"Premature Originality"

“One of the surest ways of being original nowadays, since that is what we are all straining so anxiously after, would be simply to become a well-read man (in the old-fashioned sense of the term), to have a thorough knowledge and imaginative appreciation of what is really worthwhile in the literature of the past.  The candidate for the doctor’s degree thinks he can afford to neglect this general reading and reflection in the interests of his own private bit of research.”

In today’s academic world, you must find a niche.  It won’t do to write generally about revenge in Hamlet or Nature in British Romanticism.  To be heard you must be an expert on your subject, and you must find an angle adopted by no one else.  Half of your career may be spent in search of this angle, but that’s the cost of a seat in the learned circles.  At the end, if you’re lucky, you will be crowned eminent scholar on the feminist echoes in some obscure poem. 

In Literature and the American College, Irving Babbitt warns of the dangers of specialization.  He distinguishes between assimilation and production.  College, he writes, is intended as a time of reflection, during which students assimilate the learning of the ages.  Graduate school creates the productive scholar, who contributes his own thoughts and writings.  If one skips the reflective stage and enters immediately on graduate-level productivity, “one may shine as a productive scholar, and yet have little or nothing of that humane insight and reflection that can alone give meaning to all subjects” (128). 

Since our undergrad situation does not fully emphasize assimilation, Babbitt suggests another degree between undergrad and doctoral—a new degree focused on reading widely.  He proposes a program which, through broad and intelligent reading, promotes discipline in ideas.  Maybe our Master’s degree would fit this description, but even the M.A. is more research-focused than Babbitt intends.  Students should become well-read, as he defines it: “to have a thorough knowledge and imaginative appreciation of what is really worthwhile in the literature of the past.”  The proposed program’s instruction would emphasize the “relationship between literature and thought.”

An abrupt transition to grad school, writes Babbitt, “encourages the student to devote the time he still needs for general reading and reflection to straining after a premature ‘originality.’”  Entering my senior year, I find myself with a basis in some fields and in certain eras of literature.  However, I could use another year or two, at least, to fill in the gaps in economics; the history of ideas; logic and rhetoric; medieval, classical, and French literatures; and literary criticism--to name a few subjects!  Of course, I must be selective.  I can’t know everything and know it well.  But I've often felt that I should read more of the classics before I’m ready to narrow down my interests.  What constitutes readiness, though, or should I say “well-read-ness”? 

I’m supposed to be looking for graduate programs, but I hesitate to just choose one of the fields I like right now.  Maybe I’m using Babbitt as an excuse, but it sure feels like I’m “straining after a premature originality.”  My inclination to postpone grad school could spring from a number of motivations, bad and good:
-fear of the unknown
-a valid need to fill in gaps of knowledge
-an irrational desire to be perfect at something before I even begin
-the hope that a path of study will magically unfold with unquestionable lucidity…at a later date
-laziness (have you ever tried to fill out those applications?)
-lack of clarity about the significance of literary study

These uncertainties, and especially that last factor in the list, prompted me to write this blog.  And it’s helping—I’m airing concerns and, even better, surveying them in the light of past thinkers like Babbitt.  I really don’t think I’ll end up in an obscure, narrow topic in graduate school, because I can choose my course of study.  But choosing a preliminary field, and deciding whether to plunge in or delay, are very relevant issues.

Babbitt on Scholarship

"The final test of the scholar must be his power to penetrate his facts and dominate his impressions, and fuse them with the fire of a central purpose."

                                                                       -Irving Babbitt

Reflection as Creation

In Literature and the American College (1908), Irving Babbitt defends "the humane endeavor which it is the special purpose of the college to foster--that effort of reflection, virile above all others, to coordinate the scattered elements of knowledge and relate them not only to the intellect but to the will and character; that subtle alchemy by which mere learning is transmuted into culture.  The task of assimilating what is best in the past and present, and adapting it to one's own use and the use of others, so far from lacking in originality, calls for something akin to creation."

