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JOHN HENRY RALEIGH
be a constant interplay or dialectic between the major or the special
subject of the individual students and the general spectrum of humall
learning. But the heart of the matter, in Bell's schema, is cognitive:
the manner in which the mind works in different fields of knowledge.
Thus: "the pattern of knowledge is fundamentally triadic; ..." From
this it follows that the learning process or function is different in each
of the three fields. In mathematics and the sciences learning is
sequen–
tial,
building up learning in a linear manner. In the humanities it is
concentric,
whereby certain major themes (love, death, rebirth and so
on) are returned to again and again. In the social sciences learning
procedes by
linkages,
constant movement outward into different but
related fields of knowledge.
Protesting against many of these proposals would seem, especially
for a humanist professor, like espousing sin, but since I am in fact
very partial to sin, I do have many reservations about Bell's proposals.
I must preface my remarks by saying that I applaud emotionally and
subjectively what he is attempting, that is, to shore up the idea and
practice of the traditional conception of general education, a noble idea
and ideal. But the reality principle tells me that this is tinkering with a
phantom, fo;: what Bell is talking about is something that has at least
partially disappeared. The real question is not how it can be preserved
-it can't-but what is to take its place. All of modern history, by
which is meant history since the French Revolution, has been a kind
of clumsy brokerage whereby society somehow continues to replace the
obsolete by the obsolescent (usually over the dead bodies of the conserva–
tives and with, very often, the massacre of the revolutionaries). This
movement has now finally caught up with higher education. This is not
meant to imply that the study of the past will or should disappear or
that traditional subjects will disappear. Quite the contrary; but their
organization and instruction will have to be radically revised. I do not
pretend to know the answers to these problems and am .only asking
questions. But I am convinced, as are others, that part of our difficulty
arises from the fact that we are giving old answers to new questions.
And the whole problem of education is beset by more than its share of
the ordinary difficulties attendant upon all collective human enterprises,
not the least of these difficulties being the very fragility of the educa–
tional process itself.
Accordingly, there is no subject on which a dogmatic approach is
less relevant than in theories, or practices, of education, which now
in
the United States bids fair to replace sexual relations as Topic A. The
fact that both activities are undergoing tremendous transitions or revolu-
