THE "ACADEMIC" UNDER FIRE

Still reeling from a bludgeoning at the hands of Dr. Flexner, the chimerical farrago which for journalistic purposes is the "American University" has now been assaulted with other weapons. In the first number of "The American Scholar," Dr. John Erskine criticizes Universities in a way which strikes much nearer home for Harvard at least then did Dr. Flexner's attacks.

Too often, Dr. Erskine believes, the scholar's "Spiritual aspirations which ought to lean toward the future relapse into a meticulous nostalgia." Academic life, like academic architecture is still medieval, and "it addresses itself far more often than we like to admit to the solution of other men's problems which no longer concern us."

Dr. Erskine's criticism, although its message is familiar, is too thoroughly justified and too cogent to pass unheeded. Shall the colleges, then, substitute for courses in the "History of Commerce, 1450-1750," or "The Later Platonic Dialogues" courses in "Theories of Capitalism" or "Science, Religion, and Law in Contemporary Life?" A good case could be made for the advantages of such a change, but the argument would be superficial. There are, Dr. Erskine points out, "a few ideas, a few problems which belong to all time." And it is with these problems that the universities should be most deeply concerned. Their task is to sift the vital knowledge of the ages from the dust of its dead framework.

The right instructor can relate the disputes of 18th century Deists to essential questions of today. Most of the material in historical courses can be interpreted with some relevance to current problems. The instinct of the scholar, however, is toward examining artistic, economic, or philosophic ideas in their historical setting. Such treatment may foster accuracy of thought, but it risks neglecting the really important point, what the ideas mean today and what is their present validity.

In the phrase, an "academic question," is implicit a scathing condemnation of universities. No one believes that college education deals wholly with fossile learning, but there is an undeniable tendency in that direction. What is significant, for a student's understanding of life today comes too often only incidentally. The consideration of ideas directly in their relation to modern society rather than as phenomena of history, if it could be the universities' ideal, might increase immeasurably their contribution to the community.