Culture Makes or Breaks an Ordered Free Society
By Dr. John A. Howard, Senior Fellow at The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society, for a Panel Session at the National Meeting of the Philadelphia Society in New Orleans, March 28, 2009
Preamble
When I was President of the Philadelphia Society thirty years ago we devoted the whole program of our Annual Meeting to the subject of Religion. The various sessions were devoted to such topics as Religion and Freedom, Religion in Contemporary Culture and Religion and Contemporary Politics. Since then, religion has been minimized in our deliberations, unwisely, I think.
Unsure that I can adequately address the assigned topic for this panel, I am going to assert a privilege of extreme old age and just say what I believe needs to be said “to deepen the intellectual foundations of our free and ordered society and broaden the understanding of its basic principles and traditions.” I trust you all will recognize that phrase as the purpose of the Philadelphia Society enunciated in our By-Laws.
For at least half a century, most conservative scholars have plied their trade in their own little corners of the American reality, either oblivious of, or indifferent to, the paramount requirements of an ordered free society. Whatever breakthroughs they may achieve in their own field of work, will profit little if the society is plummeting toward a terminal crash.
Some forty years ago, while I was President of Rockford College, I gave a talk about education at a large national conference. The next speaker, America’s all-purpose genius, Buckminster Fuller, lumbered up to the podium and was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Before I begin my presentation I want to say something to that fellow who just finished. You folks in the colleges are ruining this country. What you do is identify the bright students as they come through and make them experts in something. That isn’t all bad, but it leaves a residue of people of mediocre intelligence and the dunderheads to become the generalists needed to serve as college presidents.” When the laughter subsided, he continued, “and the Presidents of the United States!” That little witticism contained a wallop of earthly wisdom greater than any other single sentence I have ever read or heard.
A generalist has a broad and solid understanding of human nature, also a competent knowledge of the primary social institutions of the society, their interdependence, their vulnerabilities and the principles that govern what they are able to do and unable to do. Such a person has some chance of accurately anticipating the consequences of the decisions to be made in his life and work.
Let’s apply this concept to education, certainly a primary institution. It is the field in which I have labored, full-time or parttime, for sixty-one years, twenty-one of them as a college president.
My dissertation centered on educational philosophy. Any serious study of the history of education will reveal that until the middle of the 20th century for virtually all societies the core purpose of schooling has been to train the young how to live responsibly and usefully in their own society.
That first and minimal requirement involves imparting to each new generation the ideals which specify the nature and purpose of the society, why those ideals are of utmost importance and the obligations the citizens must fulfill, as well as the taboos they must observe, in order for those ideals to prevail. Those ideals must eventually guide the lives of the young people, who, in America, used to absorb them very much as they learn to speak the language. As long as this acculturation takes place, the society is viable.
Speaking of this process as it relates to education, Robert Hutchins, for sixteen years the President of the University of Chicago, stated in a 1956 lecture:
The pedagogical problem is how to use the educational system to form the kind of man that the country wants to produce. But in the absence of a clear ideal, and one that is attainable by education the pedagogical problem is insoluble; it cannot even be stated. The loss of an intelligible and attainable ideal lies at the root of the troubles of American education.1
With the dearth of generalists, there is today almost no public understanding of the ethos that prevailed in America from 1620 to 1945 and there is an equal shortage of public understanding about the educational philosophy which sustained that ethos. From the arrival of the Pilgrims in New England in 1620, the American experiment in selfgovernment was an embodiment of Christendom. That does not imply that everyone was a Christian. Rather, it designates a society in which the behavior of the people generally accords with the behavioral standards prescribed by Christianity.
That sweeping claim about the enduring regime of Christendom, contradicting what “everybody knows” about our history, is not easy to substantiate in two and a half minutes, but I will present a few miniquotes which I hope will, at least, provoke some second thoughts.
President James Madison said:
We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government: far from it. We have staked the whole future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.2
President John Quincy Adams said:
The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.3
De Tocqueville in his searching appraisal of the American society in the 1830’s wrote:
Christianity directs American life. Of all the countries of the world, America is the one in which the marriage tie is the most respected.4
Later he wrote:
By their practice, Americans show they feel the urgent necessity to instill morality into democracy by means of religion. What they think of themselves in this respect enshrines a truth which should penetrate deep into the consciousness of every democratic nation.5
In World War I, the United States Government provided a New Testament to every doughboy sent overseas.
