ABSTRACT

This book is entitled The Reforming of General Education. The work reforming, in this context, may have an awkward sound. Because education is not just a set of new structures, but a continuing experience that reworks the thought of the past and is a self-conscious scrutiny of one's own practice. Sociologically, Professor Trilling's statement acquires a new dimension in 1966, for the rise of mass higher education has given the college an importance in our culture—as the place where intellectual values can be "imprinted"—that is greater than any it has ever had in our history. Societal obligations provide one rationale for expansion: the College has turned away many qualified applicants who could have brought added vigor to the College community. The institutional reasons cited by the Buchler Committee are also impressive: the unchanging size of the College has placed it at a disadvantage in relation to other sections of the university.