Correcting the record on the heritage of Western Civ (letter)

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Letters to the Editor

Matt Reed’s response to my essay on the humanities and general education nicely applies the issue to community colleges.  Before doing that, however, he issues some criticisms that must be answered. 

First, he states that he will “leave it to those in Stanford’s orbit” to assess my description of what happened after the school scrapped Western Civ. He repeats the point a paragraph later. This is strange. The links are there for Dr. Reed to check sources, but he prefers to insinuate a suspicion of my truthfulness. The name for that is passive aggression. 

Next, he raises the advent of AP and IB as causes of English’s decline, not the reason I gave (that profs lost the conviction and erudition needed to present momentous, sweeping visions of civilization to the young). The problem here is that when humanities enrollments plunged right after Stanford made the change in 1969, IB and AP were barely around. One point of my essay was to go back in time before the 80’s Canon Wars in order to show the pattern at work before conservative critics came along to decry the "politicization of the humanities." Note that the restoration of Western Civ at Stanford in 1980 was led by a prominent feminist historian, not a Bill Bennett-type. 

Next, Dr. Reed questions my choice of 1970-71 as a benchmark for enrollments in English, stating that year’s rate of 7+ percent of all bachelor’s degrees conferred going to English majors “was the exception, not the rule.”

I have heard this point before, and it’s wrong. Ten years before, the share of all degrees that English claimed was 6.5%. One year later, the rate rose to 7%. (https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf -- See Table 29, which used the label “Letters”)  He calls 1970 “a peak,” but a quick look at the data shows it was no anomaly.

Finally, one has to wonder whether Dr. Reed really understands the fullness of the Western Civ heritage that so many schools once boldly prescribed to every incoming student. It is downright inspiring to read catalog descriptions of such a course back then, which flow with surety and promise. I enjoyed every moment I spent in Stanford's archives a few years back.

Dr. Reed, however, calls it a “greatest hits collection.” That's a trivializing metaphor that misses the august import of the whole, the genius/masterpiece factor, the historic stature of the things freshmen will absorb.  It ennobled them, and Stanford students said so (excepting the activist kids, who were a small portion of the student body). The reaction is the same today. The reason the humanities core remains in place at Columbia is that alums remember it ardently and preserve its reputation. 

Every youth deserves this inheritance, to know that there is something much better than youth culture drivel and Web chatter, that he lives in the shadow of brilliance and beauty and epic conduct. That goes for the low-income, first-generation community college kid as well as the Ivy Leaguer.  

--Mark Bauerlein
Professor emeritus of English
Emory University

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