A few points (hard to grapple with such a massive topic). 1. The debate on higher eduction, indeed all levels of education, might have gone better if more notice had been taken of Jacques Barzun's contributions to it. This piece provides an overview of his life and career.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/JBarzun_essRC.html His life is not over, he turns 104 in November! If we refuse to learn from history...in Australia we repeated the US experience with higher education, but without any reference to Barzun's account of the problems that arose from explosive growth of the system. This is the preface to the 1983 edition of a book that he wrote about education across the US in 1946. http://www.the-rathouse.com/JacquesBarzunPreface.html 2. The role of public funding in research. A very iconoclastic book by Terrence Kealey suggests that research will thrive in the private sector, even fundamental research! Not a view that I would have regarded as credible until I read the book. http://www.the-rathouse.com/2010/Kealey-EconomicsofScience.html 3. Problems in Australian universites, especially the demand for "market relevance" have been directed at the people who we call "economic rationalists" over here. Economic rationalists support free trade, deregulation, smaller government etc. I am an econonomic rationalist in economic policy but I also see the value of the traditional liberal education program, including ancient history, and languages. It is possible to be a free trader and also a supporter of liberal education with a role for state funding in the same way that we can support state funding for a welfare safety net, even while we argue that largescale crade to grave welfare is unsustainable. Rafe Champion Sydney --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to [email protected] with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to [email protected]
