Education became the institution, the machine of literacy, once
the social role of a generalized instrument of communication and
coordination was established. This happened simultaneously with
the reification of many other forms of human praxis: religion,
the judiciary, the military. The first Western universities
embodied the elitist ideal of literacy in every possible way:
exclusivity, philosophy of education, architecture, goals,
curriculum, body of professors, body of students, relation to the
outside world, religious status. These universities did not care
for the crafts, and did not acknowledge apprenticeship. The
university, more than schools (in their various forms), extended
its influence beyond its walls to assume a leading role in the
spiritual lives of the population, while still maintaining an
aura about itself. This was not just because of the religious
foundation of universities. The university housed important
intellectual documents containing theories of science and
humanities, and encompassing educational concepts. These
documents emphasized the role of a universal education (not only
as a reflex of the Church's catholic drive) in which fundamental
components constructed a temple of knowledge from which theories
were dispensed throughout the Western world. Through its concept
and affirmed values, the university was intended as a model for
society and as an important participant in its dynamics.
Tradition, languages (opening direct access to the world of
classic philosophy and literature), and the arts were understood
in their unity. Engineering and anything practical played no
part in this.
Compared to the current situation, those first universities were
ahead of their time almost to the effect of losing contact with
reality. They existed in a world of advanced ideas, of idealized
social and moral values, of scientific innovation celebrated in
their metaphysical abstraction. There is no need to transcribe
the history of education here. We are mainly interested in the
dynamics of education up to the turn of the century, and would
like to situate it in the discussion caused by the apparent, or
actual, failure of education to accomplish its goals today. When
universities were founded, access to education was very limited.
This makes comparison to the current situation in universities
almost irrelevant. It explains, however, why some people question
the presence of students who would not have been accepted in a
college a century ago, even 50 years ago. Yes, the university is
the bearer of prejudices as well as values.
The relevance of historic background is provided by the
understanding of the formative power of language, of its
capacity for storing ideas and ideals associated with
permanency, and for disseminating the doctrine of permanency and
authority, making it part of the social texture. Religion
insinuated itself into the sciences and humanities, and assumed
the powerful role of assigning meaning to various discoveries and
theories. Education in such universities was for eternity,
according to a model that placed humanity in the center of the
universe and declared it exemplary because it originated from
the Supreme power. The university established continuity through
its entire program, and did so on the foundation of literacy. As
an organization, it adopted a structure more favorable to
integration and less to differentiation. It constituted a
counter-power, a critical instrument, and a framework for
intellectual practice. Although many associate the formula
"Knowledge is power" with the ideology of the political left, it
actually originated in the medieval university, and within
conservative power relations for which literacy constituted the
underlying structure.
Looking at the development of the medieval university, one can
say that it was the embodiment of the reification of language,
of the Greek logos and of the Roman ratio. The entire history of
reifying the past was summarized in the university and projected
as a model for the future. Alternative ways of thinking and
communicating were excluded, or made to fit the language mold
and submit, without exception, to the dominating rationality.
Based on these premises, the university evolved into an
institution of methodical doubt. It became an intellectual
machine for generating and experimenting with successive
alternative explanations of the universe, as a whole, and of its
parts, considered similar in some way to the whole they
constituted.
The circumstances leading to the separation of intellectual and
educational tasks were generated by an interplay of factors. The
printing press is one of them. The metaphors of the university
also played an important role. But the defining element was
practical expectations. As people eventually learned, they could
not build machines only by knowing Latin or Greek, or by
reciting litanies, but by knowing mathematics and mechanics.
Some of this knowledge came from Greek and Latin texts preserved
by Moslem scholars from the desolation following the fall of the
Roman empire. People also had to know how to express their
goals, and communicate a plan to those who would transform it
into roads, bridges, buildings, and much more. Humans could not
rely on Aristotle's explanation of the world in order to find new
forms of energy. More physics, chemistry, biology, and geology
became necessary. Access to such domains was still primarily
through literacy, although each of these areas of interest
started developing its own language. Machines were conceived and
built as metaphors of the human being. They embodied an
animistic view, while actually answering needs and expectations
corresponding to a scale of human existence beyond that of
animistic practical experiences.
Industrial experience, a school of a new pragmatic framework,
would impart awareness of creativity and productivity, as well
as a new sense of confidence. Work became less and less
homogeneous, as did social life. Once the potential of literacy
reached its limits of explaining everything and constituting the
only medium for new theories, universities started lagging
behind the development of human practice. What separates Galileo
Galilei's physics from the Newtonian is less drastic than what
separates both from Einstein's relativity theory, and all three
of these from the rapidly unfolding physics of the cosmos. In
the latter, a different scale and scope must be accounted for,
and a totally new way of formulating problems must be developed.
Humans project upon the world cognitive explanatory models for
which past instruments of knowledge are not adequate. The same
applies to theories in biology, chemistry, and more and more to
sociology, economics, and the decision sciences. It is worth
noting that scale, and complexity therein, thus constitutes a
rather encompassing criterion, one that finally affects the
theory and practice of education.