(Let me insert a footnote here. All these quotes come from my new book on Christianity, which has more than 120 quotations to support and elaborate on the narrative.)
It was Christendom that delivered a society that was basically honest, lawful, conscientious, cooperative, kind, helpful and productive. People under the age of 75 can’t begin to imagine what life in America was like prior to World War II.
As an 8-year-old child I would walk my younger brother at night half a mile across a park and the railroad tracks to the Community House for a children’s program. My parents hadn’t the slightest concern for our safety. At the public grade school I attended, the day began in an all-school assembly with a prayer, a patriotic song and a reading of some uplifting message.
Occasionally, our family would go into Chicago, customarily leaving the car unlocked. If the driver, forgetfully left the key in the ignition, the key, the car and any packages were there when we returned. In my company of the First Infantry Division in World War II, almost everybody had two parents or one had died. Divorce was rare in those days and a source of embarrassment. It was assumed that people belonged to a church or synagogue.
Since the patterns of behavior which prevailed were rooted in religion, any effort to weaken or revoke any of the prescribed standards had a tough go, because it was simply taken for granted that God was more important than anything else. It wasn’t until the early Twentieth Century when socialism and then communism spread in America that Christendom began to wane. In the 1912 election, the socialists elected 56 mayors and drew 900,000 votes. In 1919, the Communist Party became the center of revolutionary influence. In his speech after receiving the Templeton Prize, Solzhenitsyn said:
The world had never before known a godlessness so organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that of Marx and Lenin, and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal guiding force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions.
No dictatorship or godless form of government can tolerate any authority superior to its own, so religion and family are authorities that must be eradicated or, at least, discredited and smothered.
Conservative intellectuals who are partisans of the free and ordered society, whatever may be the focus of their scholarship, must also become active agents working to contain and defuse and discredit the massive assault on Christendom and the family and the rule of law and the core purpose of education. Without a much, much larger contingent of persistent, persuasive, ubiquitous and humble conservative voices, the now dominant forces of greed, envy, lust for
power and unbridled gratification of the senses will ultimately have total control, and our cherished free and ordered society will expire in a cataclysm of moral chaos. May all of us, prayerfully, do our utmost to prevent that annihilation.
1 Hutchins, Robert M., Some Observations in Education, 1956, p. 31
2 McDowell and Beliles, America’s Presidential History, pp. 263-4
3 Federer, William J., America’s God and Country; Encyclopedia of Quotations (St. Louis, MO;
America Search 2000, 2000) p. 514
4 de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Garden City, NY, Doubleday and Company, 1969, p. 547
5 de Tocqueville, op. cit., p. 542
Taxpayers May Soon be Funding ‘Free’ Online Education
No word, yet, on who is going to purchase the computers…
Inside Higher Ed reports that the Obama Administration is working on a Federal Program to require community colleges to offer certain web-based courses, free of charge, to the public:
Community colleges and high schools would receive federal funds to create free, online courses in a program that is in the final stages of being drafted by the Obama administration.
The program is part of a series of efforts to help community colleges reach more students and to link basic skills education to job training. The proposals are outlined in administration discussion drafts obtained by Inside Higher Ed. A formal announcement could come in the next few weeks. In addition to the free online courses, the plan would provide $9 billion over 10 years to help community colleges develop and improve programs related to preparing students for good jobs, and a $10 billion loan fund (at low or no interest) for community college facilities.
John White, press secretary for the Education Department, said Sunday that the department would discuss the plans “when the time is right.” He said that there is a lot of “high level discussion and excitement” around these ideas related to community colleges.
The funds envisioned for open courses — $50 million a year — may be small in comparison to the other ideas being discussed. But in proposing that the federal government pay for (and own) courses that would be free for all, as well as setting up a system to assess learning in those courses, and creating a “National Skills College” to coordinate these efforts, the plan could be significant far beyond its dollars.
The draft language suggests that the administration is throwing its weight behind the movement to put more courses online — and offer them free — and is also pushing that movement in the direction of community colleges…Continue reading on Inside Higher Ed >>
Gary Wills Remembers Bill Buckley
Gary Wills writes:
Riding motorbikes without a helmet, flying planes while half asleep—not to mention discussing books he’d never read and using words he didn’t understand—William F. Buckley courted adventure in all that he did. Here, the conservative godfather’s onetime protégé and longtime nemesis fondly recalls their friendship—and argues that Buckley was not the snob many thought him to be.
