Utopia

Robert Maynard Hutchins, formerly Dean of the Yale Law School, now president of the University of Chicago, has written on "The University of Utopia" for the spring issue of The Yale Review. In this article Dr. Hutchins considers the relation of higher education to the practical field of social problems, and, more particularly, its relation to our present crisis of business depression. Since among an educational people larger and larger taxes are being paid each year for the support of education, the question may well be asked whether it would not be better "to buy food with this money than to continue the expansion of a process that seems powerless to help us in time of need."

Dr. Hutchins' conclusion and answer to this question is, however, "that the remedy of our present ills and the only hope we have of preventing their recurrence is not less education but more." To this end, Dr. Hutchins shows the need of developing education in four respects. First, more money will be needed for any radical improvement--an almost superfluous observation. Secondly, there must be a more liberal extension of academic freedom through a wider integration of fields of knowledge and research. Further, on this liberal basis of scholarship there must be encouraged a more intensive study of human problems; and lastly the results of this study must be disseminated more widely by means of adult education through extension institutes in universities.

To the extent of liberalizing educational systems and of encouraging intensive study of human problems, we heartily subscribe to Dr. Hutchins' theories. The serious doubt remains, however, of whether mass education through extension institutes is, in the end, the best and most effective means of disseminating the results of investigations into human problems. It was our opinion that Dr. Flexner's vigorous book had once and for all pointed out the utter ridiculousness of mass production in higher education, and had amply shown, in his discussion of Columbia, the inconsistency between extension institutes and the ideals of education.

Educational institutions will prove their value to mankind in time of need, not when they have succeeded in scattering a few crumbs of wisdom on everyone's doorstep, but when they have sent out, from their own walls.. intelligent leaders who are prepared to cope with the practical problems of society and who are ready to lead others to the solution. The American university is still faced with the problem of developing intellectual leadership among its enrolled undergraduates. When it has done that, it may turn to increasing its audience.