The Decline of Liberal Education in Canada by Peter C. Emberley, Waller R. Newell (review)

302 LETTERS IN CANADA 1995 Humanities Peter C. Emberley and Waller R. Newell. The Decline ofLiberal Education in Canada University of Toronto Press 1994· 189. $40.00, $18.95 The title of this book indicates that it belongs in a gloomy tradition from Spengler's Decline of the West through George Grant's Lament for a Nation and Alan Bloom's Closing ofthe American Mind to the recent University in Ruins by Bill Readings. This is an unfortunate general trend, especially when the negative diagnoses are often voiced from within the academy itself. Ernberley and Newell emphasize the 'anarchy' in Arnold's title Culture and Anarchy, quoting despondent lines from his 'Dover Beach' as their epigraph. The influence of Grant in particular on this book is strong, as is that ofBloom, though the latter is hardly acknowledged. In their brave essay, aiming to restore 'the classical ideals of liberal education/ Emberley and Newell depict what they consider, according to their chapter headings, to be 'the crisis in Canadian education': 'the public decline in confidence' and 'the curriculum under siege.' They analyse 'the assault on education,' in terms of I destreaming, transitionyears, learning outcomes,'seeing a 'link to the universities,' before advocating a 'return to the classics' in the spirit of Bloom. Their more than Arnoldian touchstones are provided by Plato, Aristotle (his 'paideia' also a model for Ezra Pound), St Augustine (whose influence on Newman one notes), Descartes, Vieo, and Nietzsche, th'e last added as an afterthought in chapter 5, as well as others, including Schiller and Hegel. It is not made clear how far the important thought of these men was studied centrally in the historical curriculum to which Ernberley and Newell appeal, nor how they will achieve this desired central place in the future. Our authors lament what they consider to be the decline of 'liberal education' in the context of 'the fragmentation of modernity,' in a global situation where 'millions of people' are 'largely bent on the same materialistic pursuits.' This is a rather sweeping generalization, made at the same time as our authors deplore on the part of others the modem attempt to 'think globally.' They also surely go too far in insisting on the pedagogical value of nuclear weapons! On the other hand, they delineate the especially Canadian character of the liberal education with which they are concerned - and its decline. Emberley and Newell not only identify what they assert have been the key texts of liberal education but also assert that such education 'spoke to human equality and freedom'; it was moreover concerned with 'human wholeness'; it promoted 'civic education,' what is later called 'responsible civic discourse/ as contrasted with the deplored 'social skills.' In this spirit they assert that 'education stands or falls by the principle that virtue can be taught' - surely not the belief of Newman whom they admire. Thus an idealization focused on the past accompanies their negative view of the HUMANITIES 303 present. The present in Ontario at the time of the writing of this book is represented through the supposed reformism of the New Democratic Party government of Bob Rae: they deplore 'contemporary radicalism.' One wonders how the governmental shift to the right has affected the perspective of our authors. They probably do not · feel that such a political pendulum swing as they recognize affects the general downward subversive drift. On the other hand, they themselves seem to endorse the academic conservatism of the more recent past and present. In the universities particularly they support the 'traditional academic division of labour,' as they oppose the attempt at 'interdisciplinary creativity' as well as the 'capping of tuition fees'; they ponder privatization. In the historical Canada ofwhichthey presenta snapshot in their penultimate chapter, theemphasis does not seem to be even Eurocentric in the broad sense, but specifically Christian with McGee's appeal to .INature and Revelation,' the Methodism ofRyerson, and the appeal ofWatson to the 'eternalprinciples of duty.' The cormection made with the philosophical tradition that Embedey and Newell adumbrate is not entirely convincing. The sometimes eloquent call of this book for 'spiritual reawakening' is probably timely, but the challenge may be too great for its authors. Its rather stodgy...