The Crisis in the University

432 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY It is significant that the impression we get from Epitaphium Damonis is not of stem Stoicism in the face of failure (or of scholargypsyism ) but of charming, cultivated, and intelligent earnestness. Though he does not make it, the real point of Mr. Dorian's study perhaps lies just here. The Diodati story is in fact throughout simply a story of urbanity preserved in spite of adversity; and this is an influence and a theme which we might to our great benefit more readily discern throughout Milton's poetry if so many of his interpreters were not Puritan precisionists thinly and inhumanely disguised as humanists. THE CRISIS IN THE UNIVERSITY' R. S. K. SEELEY The crisis of which Sir Walter Moberly speaks is becoming familiar to us through the writings of Sir Richard Livingstone, Canon Iddings Bell, and others. It is one which is not confined to the universities, but finds sharp focus there because the deep uncertainty which surrounds society is intensified when it is felt by our potential leaders, and it is from among them that we should expect the light which will dispel the clouds. Yet our universities are still for the most part following the pattern and adopting the presuppositions which belong to an outmoded age, and it is for our generation to reformulate the principles of university education in the light of the new factors which govern the pattern of our world. Sir Walter Moberly's book is the outcome of an intensive study made by a group of university teachers, all sharing the Christian outlook. A large part of it is devoted to an analysis of the present situation. He traces the various traditions which have gone to make up our present university pattern, and shows very clearly the insufficiency of anyone of 'them or any combination of them to satisfy our present needs. He further faces squarely the fact that the old pattern of a Christian university can no longer be followed in a post-Christian world. The conclusion of this analysis is that new guiding principles have to be sought by which we can not only preserve the basic values of Western civilization, but make them motive forces for our age. The analysis is penetrating and shows up in clear relief many of the weaknesses of our system of which we have hitherto been only dimly aware. But having posed the problem, Sir Walter finds himself on more difficult ground. The task and the scope of the university have been vastly extended. It has to meet the needs of men and women whose *The Crisis in the University. B y SIR WALTER MOBERLY. London: SCM Press [Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited]. 1949. Pp. 316. $4.25. REVIEWS 433 primary task in life will be to earn a living, and yet it must not become simply a place that provides training for particular callings. It has to embrace students and staff of all kinds of belief and unbelief, and yet it must not neglect its task of inculcating values. It can no longer stand aloof from the community in which it is situated, and yet it must preserve its integrity and independence. We are all familiar with these problems, though we are grateful to the author for posing them in a fresh and pointed manner. He is scrupulously fair throughout in presenting both sides of every argument. Nevertheless, if one expects to find in this book a pattern for the university of the future, one looks in vain. This is as it should be. No one can be expected to provide a blue print for university education, nor would one pattern fit the manifold types of university which now exist. What the author does is to put forward basic principles which must form the foundation of any new structure. It is at this point that the reader is left somewhat unsatisfied, not because of the nature of the principles which Sir Walter Moberly lays down, but because of the enormous difficulties involved in putting these principles into practice. For instance, Sir Walter states, quite rightly in our opinion, that one of the great weaknesses in our...