…all should be well acquainted with and each in his…

…all should be well acquainted with and each in his measure actively and continuously engaged in the Great Conversation that man has had about what is and should be…

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Other Robert Hutchins Quotes

The dogma of individual differences. This is one of the basic dogmas of American education. It runs something like this: all men are different; therefore, all men require a different education; therefore, anybody who suggests that education should be in any respect the same has ignored the fact that all men are different; therefore, nobody should suggest that everybody should read some of the same books; some people should read some books, some should read others. This dogma has gained such a hold… that you will often now hear a college president boast that his college has no curriculum. Each student has a course of study framed, or “tailored”… to meet his own individual needs and interests. - View Quote Details on The dogma of individual differences. This is one of the…
Only an unashamed dogmatist would dare to assert that the issue has finally been resolved now, in favor of the view that, outside logic or mathematics, the method of modern science is the only method to employ in seeking knowledge. The dogmatist who made this assertion would have to be more than ashamed. He would have to blind himself to the fact that his own assertion was not established by the experimental method, nor made as an indisputable conclusion of mathematical reasoning or of purely logical analysis. - View Quote Details on Only an unashamed dogmatist would dare to assert that the…
The facts are indispensable; they are not sufficient. To solve a problem it is necessary to think. It is necessary to think even to decide what facts to collect. Even the experimental scientist cannot avoid being a liberal artist, and the best of them, as the great books show are men of imagination and of theory as well as patient observers of particular facts….critics have themselves frequently misunderstood the scientific method and have confused it with the aimless accumulation of facts. - View Quote Details on The facts are indispensable; they are not sufficient. To solve…
In education… whenever a proposal is made that looks toward increased intellectual effort on the part of students, professors will always say that the students cannot so the work. My observation leads me to think that what this usually means is that the professors cannot or will not do the work… When, in spite of the opposition of the professors, the change is introduced, the students, in my experience, have always responded nobly. - View Quote Details on In education… whenever a proposal is made that looks toward…
We are told… Statements that are not mathematical or logical formulae may look as if they were necessarily or certainly true, but they only look like that. They cannot really be either necessary or certain. - View Quote Details on We are told… Statements that are not mathematical or logical…
The Great Conversation began before the beginnings of experimental science. But the birth of the Conversation and the birth of science were simultaneous. The earliest of the pre-Socratics were investigating and seeking to understand natural phenomena; among them were men who used mathematical notions for this purpose. Even experimentation is not new; it has been going on for hundreds of years. But faith in experimentation as an exclusive method is a modern manifestation….it is now regarded in some quarters… as the sole method of obtaining knowledge of any kind. - View Quote Details on The Great Conversation began before the beginnings of experimental science…
If many great books seem unreadable and unintelligible… it may be because we have not for a long time learned to read by reading them. Great books teach people not only how to read them, but how to read all other books. - View Quote Details on If many great books seem unreadable and unintelligible… it may…
The products of American high schools are illiterate; and a degree from a famous college or university is no guarantee that the graduate is in any better case. One of the most remarkable features of American society is that the difference between the “uneducated” and the “educated” is so slight. - View Quote Details on The products of American high schools are illiterate; and a…
The rise of experimental science has not made the Great Conversation irrelevant…. Science itself is part of the Great Conversation. - View Quote Details on The rise of experimental science has not made the Great…
In the knowledge of nature,” Aristotle writes, the test of principles “is the unimpeachable evidence of the senses as to the fact.” He holds that “lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view of the admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in the intimate association with nature and its phenomena grow more and more able to formulate, as the foundation of their theories, principles such as to admit of a wide and coherent development; while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations.” Theories should be accredited, Aristotle insists, “only if what they affirm agrees with the facts. - View Quote Details on In the knowledge of nature,” Aristotle writes, the test of…