THE GOOD SOCIETY
165
everybody, namely, the optimum levels of physical and mental activity
and the absence of any pathological conditions. But what would we
call a physician who insisted that since a healthy man is a healthy
man, therefore everybody who wants
to
become healthy should have
the same diet and
all
of it?
Again, suppose we believed, as most progressive educators do
(but for reasons different from those of Van Doren) that there should
be
some common features
in
the study of men who are called upon
to solve certain problems in a common world. And further, that lan–
guage, mathematics and science should be among these studies. Could
we therefore deduce, as does Van Doren, that only
one
kind of curri–
culum is best calculated to give this instruction to everybody? Not
only his conclusions but his whole procedure here is preposterous.
Despite his apostrophes to mathematics and science, I fear that Mr.
Van Doren does not really understand what they are about. Mter
rapturous passages about the qeauties of mathematics, he defines it
as the science of "quantity." And a lurid light is thrown on his con–
ception of scientific method when he argues that all children should
be made to memorize passages of poetry and prose because at decisive
moments their thought will be the better for it. "A medical diagnos–
tician of our day attributes many of his insights to the lines of poetry
his father once made him learn; their influence is indirect, but all the
more potent for that reason." Compelling evidence, indeed! Van Doren
is most shocking, however, on a subject one would expect him as a
literary man to treat with most circumspection, namely language.
Most modem educators beliC!Ve that students should learn one other
language besides their own without specifying what it should be. But
Van Doren has to deduce what this language must be, and for every–
one, too. Thus: "Greek is still the best one for the purpose, and indeed
for any purpose." That something-Greek, of all things-is good for
any purpose is not only a very un-Greek notion, it is a very foolish one.
The question of whether a liberal arts curriculum should be
focussed on the vital problems of our time or on what great thinkers
have believed about the vital problems of
their
time is a genuine one.
And the curriculum of St. Johns College, which is based almost entirely
on the problems of the past, not only deserves, but positively demands
serious consideration. But Van Doren does not argue his case on the
first question, and in discussing the second he uses the language of
adoration rather than of analysis.*
*
I have discussed the first question in
The Nation
of March 11, 1944, with
specific reference to the neo-Thomist view shared by Van Doren; the second,
an evaluation of the St. John's curriculum, will be presented
in
the
New Leader.
