Mortimer Adler: Champion of Great Books Education
Even now, decades after his death, eighth-graders everywhere get to read the Odyssey, thanks to the efforts of a man born to Jewish immigrants in the heart of New York City. Philosopher and educator Mortimer Adler is largely responsible for what we call Great Books education. Adler wanted more for America’s youth than he had received from his Ivy League professors, so he worked to bring the American education system back into the Western tradition.
Adler was born into a world with diminishing respect for that tradition. Writings from Homer to Augustine were taught only to the elite, and usually in excerpts. Charles Eliot, Harvard University’s president at the time, had purged most of the core curriculum at his institution, an act that put the hammer to Greek and Latin studies. Eliot tried to remedy the situation by publishing “Dr. Eliot’s Five-Foot Shelf of Books,” a compilation of influential works of literature and philosophy, but Adler didn’t think this adequately accounted for the classical tradition. Adler’s professor at Colombia, John Dewey, spent much of his life fighting the liberal arts education model, favoring vocational training for students. The two did not get along.
As Adler saw it, the benefit to his Ivy League education was revealed to him in a single English class. John Erskine, an English professor who became the first president of the Juilliard School, introduced Adler to the Socratic seminar. In Erskine’s class, students would read a book every week and discuss their findings in the classroom. Erskine would speak as little as possible, only asking questions to guide students to new topics. Adler went on to popularize this method, an effort now considered one of his greatest accomplishments.
After graduating from Colombia, Adler began his crusade against the ideas made popular by Dewey and his associates. He disdained the idea of training students for a single job and scolded those who discouraged the goal of self-improvement. In the preface to his book “Aristotle for Everybody,” Adler wrote, “When I say ‘everybody,’ I mean everybody except professional philosophers; in other words, everybody of ordinary experience and intelligence unspoiled by the sophistication and specialization of academic thought.” He wrote for everyone, of any age and class, simply because he believed it was right for them to be educated.
When he wasn’t writing books, Adler was finding other ways to get his message across. He ran night schools for labor unions, made appearances on television and radio programs, and developed The Great Books of the Western World series for Encyclopedia Britannica. The more people who knew the themes of the great books, the more people there would be who could rejoice in and contribute to what Adler called “the Great Conversation.”
In his studies of literature and philosophy, Adler found common topics of discussion. The ideas of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and other ancient philosophers overlapped, which proved to Adler that some topics are prevalent throughout time and across cultures. Adler assembled a guide to these ideas in a volume he called “A Syntopicon.” Education in great books meant following the themes in the “Syntopicon” and ultimately joining in the Great Conversation about them. By doing so, a larger number of people than ever before could engage with these ideas. Broadening participation in such philosophical discussion was one of Alder’s main goals.
Many of Adler’s critics wondered what the point was in continuing the Great Conversation. As they saw it, a common person could add little to the findings of Aristotle, and Aristotle, in turn, had little to say that addressed present problems. In Adler’s mind, however, Aristotle’s insights were of permanent value, and common people could and should engage with them, learn from them, and even try to put them into practice. The Great Conversation that Adler reignited a century ago is now a tool that anyone can use to craft a common intellectual heritage.
The study of integrated humanities through a chronological framework that melds history, philosophy, and literature together owes to the work of Mortimer Adler. This practice has extended from higher education to primary and secondary schools across the country. Americans would do well to reflect on and revisit these philosophical inquiries. In doing so, they may yet contribute, in their own small way, to the Great Conversation.
