EXCERPTS OF CONANT PAPER

I have not the slightest doubt that the study of the liberal arts will not only survive this war but prosper in the days of peace. For one thing, the present fighting generation and the younger boys in school will be tired of hearing even the names of science and technology. When the time for the resumption of normal education returns, a sharp reaction towards studies of a different type, a resurgence of deep interest in the liberal arts among students themselves, would seem to be inevitable.

But quite apart from a swinging of the pendulum, such as educators have seen so often in the past, I cannot imagine that this republic could reject the tradition of the liberal arts. For a judicious blending of the study of man and nature is the only sure foundation of a free commonwealth.

The problem is not how to prevent the annihilation of the study of arts and letters, but how to adapt a venerable tradition in education to our modern age. And such an adaptation has, to my mind, been long overdue. Therefore the period of stress and strain on which we are now entering may well prove to be beneficial. Contrary to a view prevalent in certain quarters, academic institutions are among the most conservative in human history. An occasional jolt may be wholesome; it forces adjustments to meet now needs.

Those who express grave concern about the future of the country if the liberal arts were destroyed are entirely right. For there can be no question that the basis of a free society is the education which that society provides. But surely the problem is much broader than the kind of curriculum and the size of the student body of our colleges in the years of war. The problem concerns the general education of young men and women at both the school and college level.

For this reason it seems to me imperative to use these months of war and educational change as a time of vigorous exploration. Scholars and teachers, philosophers and school-masters should unite in a thorough-going inquiry. They know for what we fight. Let them attempt to formulate the policies by which our ideals may be perpetuated when the war has ceased. In short, let us attempt to formulate a general education for free men in a nation dedicated to the principle of educational opportunities for all.

There is nothing new in such educational goals--what is new in this century in the United States is their application to a system of universal education. And from the point of view of a general education the most vital part of this system is the public high school. In these days of war all who are concerned with the future of our liberal arts would do well, it seems to me, to direct their first attention on what type of general education should be supplied to our high school students. For surely it is not the liberal education or the lack of its among the ten percent of each age group who normally study arts and letters in our colleges which will determine the future of our freedom. It is the attitude of the other 90 per cent which will be the controlling factor in our ability to resist an attack of totalitarian ideas.

Therefore the primary concern of American education today is not the development of the appreciation of the "good life" in young gentlemen born to the purple--it is the infusion of the liberal and humane tradition into our entire educational structure.

It is the opportunity to progress toward a more complete realization of this aim that lies before the American educational word. No defensive rearguard action confronts teachers and supporters of the liberal arts as a result of war; the challenge is to use the present interval in preparation for a renewed advance.