論文

記事種別: 書評

記事種別: 特集 ; 会議・学会報告・シンポジウム

記事分類: 教育・スポーツ--大学

記事分類: 教育・スポーツ--教育学

教育思想史のアクチュアリティを重視する観点から、教員養成と教育思想史の関係を問い直すシンポジウムが企画された。本稿では、シンポジウムの包括的な概観ではなく、報告や議論から筆者が触発された点を中心的に論じた。渡邊報告に対しては、論点として提示された「理論-実践問題」と「スタンダード」、さらには「人格特性」との関連性についての疑問を提示した。山崎報告については、提示された思想史とポリティックスの関係解明という課題に、「利害関係」という視点を立てることを提案した。橋本報告に対しては、「教育的思考」や「使命感」の意味の明確化とそれらを形成・醸成する方法について疑問を呈した。最後に、教職の専門職性を成立させる根拠として「教育の複雑性」の観点を示し、教員養成を教育思想史の課題として焦点化することを提案した。

記事分類: 教育・スポーツ--大学

記事分類: 教育・スポーツ--大学

This paper historically examines the relations between Robert Maynard Hutchins' ideas of higher education and the actual college curricular reforms in history during his presidency and chancellorship at the University of Chicago. Hutchins at the age of thirty, Dean of the Yale School of Law, was named to be the fifth President of the University of Chicago on April 17, 1929. While he was President (1929-1945) and later Chancellor (1945-1951) of the university, many innovative educational concepts and practices were introduced particularly to the collegiate education of the university. The curricular reforms and controversial educational programs at the College of the University of Chicago during the 1930s and the 40s, during Hutchins' presidency and chancellorship, was called "The Chicago Plan," which was one of the most comprehensive experiments in general education in the history of American higher education. However there are lots of confusions about the relations between the educational ideas of Hutchins and the Chicago Plan. It is generally believed that the plan was completely the embodiment of the ideas of Hutchins, and that the plan offered the prescribed Great Books curriculum for all college students. The Chicago Plan has been loosely identified with the curriculum of St. John's College of Annapolis, Maryland, or with the Great Books program which has been conducted in the university extension. On the contrary, this paper will prove that the Chicago Plan was somewhat removed from the educational ideas or ideal plans of Hutchins. The curriculum offered in the Chicago Plan never carried a complete great books program. Through a historical analysis, this study demonstrates that the Chicago Plan is not President Hutchins' original or favorable one. Hutchins took metaphysics for a guiding principle of higher education. It was reflected in his views on the administrative system of university and the ideal curriculum of general education at college. He intended to divide a university into four divisions, the College Division, the Division of the Metaphysics, the Division of the Social Sciences, and the Division of the Natural Sciences. His purpose of general education was to train the minds of students for intelligent action which meant to study the first principles, namely, metaphysics. So his ideal program of college education aimed to help students to master the leading ideas in the principal fields of knowledge which could be learned by reading and understanding the great books, and to help them to learn the arts of reading, writing, and thinking which he called the liberal arts, in his context, it meant grammar, rhetoric, logic, and mathematics. Have such ideal plans of Hutchins ever been attained at the University of Chicago? A historical study from the following points of view will show an answer to this question. 1. On October 22, 1930, the University of Chicago was reorganized into five divisions, the College Division, the Division of the Biological Sciences, the Division of the Humanities, the Division of the Physical Sciences, and the Division of the Social Sciences. But there was not the Division of Metaphysics which included in Hutchins' original plan. 2. The College faculty adopted the new college program on March 5, 1931, and it put into operation the following autumn. It included the system of comprehensive examinations at the end of the courses by an independent examination staff. The plan of comprehensive examinations, however, had been already seen in the unaccomplished college program in 1928. 3. On November 19, 1932, President Hutchins proposed grouping the last two years of the secondary school with the first two years of college, and to form a new college devoted entirely to general education. At the end of that four-year period, the student would be given a Bachelor of Arts degree. But it revived an earlier suggestion of William Rainey Harper, the founding president of the University of Chicago. 4. The major curricular reforms at the College of the University of Chicago in 1932, 1937, and 1947 never adopted a complete great books program which was Hutchins' ideal curriculum. To conclude, the Chicago Plan was never Hutchins' original plan or his ideal program. Thus Hutchins was in deep disappointment over his failure in the reforms and experiments at Chicago. But the failure played an important role on developing his educational ideas. His experience and failure as president of the University of Chicago changed his educational thought, so that he deepened his insight into the reality of American education and society.

This essay is an endeavor to reexamine the validity of Theodore Brameld's criticism of the philosophy of education of Robert M. Hutchins (1899-1977). It has been said up to the present that the philosophy of education of Hutchins, who is famous for his long presidency at the University of Chicago, puts great emphasis on its rationalistic concept of human nature and traditional views on education. The program of the Great Books and liberal arts curriculum is a good example of it. Hutchins' conventional image in textbooks on American philosophy or history of education has been generally been that of an intellectual elitist, and he has commonly been classified as a "perennialist". This largely derived from the fact that Brameld assigned Hutchins to the perennialist category of his typology, that is, "culturology of philosophies of education". Brameld regards Hutchins as the best-known and influential lay perennialist in American contemporary education. Many studies on Hutchins' philosophy of education in the United States and Japan have endorsed this assignation without due consideration of the validity of it. Brameld also gives more credit to Hutchins than to anyone else for the movement sometimes termed neo-Scholasticism or neo-Thomism. And he criticizes Hutchins from the two points of view as follows; 1. Hutchins' philosophy of education is unconditionally based on the assumption that there are transcendental truths, one specific metaphysical system: the Aristotelian or Thomist. 2. Hutchins insists that the educator avoid the concept of the elementary and secondary schools as in any sense agencies of social reform. Brameld concludes by saying that the kind of education that perennialists like Hutchins propose for the majority is not primarily education for responsible and participative rule by or of the majority. Accordingly Brameld looks upon Hutchins' philosophy of education as a reactionary challenge to democracy. However the comprehensive examination of the corpus of Hutchins' philosophy of education demonstrates that his assignment to the category of "perennialist" lacks validity. Although indeed it might be said that Hutchins believed in some metaphysical and transcendental truths in the 1930's, the early stage of his development of philosophy of education, he denies his belief in them later from the 1940's on. Hutchins advocated "liberal education for all" so that everybody could be free socially, politically, and mentally. He denied the concept that the educational systems were the agencies of social reform, because he radically criticized the existing public educational systems which turned into the service stations for the states, in order to realize his ideal of liberal education for all. I suppose that Hutchins' philosophy of education is worthy of being reevaluated in the present age. Now the stereotype "perennialist" which Brameld provides for Hutchins prevents us from reevaluating Hutchins' philosophy of education. Herin lies the reason why this essay should reexamine Brameld's criticism of Hutchins' philosophy of education.