The Theory of Education in the United States LvMI eBook Albert Jay Nock
Download As PDF : The Theory of Education in the United States LvMI eBook Albert Jay Nock 
It is hard to say whether Albert Jay Nock's incredible elucidation of the real meaning of education and its role in a free society is the most notable thing about The Theory of Education in the Unites States, or whether that distinction falls to the fact that these lectures were given at the "public Ivy" University of Virginia as part of the prestigious Page-Barbour lecture series.
There is no way such lectures could appear on a campus of this sort today, for in them Nock gets to the heart of the matter of what is wrong with the structure of public education in the United States the policy, imposed by government, of universal admissions on the theory that everyone is equally educable.
The book is made up of 14 lectures, each one building on the other. Beginning with an understanding of what it means to be an educated person, Nock discusses the dissatisfaction of nearly everyone that US schools are not in fact turning out educated people. To explain the deficiency, he provides a history of the American education-reform movement, and spells out the difference between training and education, showing how Americans have completely overlooked this difference in the course of seeking economic and social uplift for everyone.
Three factors have changed since the initial publishing. First, the practice of universal education has expanded beyond the point that Nock himself could have imagined. Second, the classical ideal of education has become almost entirely unknown. Third, the economy has less and less use for the skills that universities teach, so it has once again fallen to private institutions to actually prepare people for a productive life.
In this case, Nock's work is more relevant now than when it was released in 1931 to the horror of education reformers. Beware only read this incredible book if you are prepared to completely rethink the basis of modern education.
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The Theory of Education in the United States LvMI eBook Albert Jay Nock
This short work (83 pages) consists of lectures given at University of Virginia in 1932. Nock's analysis has stood the test of time. Provides keen insight, even if not 'politically correct.'''The person of intelligence is the one who always tends to “see things as they are,” the one who never permits his view of them to be directed by convention, by the hope of advantage, or by an irrational and arbitrary authoritarianism.'' (92)
This description of ''intelligence'' is really a moral choice, a love of truth. This is not idolizing 'education' or knowledge.
''He allows the current of his consciousness to flow in perfect freedom over any object that may be presented to it, uncontrolled by prejudice, prepossession or formula; and thus we may say that there are certain integrities at the root of intelligence which give it somewhat the aspect of a moral as well as an intellectual attribute.'' (92) Wow!
Uncontrolled by 'prejudice or preconceptions or formula'. Who is that? Anyone I know?
Nock's commentary finds much to criticize. Why? The first paragraph explains - ''I trust, however, that you will allow me to regard it also as the impersonal welcome offered by citizens of the great republic of letters to another citizen whose only credentials and recommendations are those with which his citizenship provides him.''
Nock does not identify himself with America or any other nation. The ''republic of letters'' is his home. This republic is centuries old and transnational. Pascal, Newton, Locke, Montesquieu, Gassendi, Euler, Voltaire, etc., etc., were all members. Changed European civilization. Nock is one of the last 'citizens'. This work is a lament for the loss of this 'republic'. Only with this understanding can his trenchant comments become clear.
''The constitution of our republic recognises no political boundaries, no distinctions of race or nation; our allegiance to it takes precedence over every local or personal interest. Our business here, I take it, is to consult about matters which seriously affect the welfare of our republic, and I may assume therefore that we are prepared to approach it in no provincial or parochial spirit, but in a truly republican frame of mind, intent only upon the interest to which our first allegiance is due, the interest of the republic of letters.''
This rejection of nationalism is so foreign, so strange to the modern hear, that we almost can't hear it! Nevertheless, if we can ''see things as they are'', the sight may enlighten our road.
Nock's theme is taken from - ''Ernest Renan said that “countries which, like the United States, have set up a considerable popular instruction without any serious higher education, will long have to expiate their error by their intellectual mediocrity, the vulgarity of their manners, their superficial spirit, their failure in general intelligence.”
Well you asked! Nock thinks educational theory is the cause. What theory?
''Educational theory which may be decomposed into three basic ideas or principles. The first idea was that of equality; the second, that of democracy; and the third idea was that the one great assurance of good public order and honest government lay in a literate citizenry.'' (241)
The first Equality - ''There is no possible doubt about the answer. Our system is based upon the assumption, popularly regarded as implicit in the doctrine of equality, that everybody is educable. This has been taken without question from the beginning; it is taken without question now. The whole structure of our system, the entire arrangement of its mechanics, testifies to this. Even our truant laws testify to it, for they are constructed with exclusive reference to school-age, not to school-ability. When we attempt to run this assumption back to the philosophical doctrine of equality, we cannot do it; it is not there, nothing like it is there. The philosophical doctrine of equality gives no more ground for the assumption that all men are educable than it does for the assumption that all men are six feet tall. We see at once, then, that it is not the philosophical doctrine of equality, but an utterly untenable popular perversion of it, that we find at the basis of our educational system.''