To read the touching tribute, visit TheAtlantic.com >>
Are 3-Year Degrees a Lot of Bologna?
Aisha Labi has a report on The Chronicle of Higher Education this week discussing the Bologna Declaration ten years after it was originally signed by representatives of 29 European countries. The objective of the treaty was to standardize higher education across Europe, but skeptics question its effectiveness and whether or not the quality of higher education has been improved in the last decade.
To read the report, visit The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Note: After July 17, 2009, you will need a subscription to view the report, here.
Taxpayers Nationwide May Soon be Paying Even More for California Students to Attend College
Stephanie Lee, of Inside Higher Ed today reports:
California’s community colleges could soften the projected blow to their budget by tripling tuition with no net impact on most students, says a new report by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Released last Thursday, the report comes on the heels of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s May revision to the state budget, which proposes to slash nearly $700 million from the community colleges’ 2009-10 budget.
In-state residents currently pay $20 per course credit, making California the cheapest state in the nation in which to attend community college. A typical class is three or four credits, totaling $60 to $80. According to the report, state and federal financial aid would offset tuition increases of up to $60 per credit.
According to the report, 90 percent of the state’s community college students would qualify for either a tuition waiver or a full or partial tax offset to their tuition (which in California is referred to as “fees”). For example, the Board of Governors’ waiver program waives tuition for all California residents who demonstrate financial need. A single parent with one child could earn up to $80,000 annually and still qualify for a full waiver, the report states.
The majority of those who do not qualify for the waivers are eligible for federal tax benefits that cover all or part of their tuition, according to the report. The federal American Opportunity Credit, for instance, reimburses up to $2,500 in tuition payments and textbook costs…Continue reading on Inside Higher Ed >>
Chicago Tribune: Mid-Priced Private Schools Feeling the Biggest Squeeze During Recession
Greg Burns, of ChicagoTribune.com reports that is not the Ivy League schools that are being hurt the most by the downturn in the economy, but the lesser-known private schools. Those universities are losing students to community colleges closer to home:
For years, doomsayers have warned that college tuition can’t keep shooting up.
Unsustainable. Unaffordable. A bubble.
Yet up it goes, year after year.
With a recession on, you might think bubble-popping time is here.
Not quite, but a more subtle change is under way in the marketplace of higher education.
Just as grocery shoppers trade down to private-label products in hard times, consumers of college services are making a similar value-for-the-dollar transition.
The “Cheerios” in this case aren’t the wealthy Harvards, Northwesterns and Chicagos. Those elite schools occupy a separate gourmet category all their own.
Rather, it’s the private schools of middling reputation or below that depend most heavily on tuition dollars. They are feeling the biggest squeeze from cheaper competition.
Four-year state schools are the “Toasted Oats” in this supermarket, and their popularity is on the rise. Also appealing are the oft-maligned two-year community colleges, the equivalent of those buy-one-get-one-free generics lining the bottom shelf. On the fringes, for-profit vendors offer an increasingly attractive alternative to the traditional menu.
As in the retail world, much depends on the customer…Continue reading on ChicagoTribune.com >>
What Higher Ed in America Has in Common with Nazi Germany in the 1930’s
Elizabeth Redden has a review today on Inside Higher Ed of the book The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses, by Stephen H. Norwood.
A new book examines American colleges’ ties to Nazi Germany in the 1930s — and chronicles a record characterized by indifference, complicity and collaboration…In an interview, Norwood describes university leaders as indifferent to evidence of a barbaric regime rising abroad in part because of their own polices of anti-Semitism and exclusion back home. ‘They just didn’t care very deeply about Jews and anti-Semitism because they were themselves involved in maintaining quota barriers against Jewish students. There were very, very few Jews on the faculties of American universities throughout the entire inter-war period. And there are whole fields that were basically off-limits to Jews,’ he says.
Read the report of Redden’s interview of Norwood on Inside Higher Ed >>
Inside Higher Ed: The Effects of National Policy and the Economy on Financial Aid
Inside Higher Ed today has a couple of great articles providing information and insight as to the effects of the current administration’s policies and the economy on financial aid, and, as a result, higher education in general.
