VARIETY
that voting is a barbarous custom
and that unanimity should be at–
tempted, deadlock is inevitably
frequent.
So much for the different schools
of thought. All schools seem to
have in common two important
things: an exaggerated opinion of
what the college might be and an
inability to make the college act–
ually work in any even half-satis–
factory fashion .
The exaggeration of the role of
education is something all our
modern reformers have in com–
mon. Dewey says: "Education is
the fundamental method of social
progress and reform." Hutchins
preaches a "spiritual revolution"
to which "the only way . . . is
through education." But the level
of Black Mountain's educational
panaceism is examplified in one of
its champions, Mr. Louis Adamic,
who once
(Harpers,
April 1936)
described the portentous process by
which a Black Mountain student,
passing through the dark night of
despair and isolation of his few
months there, is spiritually re–
united with the group. One of the
happy results which Mr. Adamic
reported was this: "Some of those
who had been there longest can
also exchange complicated com–
munications without saying a word.
The lift of an eyebrow to them is
a sentence."
So ridiculously ambitious and
Utopian in intention, the experi–
mental college is limited and in–
harmonious in its results. Personal
antipathies occur, of course, wher–
ever there are men; group differ-
429
ences emerge wherever there are
aggregations of men; and no cam–
pus can hope to be free of univer–
sally human troubles. The peculiar
difficulty of the experimental col–
lege is that small numbers and
community living make of every
personal trntation a communal
fever, a fever which is caught and
carried by the students as well as
by the faculty.
If
the students have
a voice in all affairs, and if faculty
and students live cooped up in a
valley miles from anywhere, peo–
ple are going to get on each others
nerves, the more so if they consist
of nervous, 'progressive' adolescents
and highly individualized intel–
lectuals, each with a very definite
set of his own theories which he
wishes to try out. Black Mountain
never works smoothly for long at a
SHORT
IS THE
TIME
by
CECIL DAY LEWIS
A collection of poems by an
outstanding modem English
poet. Published in England in
two volumes as
Overtures to
Death
and
Word O ver All,
these poems are the personal,
articulate expression of an
artist whose deep concern is for
the tragedy of man's plight in
a world at war.
At all bookstores
.
$2.25
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
114 Fifth Avenue, N. Y. II
