Word: barzun
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Lower Learning. Horizon's contributors saw the U.S. as a land of Main Streets, movies and middlebrows. Columbia Professor Jacques (Teacher in America) Barzun, searching for "the Higher Learning in America," found only "an immense amount of Lower Learning. . . ." Writing, painting and sculpture were in a bad way, too. Observed Partisan Review's co-Editor William Phillips: ". . . It is almost impossible for a writer to starve, since [there is so much] easy money [that] it is difficult to be the kind of writer who might starve...
Following the position set forth in his latest book, "Teacher in America," on the mass production method in American pedagogy, Barzun again asserted that the lecture, as such, slanted from the specialist's outlook, has little value in presenting general education...
Later in the evening's discussion John H. Finley '23, Eliot professor of Greek Literature, took issue with Barzun on this point. "Specialization is compatible with general education," he insisted, as he presented the thought of the Objectives Committee, of which he was a member...
...personal interview before the meeting at which 500 students appeared, Barzun noted with interest the elimination of tutorial in several university departments, Barzun declared that tutorial work, or its equivalent, is a necessity for college men of Junior and Senior standing. He offered as "the equivalent alternative" a system of conferences and seminars where students could freely express themselves orally and in writing...
...Barzun agreed with the Student Council reports on general education that the issue of allotting college budgets to research rather than to teaching was the vital one in connection with the death of tutorial. "To be more than a phonograph," he admitted, "a teacher has to keep abreast of research in his field and do some original thinking...