Change and Reform at Teachers College

Dr. Fischer, the new president of Teachers College, Columbia University, has been emphatic that the purpose of schooling is the intellectual cultivation of the person. The school exists not to ‘develop the whole child,” nor to serve as a community center, but to do something for the mind.

Such sensible doctrine is a marked departure from the muddy and amorphous notions of socialization and “creating the American” a generation and Teachers College to schools of pedagogy throughout the land. It should be remarked, however, that Teachers College was beginning to mend its ways even before Dr. Fischer came to its headship: in recent years, some Teachers College graduates have been notably humane and tolerant and practical in their principles.

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Russell Kirk

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Dr. Fischer, the new president of Teachers College, Columbia University, has been emphatic that the purpose of schooling is the intellectual cultivation of the person. The school exists not to ‘develop the whole child,” nor to serve as a community center, but to do something for the mind.

Such sensible doctrine is a marked departure from the muddy and amorphous notions of socialization and “creating the American” a generation and Teachers College to schools of pedagogy throughout the land. It should be remarked, however, that Teachers College was beginning to mend its ways even before Dr. Fischer came to its headship: in recent years, some Teachers College graduates have been notably humane and tolerant and practical in their principles.