Nearly 100 years ago, Bertrand Russell wrote:
“The idle rich who at present infest the older universities very often derive no benefit from them, but merely contract habits of dissipation”.
(p301)1
We might wonder how much has changed with the passing of a century. The line is one of many gems from Russell’s book Education and the Good Life.
The book is well worth reading in its entirety; perhaps especially for parents, like myself, who could gain a valuable perspective, as well as some comforting reassurance. Russell’s affirmation that “parents learn by their mistakes; it is only when the children are grown up that one discovers how they ought to have been educated” (p112) eased some of my parental anxieties! As is common in books concerning pedagogy and curricula, much of Education and the Good Life is dedicated to the education of children. However, the penultimate chapter focuses on university. Despite being a short chapter, it contains much thought-provoking material, particularly considering the current climate of UK higher education.
The Office for Students was established in 2018 to regulate Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). At that time, the last of the Office’s four objectives set a distinctly consumerist tone: to ensure that “all students, from all backgrounds, receive value for money.”
In considering higher education, Russell starts with the excellent question, who should go to university? He is “convinced that, at present, only a minority of the population can profit by a scholastic education prolonged to the age of twenty-one or twenty-two” (p301). Remembering that he is writing in 1926, I wonder what he would make of last year’s record high of 30% of the 18 year olds in England, Wales and Northern Ireland commencing higher education. Though given he later writes “as the world grows more complicated and industry becomes more scientific, an increasing number of experts are required, and in the main they are supplied by the Universities,” (p303) he would perhaps view the increase in undergraduates as an obvious inevitability.
In answer to his opening question, Russell puts forward that the principles of selection for attendance at University should be educational and not financial. This position is grounded in his particular philosophy of the purpose of universities as part of society. From my reading of it, Russell asserts that they are increasingly, and rightly so, training schools for the professions; but, crucially, must not lose sight of learning for its own sake. I found the following section particularly poignant:
“Old-fashioned people lament the intrusion of technical schools into the haunts of pure learning, but it continues none the less, because it is demanded by plutocrats who care nothing for “culture”. It is they, much more than the insurgent democracy, who are the enemies of pure learning. “Useless” learning, like “art for art’s sake”, is an aristocratic, not a plutocratic, ideal; where it lingers, it is because the renaissance tradition is not yet dead. I regret the decay of this ideal profoundly; pure learning was one of the best things associated with the aristocracy. But the evils of aristocracy were so great as to easily outweigh this merit… If pure learning is to survive as one of the purposes of universities, it will have to be brought into relation with the life of the community as a whole, not only with the delights of a few gentlemen of leisure.”
(p304)
Russell believes that “universities exist for two purposes: on the one hand, to train men and women for certain professions; on the other hand, to pursue learning and research without regard to immediate utility” (p306).
Having set out the purpose of university in society, Russell returns to the question of selection. As in much of his writing, he maintains a very societal perspective. He posits two rules: “first, that no-one shall be allowed to undertake important work without having acquired the necessary skill; secondly, that this skill shall be taught to the ablest of those who desire it, quite independently of their parents’ means” (p307).
Regarding the first rule, Russell reinforces his disposition for efficiency. He uses farming as an example of a typically hereditary vocation, arguing that a farmer might have learnt their trade well from their forebears, but might not. In cases where a farmer has the means, typically land by inheritance, but not the skills, this leads to poor efficiency in food production for society. Russell asserts that “we ought to insist that every person allowed to cultivate more than a small holding should have a diploma in scientific agriculture, just as we insist on a motorist having a licence” (p307).
Regarding the second rule, teaching the ablest, this again is derived from a sense of societal efficiency. “Take medicine as illustrative,” Russell offers, “a community which wished its doctoring done efficiently would select for medical training those young people who showed keenness and aptitude for the work. At present this principle is applied partially, to select among those who can afford the training; but it is quite probable that many of those who would make the best doctors are too poor to take the course. This involves a deplorable waste of talent” (p306).
I found the short remainder of the chapter the most thought provoking, and in places amusingly of its time, as it briefly addresses the activities that should take place within a university.
Of students, Russell asserts that “a young man or woman at university should not be allowed to be idle” (p308). Clearly this sits in the context of Russell’s strong view that talented but poor students should be supported by the taxpayer, as a societal benefit. However, and in strong resonance with my own philosophy of education, Russell “hasten[s] to add that the tests of work must not consist in mechanical conformity to system” (p308).
As a tutor myself, in a university conservatoire with very high contact hours, Russell proceeds to paint a picture of pedagogy which I find amusing and alien in equal measure, and certainly of its time:
“The teacher should, at the beginning of the term, give a list of books to be read carefully, and a slight account of other books which some may like and others not. He should set papers, which can only be answered by noticing the important points of the books intelligently. He should see the pupils individually when they have done their papers. About once a week or once a fortnight, he should see such as care to come in the evening, and have desultory conversation about matters more or less connected with their work.”
(p309)
Quite a contrast to my experience of being compelled to relentlessly fill students’ timetables in the name of ‘value for money’!
More seriously, Russell does offer a perspective which I wish I could embrace more fully than I am currently permitted. Amusing for my students I am sure: “when I was an undergraduate, my feeling, and that of most of my friends, was that lectures were a pure waste of time. No doubt we exaggerated, but not much” (p308). Aside from the irreverence, of which I do not disapprove, to my mind Russell makes two points worthy of reflection. Firstly, he points out that “the real reason for lectures is that they are obvious work, and therefore business men are willing to pay for them. If university teachers adopted the best methods, business men would think them idle, and insist upon cutting down the staff” (p308). Secondly, Russell sits firmly on my list of authorities-up-my-sleeve to support my instinctive attitude that students should be given more freedom than ‘the system’ presently allows them. Russell asserts that “the arguments in favour of individual work, which are allowed to be strong in the case of infants in a Montessori school, are very much stronger in the case of young people of twenty, particularly when, as we are assuming, they are keen and exceptionally able” (p308).
I cannot help but also highlight Russell’s assertion that “if a pupil chooses to set himself a paper, different from that of the teacher but equally difficult, he shall be at liberty to do so” (p309). I could not agree more.
In conclusion, the chapter is beautifully summarised in the following passage, so I shall close with this:
“University education should therefore be regarded as privilege for special ability, and those who possess the skill but no money should be maintained at the public expense during their course. No one should be admitted unless he satisfies the tests of ability, and no one should be allowed to remain unless he satisfies the authorities that he is using his time to advantage. The idea of the university as a place of leisure where rich young men loaf for three or four years is dying, but, like Charles II, it is taking an unconscionable time about it.”
(p308)
- All quotations referenced by pages are from Russell, B. (1970) Education and the Good Life, New York, Liveright
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