Education Between Two Worlds

Alexander Meiklejohn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351312189
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Written in the midst of World War II, this book makes a strong argument for the crucial importance of education as the solution to the dilemmas with which our Anglo-Saxon culture was nurtured, with particular emphasis on the work of John Dewey and Jean-Jacques Rousseau."The schools with which this argument is concerned are those of the Anglo-Saxon democracies of the last three centuries. In the life of England and America as we now know them, three hundred years of cultural change have moved on to a culminating and desperate crisis. That culture, in its religious and moral aspects, we have called Protestantism. On the economic and political side it has appeared as Capitalism. And these two together have established and maintained a way of life which we describe as Democratic. This book is devoted to an attempt to understand the education which is given by Anglo-Saxon democracies, to study the learning and teaching which have been done by a Protestant-capitalist civilization." ufrom the Preface.As the original foreword by Reginald Archambault indicates, "Fundamentally this is a book about education written by an educator who was anything but conservative and never merely theoretical. He is interested not only in educational theory but also in educational policy, and indeed, in pedagogy. The volume is invaluable, then, for the student of education, for it sheds critical light on the classic conceptions of education for the poor, and provides a heuristic statement of direction for the future." Stringfellow Barr, writing for the New Republic, indicates that this is "A wise and courageous book. I do not know how anybody concerned with education can ignore it." Mark van Doren in the Nation said, "As many readers as are interested in human happiness should go through this bookafor it is concerned with as important a theme as any I can imagine."

INDEX

Absolute mind, Dewey’s antagonism against, 93

Academic freedom, 87, 110

Adult education, need for, 289

American individualism, theory of, 95

Anglo-Saxon civilization, a two-class society, 146-147

Anglo-Saxon education, Arnold’s criticism of, 46-48

Anglo-Saxon morality, 66-68

Anglo-Saxon Protestantism see Protestant

Anglo-Saxon teaching by church, 3-8

Aristocracy see also Democracy and aristocracy:

attack on, by pragmatism, 139-142

English, challenged by Arnold, 50-52

prevalence of, in American education, 146-147

Arnold, Matthew, 11, 36-55, 138

on Barbarians, 271-272

on culture, American, 46

on “cultural lag,” 140

and Marx, similarity of purpose between, 36-37

as a person, 37

religious beliefs of, 40-42

work of, importance of, 39, 41

Art as Experience, 162, 169

Atomism, 60-62

Authority (see also Law, Rights:

conflict of, 101-102

cultural groups as source of, 97-99

cultural pattern as, 90-91

Divine (see God, Theology)

and freedom in education, congruity of, 92-95

human, not Divine, as sole control, 206-207

intelligence as, 105-108

multiplicity of, 100-101

source of in international relations, 243-245

of state, 259

of teaching, 91-92

Awareness: need for, in world-state education, 287

as purpose of teaching, 118

teacher’s responsibility in fostering, 251-252

Bacon, Francis, 18, 35

Barbarians, Arnold on, 43-45, 271-272

“Bargains” vs. “agreements,” 228-229

Behavior see also Culture, pattern of:

changes in, resulting from passage from natural to civil state, 219-220

cultural pattern, criticism of, 90-91

cultural pattern, expression of, 87-88

disorganic and organic theories concerning, 212 (see also Disorganic theory

educational theories concerning, 280-282

evaluation of, criterion for, 209

“good” and “bad” aspects of, 81, 91-92, 208

laws of, established by God, questioned, 243-244

moral and prudential fields of, separated, 65-68

patterns of, conflicts in, 99-108

reasonableness in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Aldinetransaction Edition
• Foreword
• Preface
• BOOK I. PROTESTANTCAPITALIST EDUCATION
• BOOK II. THE PROBLEM OF RECONSTRUCTION
• BOOK III. THE PRAGMATIC EPISODE—A STUDY OF JOHN DEWEY
• BOOK IV. THE SOCIAL CONTRACT AS BASIS OF EDUCATION
• Index