A Free Market in Education

Frank Chodorov

[A review of the book Two Educators: Hutchins and Conant, written by Oliver Martin and published in 1948 by the Henry Regnery Co., Hinsdale, Illinois. Reprinted from analysis, Vol.IV, No.8, June 1948]

THE old argument as to whether the function of education is to fit a man to be himself or to fit him into the social mold is restated In a new pamphlet, Two Educators: Hutchins and Conant. The juxtaposition of the two viewpoints is well done and those who are interested in education will find the reading of this booklet profitable.

The issue, of course, is not settled. How can it be? The way our colleges are organized and run it is simply impossible to know what the purpose of education is, and the best we can do is to speculate on what it might or should be. If the educators were compelled to put their wares on the public counter and accept the dictum of the freely given dollar, their worth could be ascertained; competition measures value. Under the prevailing setup they are not selling education at all; they are selling commercially-valuable degrees. The degree is what the student wants for the tuition fee, and if it could be had without the necessity of going through the ritualized process he would just as soon have it so.

One professor, according to a newspaper yarn, rues the fact that the football coach can put his product on the public counter every Saturday, while it takes twenty years before the other members of the faculty can demonstrate their worth. That is begging the question. The football coach is compelled by the conditions of his employment to submit to the verdict of the marketplace. The others are not paid to show results; they are hired to train young men and women to qualify for decrees. The degree may or may not represent, the education absorbed by the student during his residence; it may simply record residence. Then, again, it may reflect a kind of education which the subsidizing government or trustees think the student ought to have. From the student's point of view, the degree is the all-important thing; it will help him get on in the world.

A college that sold education only, conferring no degrees, recording no grades or even attendance, would be entirely on its own. It would nave nothing1 to offer but learning. No one would go there for any other reason. That, in the first place, would attract only those who are in fact educable; those who by nature or inclination are destined for non-intellectual living would keep away, as they should; they have other work to do. The educator would then nave to meet the requirements of first class minds, not the intellectual level of degree-buyers, and if he were up to it he would show results enough.

Moreover, the faculty would have nothing to do but teach. There would be no time or effort wasted in examinations, in grading, in passing futile judgment on the capacities of elusive minds. Whether a student got an education would be his own affair. The college would assume no responsibility because it issued no certificate of any kind. The personal experience which is true education cannot be recorded in a parchment.

The only responsibility of educators at such an institution would be to educate. If they failed in that respect their failure would be mathematically measured by the empty seats they lectured to; that, too, would be the impartial determinant of their remuneration. No amount of learned papers to demonstrate his desirability could offset the fact that the educator had no students, nor would his advancement hinge on "connections." Those who paid for what he had to offer would be the sole judges of his worth.

Such an institution would fix once and for all the purpose of education. As things stand now, the Conant idea of education-for-the'-social-good is in the ascendancy, simply because the "social good" pays most of the bill; Hutchin's concept of education-for-individual -- improvement hasn't a chance of proving itself because there are no institutions that offer that unadulterated product, it might be that such an institution would not draw; in that case we would know that there is no demand for education, and the project would have to be abandoned. The verdict of the marketplace is final.