This is one error. The second - democracy - ''At the present time it is a matter of open and notorious knowledge that some monarchies are much more forward in democracy than some republics, even republics in which suffrage is universal. The antithesis of republicanism is monarchy, if you like, but monarchy is not the antithesis of democracy. The antithesis of democracy is absolutism; and absolutism may, and notoriously does, prevail under a republican regime as freely as under any other.'' (317) This observation, in 1932, has been confirmed multiple times since.
''Interested popular definition, like interested legal definition, is a process, as a contemporary of Bishop Butler said, by which anything can be made to mean anything. The popular idea of democracy is animated by a very strong resentment of superiority. It resents the thought of an élite; the thought that there are practicable ranges of intellectual and spiritual experience, achievement and enjoyment, which by nature are open to some and not to all.''
The third, reading means understanding - ''Bishop Butler made the acute observation that the majority of men are much more apt at passing things through their minds than they are at thinking about them. Hence, he said, considering the kind of thing we read and the kind of attention we bestow on it, very little of our time is more idly spent than the time spent in reading. For evidence of this one has but to look at our large literate population, to remark its intellectual interests, the general furniture of its mind, as these are revealed by what it reads; by the colossal, the unconscionable, volume of garbage annually shot upon the public from the presses of the country, largely in the form of newspapers and periodicals.''
This was said eighty years ago. What would Nock say now?
He sums his conclusion - ''This theory contemplates a fantastic and impracticable idea of equality, a fantastic and impracticable idea of democracy, and a fantastically exaggerated idea of the importance of literacy in assuring the support of a sound and enlightened public order. It is not necessary, I think, to go further in the examination of our educational theory, after finding in it three errors of the first magnitude.'' (374)
Accepting or even understanding these explanations requires agreement with his evaluations of these three premises. These are almost sacred to some. Maybe difficult to hear.
Fascinating and provocative!
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The Theory of Education in the United States LvMI eBook Albert Jay Nock Reviews
This is so on the mark! He was ahead of his time.
Really enjoyable. You have to be prepared for his elitism though. Its part of the package with most of his work.
He claims that the only real education is Classics - latin, greek and ancient history. Contentious claim, but he’s such a joy to read that it didnt bother me.
He also poops from a great height on the idea of a “major in English,” english majors be warned.
Very few understand the true nature of the State (or any large institutions for that matter). Largely because it does not 'pay' to do so and are therfore not inclined. Mr Nock is obscure precisely because he writes for those very few that nature creates that are drawn to understand the nature of things. The introduction to the book is alone worth the effort of obtaining it. I have not seen Mr Nock's equal in articulating the forces of nature always at work. Truly profound---the concept of 'the Remnant'
This book is so good I literally read it in series---along with 'Superfluous Man'
I just noticed that this review is for 'the theory of education in the U.S.', not Our Enemy the State as I intended. But I'll let it stand. All of Mr Nock's books are fantastic.
Chapter 13 is priceless (in the edu book). It's actually the transcript of a speech he gave.
The education machine has been oiled and lubed, tended and tinkered, adjusted and tweaked. It remains a catastrophic failure, and all indication is that it has grown demonstrably more horrific since Nock gave this early warning.
The general theory of Nock's text is one which is so outlawed, so obscene, so "offensive," yet spoken with eloquence and such careful speech as to disarm gut rejections inherent today with any "-isms." However, why must -isms be immediately disbarred from societal discourse? In Theory of Education, we face the since roundly defeated specter of "elitism" - namely the notion that some are born with the right equipment, and others, despite rigging an entire system to favor their situation- will simply not become Educated. And it is because Elitism has been scrapped in favor of the sentimental, politically correct, and limited capacity Egalitarian theory (the State), that we have chosen "Training" over Education.
Just today as I write, a comprehensive twin study was released which should once and for all satisfy the debate between biology and intelligence. We must make the best of what we have, we are born with limits and predispositions. It is a fact, and only a MIS-educated citizen would cling so futilely to other explanations. Ironically, Nock would have a laugh that Science, which is not the Great Tradition itself, but a tool borne of it, has been unable to lift the mass into any sort of fulfillment of the Great Egalitarian Theory.
Nock, writing in the hopelessly dark backwoods of the United States could convince none of his obvious diagnosis in his time or ours. As we are destined to hear misguided politically motivated speeches on "education problems" for the foreseeable future, this book will serve as perhaps the only necessary piece of weaponry we need as educated citizens to see where the system has gone wrong, and why we shall not produce a more intelligent being. Until we can accept the basic facts of the book, we will continue producing inferior product out of our education factories.
This short work (83 pages) consists of lectures given at University of Virginia in 1932. Nock's analysis has stood the test of time. Provides keen insight, even if not 'politically correct.'
