Word: schmalhausen
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...jacket of "Humanizing Education" is completely plastered with its praises from such authorities as George Santayana, Bertrand Russell "The American Mercury." But somehow I suspect that they are rather in favor of Mr. Schmalhausen's aim than his method. His aim is de-bunking education; his method is almost non-existant. Perhaps the fact that he makes no attempt to stay near his subject is better for the world at large, because not only does Mr. Schmalhausen de-bunk education, but also War, Romanticism, Literary Criticism, Jesus of Nazareth, and conventional morality. The result of these fliers...
...suspected that Mr. Schmalhausen was a rather close spiritual relative of Mr. Sinclair or Mr. Gundelfinger after the first ten pages. He has the same savagery, the same sense of outraged righteousness, the same lack of a sense of humor. "The Goslings," Mr. Upton Sinclair's study of the American schools was brought to light for comparison. Mr. Sinclair states in the first page of his introduction that the purpose of his book is to show how the "invisible government of Big Business which controls the rest of America has taken over the charge of your children;" on the second...
...Schmalhausen embarks upon his preface with the following portentous sentence: "The main thesis of this volume is simple and lucid, to wit: that critical-mindedness spells enlightenment while credulity spells superstition; that America, speaking educationally is persuaded that critical-mindedness is a crime against bad manners; that the capacity for self-delusion is the over shadowing defect of the human mind, nowhere more in evidence than in optimism-haunted America; that the pursuit of knowledge somehow manages to ignore the pursuit of wisdom; that facts are mistaken for comprehension and information mistaken for insight; that, in short, our education stresses...
While lacking any architectonic sense or inclination, Mr. Schmalhausen has a peculiar faculty for "neat, attractive expressions--simple dogmatisms." Thus...
Obviously Mr. Schmalhausen hits the nail on the head as often as not, but he tries to hit too many nails, to destroy too many windmills. And he should never have recounted his woes in his appendix, a "Psycho-Biography." It savours too much of Gundelfinger, and arouses painful comparisons with Upton Sinclair...