THE PROBLEM FOR THE COLLEGES

For many months now the kermost leaders in education have been ringing the changes on the danger to sound thinking involved in the excessive specialization of college departments. The burden of the argument has been similar, whether it came from Professor Dewey, Dr. Flexner, or President Hutchins at Chicago. The universities themselves have recognized the evil, but with few exceptions, have not taken the action which that recognition implied to be necessary.

It will be profitable, in spite of their familiarity, to sum up the grounds on which criticism of the colleges is based. The essence of that criticism is an attack on the expert. This characteristic member of modern society, it is seen, has a technique for dealing with certain situations in a certain way. But his course is laid out for him. He pursues that course along a track of definite gauge from which there is no switching. And the specialized scholar is bound by the same chains. He knows the meaning of his facts in only a limited sense. For meaning comes from understood relationships, and the specialist often ignores the relation of the basic principles of his subject to those of another field. He fails, accordingly, to comprehend the larger meaning of his work; he misses the essential point of fitting his facts into a complete pattern, of seeing their effect on life.

Stated differently, the difficulty is that the specialist does not deal with general ideas. Constant thought in the terms of one field lead him to accept unquestioningly fundamental principles. But this uncritical attitude is fatal. For it is exactly in this vagueness about fundamental principles that lie the gravest dangers to modern civilization. The twentieth century has in large measure rejected the hypotheses on which the Victorians built their philosophy, religion, and ethics, but it has determined on no course of its own. Unless the universities search into the bases of beliefs in an effort to guide the nation out of the present maze of indecision, they are failing in their greatest trust. Revaluation may have been overworked as a theme for speeches and articles, but there is urgent need of its application as a principle of thought.