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Idealism and Liberal Education. - book reviews
National Review, May 20, 1996 by Jeffrey Hart
HAVE you noticed that very few university presidents today write books about higher education? No doubt this is a wise reticence, judging from the present volume by Dartmouth's president, James O. Freedman. He is engaging enough in his recollections of his New Hampshire boyhood, his years at Harvard and at Yale Law School, his passion for collecting books, and his quite early decision --ominous, I think -- to make a career in administration.
When it comes to the substance of higher education he is a cliche so gorgeous that he ought to be on permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian for tourists to gape at. He of course believes in racial preferences, and no doubt as a direct consequence embraces multiculturalism. That is, he thinks the student body should be racially representative, and therefore so should the curriculum. Quality becomes a mere contingent factor. It follows that he is hostile to the idea that there are great books, centuries of experience notwithstanding. He writes mini-essays on his "heroes," all of them liberal Democrats with the exception of Lincoln, who is of course safe. And, I'm not kidding, he advocates something he calls "intellectualism," maybe even half understanding that this refers to a social class and not to the activity of critical intelligence. Welcome to Snoozeville. President Freedman is sublimely complacent, to the point where he does not know that the fads he cherishes have all had their day and even now are passing into the history of a bad time in education.
COPYRIGHT 1996 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
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