Postwar Political and Social Conditions and Higher Education

Abstract

T HERE are those who believe that education is a force sufficiently autonomous and powerful to have a decisive influence on society. Others hold that education is merely a reflection of the society in which it operates. There is an increment of truth in both points of view, since the reciprocal relationship between education and society is generally recognized. The effect of education on the postwar world will probably be less marked than the effect of the postwar world on education. Whatever the conditions that will confront us at the close of the war and however they may affect education, we must nevertheless determine as best we can what kind of higher education will be adequate to meet the postwar situation. The mere raising of this question rests on the assumption that education is not altogether a passive instrument shaped by conditions outside itself. The educational ideas, institutions, and practices of a society, while in many respects the product of that society, are also partly molded by the values men attribute to education and to social life. Important as the political and social conditions that are likely to prevail in the postwar world may be, they merely furnish the possibilities, the choice among which will be decisively influenced by men's conceptions of the kind of social world they wish to live in and the kind of education they desire. Moreover, the faith people place in education as a creative force in molding society will also affect their educational policies. We cannot now foretell when peace will return and what the political and social conditions will then be. We can and we must, however, make the best possible guesses and project the most probable alternatives, leaving some leeway for unforeseeable contingencies. Of one thing we may be fairly certain, namely, that higher education in the postwar world will not be wholly new but will develop out of what we now have. It is also fairly certain that higher education will not be able to return to the academic smugness which prevailed before the war shook it from its moorings. The changes that the war itself has wrought will constitute a significant part of the assets and liabilities with which we shall enter the postwar period. In a sense, therefore, postwar higher education is being molded today while the war is still on.