Espionage at I-House

marlowe1
Fri, 01 Nov 2019 19:01:24 +0000

Picking up on JHS’s characterization of Hutchins’ words as “the worst kind of mandarin arrogance”, well, if it was that, the galvanizing effect of those and similar words created a distinctly un-mandarinized student body. “[Chicago students] came from relatively humble homes. A question about parental education showed that 40 percent of their parents had not graduated from high school, 28.4 percent had one parent with at least some college-level education, and only 8.9 percent had two parents with at least some level of college education” (p. 52). Famously the University of Chicago opened its doors to Jewish students (who comprised nearly a third of the student body) whose parents had arrived in the United States early in the twentieth century and who “lacked the wealth and polish that other prestigious colleges [with their quotas] demanded… No other college replicated this sociological mix. Ivy League colleges took pains to attract sons and daughters of the upper classes who set a comparatively relaxed, genteel tone for undergraduate life… [Chicago] attracted so many academically gifted students from the lower middle class that it was they who set the pace and defined the texture of College life on the Midway” (pp. 53-54). If this was arrogance, it was the arrogance of talented poor youth directed toward the ruling elites.

I don’t think this is quite as paradoxical as it may seem. Hutchins was not solely responsible for this egalitarian ethos, but his words tapped in to the aspirational spirit of many poor kids who truly took the intellectual life seriously and had reason to suspect that it would not be taken seriously at other institutions - even if they could clear the non-academic hurdles erected at those institutions and gain admittance.

Of course, those kids eventually succumbed to the “corruptions” of the world. Hutchins was merely predicting what was bound to come to pass.

The Hutchins vision was a noble one. Most of us remain undamaged from a brush with nobility, especially in our youths.