Intellect Archives - Bob on Books

*The House of the Intellect,* Jacques Barzun. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959.

Summary: A discussion of the decline of the intellect and its causes.

It is fashionable in higher educational circles these days to decry the decline of intellectual life. Jacques Barzun, a patrician educator, professor of history and Dean at Columbia was doing that in 1959. What was striking to me was the continuity between what he wrote and our situation over sixty years later.

Barzun would define intellect as the basics of communication from the alphabet to the conventions of the clear articulation and argumentation of idea, disciplinary ideas and habits and more. He explains his idea of intellect as follows:

“That part of the world I call the House of the Intellect embraces at least three groups of subjects: the persons who consciously and methodically employ the mind; the forms and habits governing the activities in which the mind is so employed; and the conditions under which these people and activities exist. “

He goes on to explain the “house” metaphor:

“I would speak of the realm of the mind–limited and untamed–but I say the House of the Intellect, because it is an establishment, requiring appurtenances and prescribing conventions.”

He begins by contending that there are three enemies facing the intellect. When artistic sensibilities intrude into intellectual life, aesthetic sense obscures the discursive character of intellectual articulation. When the language of science intrudes, its precision and specificity intrudes into the unity of knowledge. Philanthropy as he uses it is opens education to a wide audience, regardless of fitness (which comes off as elitist, one of my problems with this part of his argument).

He describes the pseudo-intellectualism of public discourse and our polite, cultured conventions of conversation that prevent serious discussions of ideas (although some polite conventions and manners might be needed in our own day). He describes education as without instruction, observing the use of television for instruction (if only he knew) and instruction without authority. He is one of the earliest to recognize the conversion of education into business and college leadership into bureaucracies. And he points out how intellectual pedantry has influenced every discipline, and far beyond–even President Eisenhower declaims, “Marshal Zhukov and I operated together very closely” rather than saying “worked.”

Barzun makes an argument for power and pretension intruding into the work of the intellect. What is concerning is that he also sweeps up the broadening of American education into his critique. I was one of those who benefited by that “broadening,” or as he would call it, “philanthropy.” I would not naturally have enjoyed access to these opportunities, growing up in a lower middle, working class neighborhood. In another era, I might have been excluded from “the house of the Intellect.”

Nevertheless, Barzun poses some important questions. Today, it is the hegemony of STEM fields over those disciplines that classically taught clarity of thought and expression. He guts the jargon-laden discourse of many academic disciplines. He questions the academic fads that often substitute for the instruction that cultivates the intellect. He exposes the conventions of public and personal conversation that thwart intellectual life (I’d love to see what he would do with social media).

Barzun is an educator from another era, and while I cannot endorse some of his ideas, he also holds up a mirror to contemporary educational practice, asking, “why are we doing this?” He was a kind of educational prophet. If you can find a used copy of this online, and care about education, I think you will find this a thought-provoking read.

The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is perhaps the classic work on the question of “what is a university for?” The book consists of two sections. The first is a series of nine “discourses” on University Teaching given on the inauguration of the Catholic University of Ireland, of which he was its first Rector. The second part is a collection of occasional lectures gathered under the theme “University Subjects”.

Newman’s summary in the last of his nine lectures on University Teaching summarizes the argument he pursues in these lectures:

I have accordingly laid down first, that all branches of knowledge are, at least implicitly, the subject matter of its teaching; that these branches are not isolated and independent one of another, but form together a whole or system, that they run into each other, and complete each other, and that, in proportion to our view of them, as a whole, is the exactness and trustworthiness of the knowledge which they separately convey; that the process of imparting knowledge to the intellect in this philosophical way is its true culture; that such culture is a good in itself, that the knowledge which is both its instrument and result is called Liberal Knowledge; that such culture, together with the knowledge which effects it, may fitly be sought for its own sake; that it is, however, in addition, of great secular utility, as constituting the best and highest formation of the intellect for social and political life; and lastly, that considered in a religious aspect, it concurs with Christianity a certain way, and then diverges from it; and consequently proves in the event, sometimes its serviceable ally, sometimes, from its very resemblance to it, an insidious and dangerous foe. (pp 162-163)

There is so much one could talk about in this summary (and Newman does so at length!) that I will simply observe that he gives what is probably the classic defense of liberal education, articulates a Christian vision for the unity of knowledge, and also articulates the friend/foe relationship in which the Church has often found itself with regard to higher learning.

The second part includes lectures on Christianity and letters, English Catholic literature, Elementary studies (the groundwork he sees as necessary for the perfection of the intellect), a lecture on Infidelity, University Preaching, several lectures on Christianity and the sciences, and a lecture on the Discipline of the Mind.

Two things stood out to me in these lectures. One was Newman’s wisdom as he explore what we call the intersection or integration of faith and discipline. Newman was all for letting each discipline pursue its own modes of inquiry so long as none of these presumed to intrude upon either other disciplines nor the theological enterprise of the church (and vice versa!). On the whole he believes that truth will out in the end and that we don’t have to force reconciliations at the expense of theology or other academic disciplines–better to work with mystery and ambiguity. The second thing was his telling comments on how easy it is to know much about many things but in a disordered way rather than to discipline the mind through grammar, composition, the classic languages and foundational beliefs. This might be a telling criticism for our day when university students and even “educated” adults have opinions about everything but cannot write clearly or develop a logical argument.

That said, while Newman writes with a mastery of language and argument, he writes as a Victorian, with dense and compound sentences. I found that I often had to read him allow to capture a sense of the flow of his ideas. In other words, there is much rich thinking in this work but it is heavy going that requires the reader’s full attention.

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