing on meeting a societal need rather than an educational goal. Hutchins also berates education for the path it has taken regarding specialization. According to Hutchins in his essay, "The Idea of a College," the specialization of American education has robbed students of the ability to communicate with other students outside of their field. He argues that a student of biology cannot converse meaningfully with a student of mathematics because they share no common educational experience.

In The University of Utopia, Hutchins outlines the educational experience of young Utopians, where the first ten years of instruction prepare students for the learning experiences to come. Communication is the primary skill developed. Students learn to read, write, and discuss issues in preparation for their future lifetime of learning. Students study science and mathematics, which form part of the groundwork for future learning. History, geography, and literature are also studied to add to the framework for even deeper learning later in life. Finally, art and music are studied because these are considered the elements that make society great.

Throughout these fields of study in Utopia, the Great Books, those books that shaped Western thought, are used as study material and are discussed by classes using the Socratic method. The Socratic method, named for Socrates and his method of teaching, involves the teacher keeping the discussion on topic and avoiding logistical errors, but it is the class, not the teacher, which comes to the final conclusion. The Great Books are a natural choice, since they are considered to be works of genius, timeless, and ever relevant to society. Why settle for lesser materials when you can have the best? Despite his other foci, Hutchins does not entirely shun the laboratory world; he believes however, that some such things are best learned through discovery once a student has graduated to the outside world.

In Utopia, initial schooling is followed by college, which continues the study of a highly prescribed curriculum. Here, however, the focus shifts from learning the techniques of communication to exploring some of man's principal concepts of the world and the leading ideas that have propelled mankind. After college, students sit for an extensive exam created by an outside board, which reflects what an education appropriate to a free person should be. This rigorous exam is similar to those taken throughout a student's education but is more comprehensive. When the student passes this exam, he or she is awarded a Bachelor of Arts Degree. The degree is conferred based on the mastery of this information, not on the number of classes taken, credits earned, or hours spent in class.

After proving that they have the necessary education to become a part of the republic of learning and of the political republic, the student may enter the work world or continue his or her formal education at the University. Once departing from formal education, a lifetime of learning follows for the citizens of Utopia. They visit centers of learning to explore and discuss ideas and analyze great works. These centers of learning are residential institutions where citizens go during what Americans would traditionally think of as vacation time. If they choose to matriculate to University, students begin to specialize, but they do not study collection of data, technical training, or solutions to immediate practical problems, but rather they explore the intellectual ideas specific to their chosen field. Here, students study in much less formal situations but with no less vigor. During their initial schooling and college, students had to prove that they could learn independently; if they then chose to attend a University, they were expected to make effective use of those skills.

In addition to Hutchins's belief that school should pursue intellectual ideas rather than practical, he also believed that schools should not teach a specific set of values. "It is not the object of a college to make its students good, because the college cannot do it; if it tries to do it, it will fail; it will weaken the agencies that should be discharging this responsibility, and it will not discharge its own responsibility." The schools should not be in the business of teaching students what is right and just; it should be in the business of helping students make their own determinations.

[In our system], When young people are asked, "What are you interested in?" they answer that they are interested in justice: they want justice for [those who are black]; they want justice for the Third World. If you say, "Well, what is justice?" they haven't any idea... (Berwick, 1970).

Critics will point out that the great books do not have one answer to what justice is or isn't. In fact, there are many contradictory answers to this question. But what some see as a weakness, Hutchins sees as a strength. Hutchins asserts that students should be exposed to these conflicting ideas so that they may weigh and balance them in their own minds, boiling down the arguments and synthesizing a view of their own. In this way, and only in this way, can students learn what justice, beauty, and good really are.

References

• Berwick, Keith. (1970). Interview with Robert M. Hutchins (transcript). Don't Just Do Something. Retrieved July 6, 2004, from the School of Cooperative Individualism: http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/hutchins_on_center_democratic_institutions.html
• Encyclopædia Britannica. (2001). Hutchins, Robert M. Retrieved July 6, 2004, from the University of Pennsylvania, English Department, Al Filreis, The Literature and Culture of the 1950s: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/hutchins-bio.html
• Hutchins, Robert M. (1950). The Idea of a College. Retrieved July 6, 2004, from the University of Portugal: http://www.direito.up.pt/IJI/Cadernos%20do%20IJI/ANTIGONA%20IV/hutchins.htm
• Hutchins, Robert M. (1953) The University of Utopia. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.