IMPACT OF HIGH SCHOOL PREPARATION
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under the assault of the intellectual movements of postmodernism. And
also, not least, by the dominance of professional education. The spread of
state schools and of liberal education advanced from the start hand in hand
with the spread of professional education, which in any event had been the
model for Anlerican colleges to begin with. In the post-World War II
United States this professional part of higher education expanded at break–
neck speed, so much so that today the liberal arts have been relegated to a
marginal, musty, and neglected corner of the vast, complex academic
enterprise--but an enterprise changed out of all recognition from
Arnold's vision of culture and Dover Wilson's vision of higher education.
Conveniently, in
Culture and Anarchy,
Arnold does not omit to make
reference to Cornell University, with which I started. Here is what he says:
"The university of Mr. Ezra Cornell, a really noble monument of his
munificence, yet seems to rest on a misconception of what culture truly is,
and to be calculated to produce miners, or engineers, or architects, not
sweetness and light."
And yet, I think those of us on this side of the Atlantic anyway would
say that Cornell seems to have managed to produce learned engineers, cul–
tured engineers, visionary engineers, as well as engineers blind to beauty
and deaf to intelligence. Arnold's fussy devotion to a single road to high
seriousness, while making a point, also obscured for Arnold and therefore
maybe for many of us the vigor and-if I may use the word-the diversi–
ty of intellectual paths to culture.
If Arnold could misjudge the likely development of Cornell, then
those of us like me who don't find much to rave about in the values, atti–
tudes, and practices of today's higher education should be warned against
a too easy and comforting despair. For it does seem that once you gather
people together under the guise of education, education may actually
occur, despite the intentions of founders and professors. Besides, if
Arnold's narrow but lofty and religious notion of education could tri–
umph, as it did, over the legendary philistinism of his own time, then the
chances of redirecting our own system to ends grander than the falsely
practical might not be so poor after all.
Edith Kurzweil:
Thank you, Igor. Next we hear from Kurt Scholz.
Kurt Scholz:
Ladies and gentlemen, dear Professor Kurzweil, I'd like to
thank you for the opportunity to speak here and participate in this confer–
ence. I'll try to outline the Austrian experience, which I've divided into
four parts. First, I will compare systems, then discuss immigration to
Austria and integration in Vienna. Then I will describe some structures
and standards of our school system in a short outline. And finally, I will
