Kerr and Pusey on the Modern 'Multiversity' and the Scholar

President Pusey's book on education has inspired some harsh, sarcastic, facile reviews in the last few weeks. Several have been unjust to the man and the quality of his thought.

Undoubtedly the most widely read review is Daniel J. Boorstin's comparison of Age of the Scholar with Clark Kerr's The Uses of the University in "Book Week." Boorstin contrasts Kerr's "courage and intellectual clarity" with Pusey's "genteel, vague, sanctimonious, and insular mind."

The Age of the Scholar is certainly not an easy book to read. It consists of a selection of speeches Pusey has made as President of Harvard, chronologically arranged. Pusey's speech-writing style, particularly in the early speeches is, at the least, difficult. The writing improves in some of the later papers, but throughout his penchant of polysyllabic words and rhetorical sentences makes it hard to hear what he is saying. Perhaps one example will suffice:

The efficacy of principle is brought into question by many less amicable than the old Scottish preacher whose practice was to extricate himself from treacherous discussion with his parishioners with the statement: "It may not be right, and it may not be just, but it is the will of God." If only the will of God could be so certainly known!

If the debilitating prejudice against admitting consideration of principle is now abating, a reason is not far to seek. There have always been some to maintain that the world of knowledge owes little to events. Yet surely it is the events of our century that have been forcing this particular change in intellectual convention....

Even in context the passage is hard to understand. And yet, unfortunately, many reviewers never went farther than obvious criticisms of style. Had they looked beyond the prose, they would have found that Age of the Scholar says many important things.

Dangers of Bigness

Pusey warns of the dangers of the modern "multiversity" whose power Kerr's book glories in. While Keer seems fascinated by the size and social influence that America's great universities have achieved, Pusey is understandably humble about the problems that such bigness poses.

He understands that higher education must be able to mass-produce the scientific and social technicians that American society requires. But Pusey also believes the university will not serve society best by becoming "servile" to its immediate needs: in the end, the university will retain its identity only as a community of teacher-scholars.

One can mistake the simplicity of this statement for naivite, and this is evidently what reviewer Boorstin did. In fact, President Pusey's view of education is both sophisticated and complex: he realizes the crucial peripheral tasks that a university must perform, but he does not confuse peripheral task with what he conceives of as purpose. After a great deal of agonizing--evident in almost every speech--he has concluded that knowledge for the sake of knowledge is still central to education, and that the university exists in order to support the community that nurtures it.

A university has to carry a great many young people through a variety of programs... and this is an acceptable and exciting duty.... A university has also to provide the many, many kinds of professional education of which our society now stands so hungrily in need. Again, we may say, of course... but this was not what first called the university into existence, nor can it in my judgement ever safely be thought to provide the sum or substance of its aim.... A university was, and is, first of all an association of scholars. It is their essential function not to produce goods or perform practical services, but simply to keep a life of the mind vigorous and functioning among us....

Some reviewers have found these words to be cliches. Perhaps so. But they are refreshing statements of faith for people who value scholarship in itself, and not always for its contribution to national defense. It is perfectly possible that Clark Kerr and Robert McNamara represent the future. Nevertheless, it is comforting to think of President Pusey, up where policy decisions are made, committed to preserving poetry, people, and God in his university against the inexorable logic of the cost-efficiency ratio.