Arnold Mitchem writes:
President Obama’s avowed goal is to provide an “education so that every child can compete in the global economy,” and in so doing to restore the United States’ leadership role by having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by the year 2020. He’s recognized that one of the mechanisms necessary to achieve that is to transform Pell Grants into an entitlement.
The Pell Grant program is the sine qua non of equal educational opportunity. It represents one of the most important mechanisms developed in higher education to ensure low-income students are afforded financial access to postsecondary opportunities. By all accounts, Pell Grants historically have contributed to allowing millions of low-income students unparalleled access to higher education in the last four decades, and yet they have been vulnerable to funding shortfalls and their value has frequently lagged behind college cost increases. Therefore, proposing to make the Pell Grant an entitlement is a smart step by the Obama Administration. This constitutes a much-needed, long-overdue reform.
However, unless the administration changes course, it is likely to squander this terrific opportunity for the United States to boost both its academic and economic competitiveness…Continue reading on Inside Higher Ed >>
Jack Stripling writes about how state budget cuts are affecting students’ higher education choices, particularly those of the non-traditional students:
…While few states have made outright declarations that they may end major aid programs altogether – California being a notable exception – several are tweaking eligibility requirements or changing the scope of aid programs to reduce costs.
In New Jersey, proposed changes to the state’s largest aid program would reduce assistance for students attending for-profit colleges. According to the governor’s budget proposal, students attending proprietary schools will not be able to receive Tuition Assistance Grant [TAG] awards that exceed the average amount awarded to students attending state colleges. Since many proprietary colleges charge higher tuition than public institutions, the change will inevitably leave students at for-profit colleges with a larger gap between their tuition obligations and the aid they receive…Continue to read about cuts in Ohio, Florida and California on Inside Higher Ed >>
State School Uses Tuition Revenue, Private Donations to Boost Financial Aid During Recession
The Daily Camera, in Boulder, CO is reporting that the school’s receipt of state funds for financial aid decreased this year, but it is making up for that loss and for the effects of the recession by using tuition revenue and private donations to increase financial aid benefits to its students by about $3.6 million:
The University of Colorado system will receive $20.6 million in financial aid from the state for the upcoming fiscal year, about $400,000 less than last year.
However, CU will boost the amount of financial aid it provides students by about 4 percent to help cushion the recession and the loss of state aid. The university will use tuition revenue and private donations to increase scholarships, said CU system spokesman Ken McConnellogue.
The university will provide $98.6 million in financial aid to students in the upcoming fiscal year, McConnellogue said. That compares with $95 million for the fiscal year that ends June 30.
“It represents an institutional commitment to maintaining access to CU,” McConnellogue said.
High School Grads Seeking More Affordable Higher Ed Opportunities
Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed reported yesterday on a study released today by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, which is based on surveys of private and public high school students regarding their plans for college:
Among the highlights of the surveys…
- A significant minority of public (37.6 percent) and private (40.1 percent) high schools reported more applications per student, but a plurality for both sectors reported that the application-per-student ratio (which many feared might rise significantly this year) was about the same as last year.
- Interest in community colleges was up, especially at public high schools, 62.9 percent of which reported an increase in the number of students selecting community colleges; only 2.9 percent reported a decrease. Among private high schools, most counseling officials reported no change in interest in community colleges, but 21.3 percent saw more students going to two-year institutions.
- Solid majorities at both public and private high schools reported a shift in enrollment patterns, with an increase in those enrolling in public colleges.
- Solid majorities at both public and private high schools reported that more students this year than in the past were not enrolling at their “dream schools” for economic reasons.
- Majorities of both public and private colleges reported increases in inquiries and applications and very small majorities of both sectors reported increases in early decision applications (in which students pledge to admit if enrolled).
- Public colleges were more likely to see their yields (the percentage of accepted applicants who enroll) go up, while the opposite was true for private colleges.
- Significant minorities of public and private colleges saw increases in the percentages of students accepted through early decision who declined to enroll, citing inadequate financial aid.
- Many more colleges — public and private — saw increases in fall to spring retention rates than saw decreases.
For more details, and to read more about the results of the study, visit Inside Higher Ed (and be sure to check out the insights in the “Comments” section).
