A Great Idea at the Time
Did you read 鈥淭reatise on Conic Sections鈥� by Apollonius of Perga in college? What about works of Epictetus? Plato, at least? If you didn鈥檛, and you鈥檙e feeling pangs of intellectual inferiority, don鈥檛 despair. You can still buy the 鈥淕reat Books of the Western World.鈥�
A million American households did, and you, too, can experience the thrill of watching the canon of Western civilization attract envious stares from your neighbors 鈥� and collect dust.
The Great Books enterprise is both an educational method and a for-sale anthology. Proponents imbued it with near-salvific power; amid a sea of declining standards, it would be the sheet anchor of Western heritage. Critics saw it as pretentious pedagogy or as cultural succor huckstered to an insecure middle class.
Alex Beam, a columnist for The Boston Globe, gives both sides a fair hearing in his breezy and lucid account, A Great Idea at the Time.
Though the Great Books is today remembered as a mid-20th century fad 鈥� Britannica salesmen literally peddled it door-to-door 鈥� Mr. Beam reminds us that the phenomenon began as an academic backlash.
Up until the late 1800s, students at Harvard and Yale took virtually the same courses all four years. Greek, Latin, Math. Rinse, Lather, Repeat. Then condition with Chemistry, Physics, and Rhetoric. If that sounds positively medieval, it鈥檚 because it was medieval.
But Harvard President Charles Eliot scrapped this tradition. By 1899, Harvard had moved to an all-elective curriculum. The course 鈥渃atalog鈥� was born. Suddenly, students across America were consumers.
Most young people probably welcomed this change. Not Robert Hutchins, John Erskine, and Mortimer Adler. These three intellectuals felt that the elective system deprived young people of the opportunity 鈥� nay, the need! 鈥� to grasp the ideas of history鈥檚 supreme thinkers. The dynamic duo of Hutchins and Adler made it a major part of their life鈥檚 work to evangelize the Great Books.
The aim of higher education, Hutchins held, was no less than metaphysics. 鈥淲isdom is knowledge of principles and causes,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淢etaphysics deals with the highest principles and causes. Therefore metaphysics is the first wisdom.鈥�
Such a lofty pursuit demanded the right classroom method. So they insisted on Socratic, or shared, inquiry among a small group of students and their teacher.
In the 1930s, as the boy-wonder president of the University of Chicago, Hutchins strove vigorously 鈥� often against bitter opposition 鈥� to restructure the curriculum to reflect his ideal.
Similar efforts were under way at Columbia University.
On a separate track, the movement reached outside campus walls by offering Great Books discussion groups to the community鈥檚 movers and shakers 鈥� but also to the common man. (Epictetus for executives! Gibbon for garbagemen! Milton for mothers!) This outreach was the product of Hutchins鈥檚 belief that 鈥渢he best education for the best is the best education for all.鈥�
This noble impulse, though, didn鈥檛 stop proponents from seeking great bucks from the Great Books. Here, Beam鈥檚 history shines.
He captures the ironic 鈥� even ludicrous 鈥� contours of the great book鈥檚 rocky path to commercial success and eventual obscurity: The pompous launch. The million-dollar making of Adler鈥檚 special index, the 鈥� try not to laugh 鈥� 鈥淪yntopicon.鈥� (Envious, Harvard soon created an 鈥淚ndexicon鈥� for its anthology of classics.)
Today, the Great Books live on mostly through discussion groups. Some top-notch colleges still require a modest exposure to some of the 鈥済reats.鈥�
But the founders鈥� dream that higher education would once again orient itself toward Western truth never materialized. Except, that is, at tiny St. John鈥檚 College, where the curriculum consists only of the great books. Even science labs are restricted to the experiments of ancient worthies such as Ptolemy.
That鈥檚 hard core, and Beam can鈥檛 decide if he鈥檚 impressed or bemused.
Beam鈥檚 text is commendably concise, but I do wish he had devoted more space to pondering 鈥� instead of merely raising 鈥� important questions about the great books themselves: Can a modern reader 鈥渢alk鈥� intelligibly with the greats in translation?
Can a classic text truly speak for itself 鈥� or should historical and biographical context, along with modern annotations, be incorporated?
Aren鈥檛 some of the great books also some of the worst, in terms of the destructive power of their ideas? Most important, what is the purpose of higher education 鈥� and does that purpose require a classical curriculum core?
At bottom, Beam鈥檚 excellent book is about much more than a passing fad; it鈥檚 a pithy primer to one of the most important debates in educational history.
Josh Burek is the Monitor鈥檚 Opinion Page editor.
