GREAT BOOKS

by Robert M. Hutchins ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 1954

To add to his series of well founded blasts at our educational system and to his plan for its improvement, this brief book exhorts us for the sake of world harmony as well as our own democracy, to take up the cause of true liberal education for all. His plan is well known. It consists of reading, begun early, in the great works of our western heritage so that everyone may partake in what he terms the Great Conversation that is and has been man's search for truth through the centuries. Implemented here, the plan is shown in its necessity, its functioning and in the light of detracting elements. The spirit of inquiry is at the very base of our cultural tradition. Through it, the world has advanced technologically, but to the point where the dilemma created by a machine age can only be solved by a continuing inquiry- to which we are now better than ever ready to give our free time because of the conveniences a machine age creates. Dewey has been misinterpreted by those who turned his idea of education about different occupations into a shell of specialization, and the slogan of ""pedantry"" now attached to the liberal arts he regards as a thing we must fight to dispel. A bugle call to which more should rally.

Pub Date: March 15, 1954

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1954

Categories: NONFICTION