We know now that mechanical and technical progress is not identical with civilization. We must conclude, in fact, that our faith that technology will take the place of justice has been naive. Technology supplies the goods we want, for material goods are indubitably goods. Technology can give us bigger, brighter, faster, and cheaper automobiles. It cannot tell us who ought to have them, or how many, or where they should go. The notion that a just and equitable distribution of goods will be achieved by the advance of technology or that by its aid we shall put material goods in their proper relation to all others is reduced to absurdity by the coincidence of the zenith of technology and the nadir of moral and political life.
American philosopher and university president (1899–1977)
Robert Maynard Hutchins (17 January 1899 – 17 May 1977) was an educational philosopher, a president (1929–1945) of the University of Chicago and its chancellor (1945–1951). * Many colleges of liberal arts and the researches of many scholars in the humanities and the social studies are important only to those whose livelihood depends upon them.
** In: The Great Conversation (1952), p.56
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Robert M. Hutchins
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Now what I want to know is why I should have had to wait until age forty-three to get an education somewhat worse than that which any sophomore ought to have. The liberal arts are the arts of freedom. To be free a man must understand the tradition in which he lives. A great book is one which yields up through the liberal arts a clear and important understanding of our tradition. An education which consisted of the liberal arts as understood through great books and of great books understood through the liberal arts would be one and the only one which would enable us to comprehend the tradition in which we live. It must follow that if we want to educate our students for freedom, we must educate them in the liberal arts and in the great books. And this education we must give them, not by the age of forty-three, but by the time they are eighteen, or at the latest twenty.
My view of university training is to unsettle the minds of young men, to widen their horizons, to inflame their intellects. It is not a hardening, or settling process. Education is not to teach men facts, theories, or laws; it is not to reform them, or amuse them, or to make them expert technicians in any field; it is to teach them to think, to think straight if possible; but to think always for themselves.