On Any Given Page

A friend presented me with a Christmas treasure: an old book, a really old book, entitled English Composition in Theory and Practice, published by The MacMillan Company in 1909. I’ve known the name Henry Seidel Canby, Ph.D. since my college days, and it is his name at the top of the authorship list, followed by four colleagues “of the Department of English Composition in the Sheffield Scientific School, of Yale University.”

I’ve been reading steadily since I brought the book home. The book includes both instruction in English composition, much the same today as it was a century ago, and application of the composition skills. The application includes a fascinating collection of essays with an eclectic range of authorship, most of which are obscured by the plethora of paper that comprises today’s society, but which are priceless in the reasoned, timeless analysis of global topics that remain at the forefront of societal concerns a century later.

I particularly enjoyed reading an address delivered by Woodrow Wilson before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale University, entitled ‘The Training of the Intellect.” In his words, I hear my educational philosophy reflected and realize that the same issues he addressed in his speech that day could be my own words to my colleagues a century later: how a student feels about himself while at school is less important than how well educated the student is. The job of the educational institution is academic; if, along the way, a student also builds character, so be it, but that is NOT the primary job of the educational process.

“Mr. Toastmaster, Mr. President, and Gentlemen: -- I must confess to you that I came here with very serious thoughts this evening, because I have been laboring under the conviction for a long time that the object of a university is to educate, and I have not seen the universities of this country achieving any remarkable or disturbing success in that direction. … Is it not time we stopped asking indulgence for learning and proclaimed its sovereignty? Is it not time we reminded the college men of this country that they have no right to any distinctive place in any community, unless they can show it by intellectual achievement?”

Further in his address, Wilson defines the element of character, remarking that “I hear a great deal about character being the object of education.” Wilson asserts that “Character, gentlemen, is a by-product. It comes, whether you will or not, as a consequence of a life devoted to the nearest duty, and the place in which character would be cultivated, if it be a place of study, is a place where study is the object and character the result.” He concludes that “The object of a university is intellect; as a university its only object is intellect.”

I smiled as I read his words that also challenge the scholars of a hundred years ago to think before they act: “That is the function of scholarship in a country like ours, to supply not heat, but light, to suffuse things with the calm radiance of reason, to see to it that men do not act hastily, but that they act considerately, that they obey the truth.” Time for today’s spin doctors and instant media analysts to become history, rather than a driving force in today’s world.

The truth is that all people need to be educated, but not all people need the same education. This basic premise is ignored in the No Child Left Behind frenzy, as the unique needs of the student population are replaced with generic non-academic curricula that presumably meet the needs of all students at all times and in all classrooms, but which actually meet the needs of very few students in very few classrooms at any given time.

Without the basic educational tools, the foundation of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking, there is no “education,” there is simply behavioral training. Students who cannot read and understand the written word, students who cannot write a basic sentence or orally articulate a basic idea, students who cannot perform basic, functional mathematical computations, students who cannot think for themselves, are students who cannot succeed past grammar school level. They cannot be educated because they have not mastered the basic core knowledge necessary to go beyond the elementary stages of the educational process. They may have been trained to function as students in whatever way that designation is currently publicized by the media, but they are not academically prepared, they are not intellectually engaged, they are not adequately educated.

Wilson ends his speech with stirring passion: “… if the Faculties in this country want to recapture the ground that they have lost, they must begin pretty soon, and they must go into the battle with their bridges burned behind them so that it will be of no avail to retreat.” I feel the same way about No Child Left Behind: if we want to educate students for what lies ahead, we have to go back to required mastery of the foundations of learning, actual knowledge of key academic concepts and skills, and hold students accountable for learning, rather than apologizing for and excusing their failure.

As a nation, we either believe in educating our citizens or we don’t, and if we believe that all citizens need an education, then we have to demand that they get it. We cannot give it to the student as it has to be earned, and education requires equal effort from the educational institution and the individual student to achieve. We cannot say let’s not leave any child behind and then devise a system that leaves the majority of them unable to read, write, speak, listen, and think as the culminating achievement of our educational process.