Obituary for Gordon C. Lee

Abstract

The voice of Gordon Lee (1916–1973) is still. It was always a quiet voice in an age of stridency. For Gordy, despite his ever youthful exuberance, retained certain old fashioned commitments to reason and—if the phrase dare now be uttered—to good manners. Somehow he continued to hold an increasingly unpopular view of liberal education. He believed human beings could and should use symbols and ideas with care, justice, logical rigor, and elegance. The study of Education, he insisted, should be liberating, not simply a technical discipline. As a teacher in many universities—Columbia, Claremont, Washington, Texas, et. al—and as chairman of a department at Claremont and Dean of Colleges in Washington and Texas, he sought so to shape the discipline. His first book, The Struggle for Federal A id (1949), was so sharply organized that one scarcely realized a trained intelligence had imposed order on a chaotic universe; his last book, Education and a Democratic Age (1965), showed the same tidiness of mind with an added touch of wisdom. Despite prematurely failing health he kept on the move, serving not only across the states but also in the United Kingdom and in Afghanistan. He moved too fast and left too soon; those who knew him will regret the yet unfinished conversations.