Nockian Notes

My study of Albert Jay Nock has come to a close.  Though Nock wrote about eighty years ago, his critique of American educational theory applies today.  Below is an assortment of particularly timeless ideas:

• The new system focuses on training, not education—professional knowledge, not formative knowledge.  Nock does admit that the university system is admirably well-organized for training!  It simply is not educational.  Therefore, it’s not a university.

• Nock questions the assumption that “a big school is a great school.”  Are we judging by quantity or quality?

• He critiques “grab-bag education.”  In traditional education, students had to stretch themselves to complete a proscribed program.  Nowadays, the curriculum stretches to fit the students, including those who are incapable of harder courses.  Nock is flabbergasted at the number and variety of easy electives offered at institutions of higher learning.  I suspect he would not approve of my Organic Gardening, Jogging, and Swahili electives!  (To tell the truth, I’m beginning to wish I had taken Latin, Ethics, and some other courses.)

• In a liberal university, the burden of education used to rest fully upon the student; now it’s up to the faculty to help “get us through” quickly.

• Our system leaves little room for discipleship-style education, i.e. students who go to study under a diversely talented great man (common in the Middle Ages).  Now the university program itself tends to carry more importance than the professor you seek.  And professors have to be specialists; they don’t need a grasp of the Great Tradition.

• Bad news: There’s no way to fix the university problem.  Because of strong interests attached to the current system, our society will not relinquish the bad theories.  Nock's little book is rather pessimistic, don’t you think?

• Good news: The Great Tradition stands alone.  We can’t hurt the liberal tradition by our neglect; we can only benefit ourselves in seeking it.  Listen to this… “We can do nothing for the Great Tradition; our fidelity to it can do everything for us.  Creatures of a day, how shall we think that what we do or leave undone is of consequence to that which abides forever?” (155) 

Liberal Education

Bloom called it the “Great Books” approach.  Newman called it “enlargement of mind.”  Nock uses this phrase: the “Great Tradition.”  The Great Tradition aims to inculcate certain views and demands, “which take proper account of the fundamental instincts of mankind, all in due measure and balance.”  Fundamental instincts include those of workmanship, the intellect, religion, beauty, poetry and manners (54).  This approach is based on the reality that human nature is unchanging, and it promotes balance among all parts of knowledge (remember, that was Newman's concern).

Tracing a typical pre-twentieth century student’s education, Nock reveals the details of liberal education.  After reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic, the student was immersed in Latin, Greek and algebra.  He also read some classical history, geography and mythology.  In college, he studied the range of Greek/Latin literature, math up to calculus, physics & astronomy, a brief logic course, and an overview of English linguistic history.  Now, this list makes me stop and ask:

What’s so great about Greek and Latin?

Or, why are classical studies central to a liberal education? Nock answers:

The literatures of Greece and Rome comprise the longest and fullest continuous record available to us, of what the human mind has been busy about in practically every department of spiritual and social activity….This record covers twenty-five hundred consecutive years of the human mind’s operations…. Hence the mind that has attentively canvassed this record is not only a disciplined mind but an experienced mind; a mind that instinctively views any contemporary phenomenon from the vantage-point of an immensely long perspective attained through this profound and weighty experience of the human spirit’s operations. (52)

So Greek and Latin were not studied just because of blind tradition: classical learning is more significant than we moderns realize!

Note from an English major:  By critically reading Greek and Latin, a student would learn how to analyze literature.  As a result, Nock said that English courses were practically non-existent!  Since you knew analysis, you could easily apply the principles to your own culture’s literature.  For Nock, university English courses are fluff; they’re made to cater to “ineducable” students.  And, even though I’m an English major, I see his argument.  No offense taken, Mr. Nock.


>Sappho


What’s so great about the Great Tradition?

  All progress in history has been made through clear, mature, profound thinking.  On the other hand, we’ve all seen the horrible results of wrong-headed policies and movements.  The development of “right thinking” in individuals is the long-lasting societal benefit of the Great Tradition.  Bottom line: Ideas have consequences, so let’s make sure influential people are acting on the right ideas.  (For more reasons behind liberal education, see my Newman post.)