''The person of intelligence is the one who always tends to “see things as they are,” the one who never permits his view of them to be directed by convention, by the hope of advantage, or by an irrational and arbitrary authoritarianism.'' (92)
This description of ''intelligence'' is really a moral choice, a love of truth. This is not idolizing 'education' or knowledge.
''He allows the current of his consciousness to flow in perfect freedom over any object that may be presented to it, uncontrolled by prejudice, prepossession or formula; and thus we may say that there are certain integrities at the root of intelligence which give it somewhat the aspect of a moral as well as an intellectual attribute.'' (92) Wow!
Uncontrolled by 'prejudice or preconceptions or formula'. Who is that? Anyone I know?
Nock's commentary finds much to criticize. Why? The first paragraph explains - ''I trust, however, that you will allow me to regard it also as the impersonal welcome offered by citizens of the great republic of letters to another citizen whose only credentials and recommendations are those with which his citizenship provides him.''
Nock does not identify himself with America or any other nation. The ''republic of letters'' is his home. This republic is centuries old and transnational. Pascal, Newton, Locke, Montesquieu, Gassendi, Euler, Voltaire, etc., etc., were all members. Changed European civilization. Nock is one of the last 'citizens'. This work is a lament for the loss of this 'republic'. Only with this understanding can his trenchant comments become clear.
''The constitution of our republic recognises no political boundaries, no distinctions of race or nation; our allegiance to it takes precedence over every local or personal interest. Our business here, I take it, is to consult about matters which seriously affect the welfare of our republic, and I may assume therefore that we are prepared to approach it in no provincial or parochial spirit, but in a truly republican frame of mind, intent only upon the interest to which our first allegiance is due, the interest of the republic of letters.''
This rejection of nationalism is so foreign, so strange to the modern hear, that we almost can't hear it! Nevertheless, if we can ''see things as they are'', the sight may enlighten our road.
Nock's theme is taken from - ''Ernest Renan said that “countries which, like the United States, have set up a considerable popular instruction without any serious higher education, will long have to expiate their error by their intellectual mediocrity, the vulgarity of their manners, their superficial spirit, their failure in general intelligence.”
Well you asked! Nock thinks educational theory is the cause. What theory?
''Educational theory which may be decomposed into three basic ideas or principles. The first idea was that of equality; the second, that of democracy; and the third idea was that the one great assurance of good public order and honest government lay in a literate citizenry.'' (241)
The first Equality - ''There is no possible doubt about the answer. Our system is based upon the assumption, popularly regarded as implicit in the doctrine of equality, that everybody is educable. This has been taken without question from the beginning; it is taken without question now. The whole structure of our system, the entire arrangement of its mechanics, testifies to this. Even our truant laws testify to it, for they are constructed with exclusive reference to school-age, not to school-ability. When we attempt to run this assumption back to the philosophical doctrine of equality, we cannot do it; it is not there, nothing like it is there. The philosophical doctrine of equality gives no more ground for the assumption that all men are educable than it does for the assumption that all men are six feet tall. We see at once, then, that it is not the philosophical doctrine of equality, but an utterly untenable popular perversion of it, that we find at the basis of our educational system.''
This is one error. The second - democracy - ''At the present time it is a matter of open and notorious knowledge that some monarchies are much more forward in democracy than some republics, even republics in which suffrage is universal. The antithesis of republicanism is monarchy, if you like, but monarchy is not the antithesis of democracy. The antithesis of democracy is absolutism; and absolutism may, and notoriously does, prevail under a republican regime as freely as under any other.'' (317) This observation, in 1932, has been confirmed multiple times since.
''Interested popular definition, like interested legal definition, is a process, as a contemporary of Bishop Butler said, by which anything can be made to mean anything. The popular idea of democracy is animated by a very strong resentment of superiority. It resents the thought of an élite; the thought that there are practicable ranges of intellectual and spiritual experience, achievement and enjoyment, which by nature are open to some and not to all.''
The third, reading means understanding - ''Bishop Butler made the acute observation that the majority of men are much more apt at passing things through their minds than they are at thinking about them. Hence, he said, considering the kind of thing we read and the kind of attention we bestow on it, very little of our time is more idly spent than the time spent in reading. For evidence of this one has but to look at our large literate population, to remark its intellectual interests, the general furniture of its mind, as these are revealed by what it reads; by the colossal, the unconscionable, volume of garbage annually shot upon the public from the presses of the country, largely in the form of newspapers and periodicals.''
This was said eighty years ago. What would Nock say now?
He sums his conclusion - ''This theory contemplates a fantastic and impracticable idea of equality, a fantastic and impracticable idea of democracy, and a fantastically exaggerated idea of the importance of literacy in assuring the support of a sound and enlightened public order. It is not necessary, I think, to go further in the examination of our educational theory, after finding in it three errors of the first magnitude.'' (374)
Accepting or even understanding these explanations requires agreement with his evaluations of these three premises. These are almost sacred to some. Maybe difficult to hear.
Fascinating and provocative!
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