DEMOS FAVORS MIDDLE COURSE

Compromising in the Dewey-Hutchins controversy on liberal education, Raphael Demos, associate professor of Philosophy, told an audience of students and faculty in the Lowell Junior Common Room last night that the two ideas must be combined "in a hopeful system of education for the future."

"So long as each school is narrow, we need the other," emphasized Professor Demos. The forum, sponsored by the Harvard Liberal Union, the Harvard Post War Council, and the Radcliffe League for Democracy, was entitled "The Educational Controversy Today."

In his lecture, which preceded the discussion period, Professor Demos, tracing the history and development of the two schools of thought, clarified and defined the issue as "scholasticism opposed to modernism," "reason opposed to empir- ical enquiry," or "liberal opposed to vocational education." From the onisot Professor Demos confessed that "I find that I agree with both sides."

Yet the guest speaker pointed to flaws in both positions. Examining the Hutchins, or scholastic school, he found that it became "authoritarian, bookish," and, in addition, "fell in love with its own perfection." On the other hand, he called the scientific or modern method, "anti-rational," "unreflective." "We have science without philosophy."

This science, Professor Demos stressed, "proves everything except its own dogmas. We have a series of unrelated specialties, but we lack the grand plan. The true philosopher," added Professor Demos, "will include both the rational and empirical in his reasoning." In summary, he concluded that "an education should be both general and special."

The lecture was followed, by a lively discussion, in which professors of various departments participated, and related specific problems of the history and science departments were discussed. Professor Demos advocated a course with general studies supplemented by intensive work in specific phases