The Theory of Education in the U.S.

Published in 1932, Nock’s small volume addresses the unsuccessful educational overhaul that had taken place around 1900.  The classical, liberal system had been replaced by our utilitarian, democratic system—and everyone agreed that the effect on students was not entirely desirable.  While his contemporaries were “incessantly tinkering” with new methods, Nock proclaimed bluntly that the problem was in the underlying educational theories.  Until these were replaced, the system would never work.  Nock’s work is pertinent, because the same theories still reign today.

Nock identifies three faulty theories—rather, they are the distortion of the three ideas listed below.

1.    Equality: All people are equal, so all people should go to school or university…right??  Nock argues that not all people are capable of higher education.  He distinguishes (rather harshly!) between the “educable” and the “ineducable.”  (The educable person “is one who gives promise of some day being able to think”! p.124)

2.    Democracy: A falsely democratic attitude resents superiority.  This attitude demands that educational standards be adjusted down to the lowest common denominator in society. Further, giving the people “what they want” supersedes an objectively good curriculum.

3.    Literate Citizenry: Good, honest government depends on the voters being well informed, so they must know how to read.  But really, Nock claims, “everything depends upon what he reads, and upon the purpose that guides him in reading it” (43).  Literacy is not an automatic road to well-judged public opinion.

The core attitude that allowed these theories’ popularity is the determination of parents that their children should have better opportunities and as much education as possible.  This is a great motivation…but remember:  The wrong thing for the right reasons is still the wrong thing. 

Thinking "Christianly"

The comment conversation on a previous post, Relativism and Belief, provoked relevant thoughts that I want to share in a bona fide post.  They relate specifically to my question: What does it mean to be a Christian scholar?  I emphasized the importance of a comprehensive, objective worldview, i.e., one that consistently addresses all areas of life.  For me, that means a Biblically-based view of reality.  I didn’t consider the question “How?” until a reader commented about her experience of trying to forge a Christian worldview (thanks Leah!).

I think Leah hit on the difficulty that most Christians have: how to think "Christianly" about certain topics.  The practical outworking of studying literature, philosophy, etc., is challenging, because our thought is greatly affected by what we inadvertently hear or randomly read.  And what we hear or read today has a good chance of being anti-Christian or (almost as bad) watered-down Christian material.

Education through conversation is the remedy. I comprehend more in the word “conversation” than a face-to-face chat.  Walter Scott observed, "All knowledge is gained by communication either with the dead, through books, or, more pleasingly, through the conversation of the living."  Wise Christians in past ages wrote about the subjects we study, and wise Christians today address these topics deeply and pertinently.  But how are we to discover, choose among, and “converse with” these thinkers?  I’ve often sighed in agreement with Solomon: “Of making many books there is no end.” (Eccl. 12:12)  There’s no end of reading them, either!  After all, time is fleeting.  Who has time to read—much less decide what to read?
 

Biblioteca de la Real Academia De La Lengua, Madrid, Spain

We need wise people in the educational arena: curriculum designers, book reviewers, worldview training designers (there are a lot of good ones), perceptive scholars, and excellent TEACHERS.  These living people can help me to navigate among the material out there.  At the same time, I need to approach them critically—trusting God's Word, not just one person or organization.  If I do find an unaddressed gap or deviation in a certain subject’s literature, perhaps God is calling me to write about it.  Perhaps I am the one who will smooth a perilous bump on the road of truth.  Perhaps I am the one who will guide others to view honestly some thread of reality's tapestry.  And maybe I am the teacher who will help a student understand an important idea, or hand him a book that enflames his passion for truth. 

The studious, “conversational” approach to a comprehensive, consistent worldview is not an easy road or an obvious one. It is the long, arduous, worthwhile challenge of Christian education.  Yes, worthwhile.  I often think that I’d like to homeschool my future kids: if I can help them develop a solid, comprehensive faith, that is the most valuable educational foundation I could pass on to them.  Faith that informs every area of life is rock-solid, God-honoring, and joyful.  One can securely build life and eternity upon such faith.