Teaching Profession Report Perrenialism

1. Perennialism
Educational Theory
Perennialism is the educational philosophy of the neo-rationalists. (New rationalist- one who wishes
to teach students how to think and reason.)
Perennialist educational theory and policy is based upon the “pure” philosophy of Neo-Thomism or
scholasticism. It has two branches: the lay or secular branch and the ecclesiastical or church- oriented
branch. We are concerned only with the lay branch.
Neo-Thomists believe that there is a dual reality in the cosmos. In other words, there is a physical
world and a spiritual world. In this dual world, we can know truths by two means:
(1) through logical reasoning or intuition and (2) through divine revelation. Ethically, a good act in this
world is the rational act – the thought out act rather than the impulsive act. And aesthetically, the beauty of
this world can be ascertained through our “creative intuition.”
The lay Neo-Thomists (or lay perennialists) think they have a program worthy of adoption by all the
secular public schools of America.
A leading perennialist spokesman in America is Robert M. Hutchins, former chancellor of the
University of Chicago. Hutchins and others like him think the aim of education is the same in all societies at
all times in history. He wrote:
Every man has a function as a man. The function of a citizen or a subject may vary from
society to society, and the system of training or adaption, or instruction, or meeting immediate
needs may vary with it. But the function of a man as a man is the same in every age and in
every society, since it results from his nature as a man. The aim of an educational system is
the same in every age and in every society where such a system can exist; it is to improve man
as a man.
What this means is that the aim of an educational system is the development of the intellectual
powers of a man. In other words, we should try to train the intellect. Hutchins is so committed to this goal,
that he thinks the schools should do away with all non-intellectual activities. The first thing to go would be
athletics. Hutchins made himself famous, when as Chancellor of the University of Chicago he sacked the
intercollegiate football program. Even today, the U. of Chicago does not field a football team. Hutchins also
implicitly proposed the removal of all physical education from the school’s work. He wanted to do away
with all extra-curricular activities, social and recreational projects, driver’s training, basket weaving,
cooking, and dancing. Even art and music would have to go from the regular curriculum, because he viewed
the subjects as “emotive” rather than intellectual in character. Finally, Hutchins even “ticked off” the
ecclesiastical Neo-Thomists by saying that we should even stop moral training in schools, because it is anti-
intellectual. Hutchins’ extreme view is shown by this quote:
Think (he says) of the most futile, childish, irrelevant subject you can - think of parlor games, think of
self-beautification, think of anything you like - I will undertake to find it for you among the courses
offered by American institutions of higher learning.
I had no sooner written these words than Life magazine came along to prove my point by announcing
that at an American university it is possible to get college credit for being a clown, something that even I,

2. after decades of disillusionment, could never have thought of. (Reference here is to Florida State University,
near which the Ringling Brothers Circus once maintained its winter quarters. Since 1947 Florida State had
offered a physical education course in circus activities there; this course develops physical fitness through
vigorous large-muscle activities: tumbling, apparatus work, trapeze work, adagio dancing, etc. No clowning,
though. But one of the big, spectacular extra-curricular activities at F.S.U. is the annual circus, Flying High,
in which there is a good deal of clowning. Dr. Hutchins is technically wrong, but perhaps he has made his
point.)
Hutchins says that the intellect is the only part of man the school should have anything to do with. It
wasn’t that Hutchins believed that music, arts, morals, P.E., dancing and driver’s training were unimportant.
He just believed that other agencies and institutions such as Boy Scouts, Y.M.C.A., churches, the family and
municipal recreation departments should provide for these needs. This would “free” the school to do what it
can do best: train the intellect. Hutchins was among the first to raise the question of whether the school was
forced to be “all things to all people.” Do you feel that the public school has too many functions in our
society? Is it the “social institution of last resort” which takes over a function if no one else will do it? Is
there any concrete evidence to support this view?
Hutchins favors the school offering what he calls a “liberal education.” This would include
emphasizing: logic, mathematics, the disciplines of language, science and history. This is because these
studies supposedly relate to the timeless truths of all mankind (perennial truths) and help us to think
logically. Hutchins thinks that this emphasis (liberal education, classical education) is the best type of
education for all children regardless of their background or abilities. He says that this is the kind of
education that so well prepared the ruling classes of Western societies throughout history. Hutchins reasons
that since we live in a democracy, the “ruling class” consists of common citizens. Therefore, since the
common citizen has been elevated to be his own “governor,” we ought to give that citizen the finest
education attainable. Everyone should be educated in the same way, because in a democracy every man must
make decisions about the same issues, and every man’s vote counts the same, regardless of his socio-
economic status. Hutchins wrote:
Liberal education was the education of rulers. It was the education of those who had leisure.
Democracy and industry, far from making liberal education irrelevant, make it indispensable and
possible for all people. Democracy makes every man a ruler, for the heart of democracy is universal
suffrage. If liberal education is the education that rulers ought to have, and this I say has never been
denied, then every ruler, that is every citizen, should have a liberal education.
Hutchins’ educational prescription for America is straightforward: “Let us return to the liberal
tradition and training of the intellect which has characterized the education of the ruling classes for over 2000
years.”
Needless to say, Hutchins’ ideas have caught on more in American colleges and universities than in
public schools. One reason for this is that colleges deal with a more homogenous student body than public
schools. For example, colleges have few if any students with I.Q’s ranging from 70 to 90. Such students are
plentiful in public schools, and their teachers quite often find teaching them is a difficult challenge. Critics
of perennialism contend that low-ability students simply cannot master subjects such as logic and foreign
languages.
A Model Perennialist Curriculum:

3. In the 1930s, Robert Hutchins and other leading perennialist educators were given an opportunity to
practice what they had been preaching. At St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, they established what
they considered to be the “ideal” perennialist liberal arts curriculum. They intended for it to serve as a model
for other colleges and secondary schools. The Great Books Curriculum at St. John’s consisted of no
textbooks at all, but instead the 100 greatest books of the Western world. The list included The Illiad by
Homer, The Elements by Euclid, Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas, Principia by Isaac Newton,
Logic by Hegel, Das Capital by Karl Marx (not related to “Groucho”) and Maxwell’s Electricity and
Magnetism. The list of books did not contain any that were written by contemporary authors. The entire
emphasis was upon Western civilized thought. Students would study about 25 books per year in seminar
type classes taught by instructors from several academic disciplines. The idea behind this curriculum was to
give a thorough saturation in the greatest thinking of the greatest minds. In this manner, the intellect would
be trained. In other words, by studying what St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, one could see how he thought. In
this way, one could develop his own powers of reasoning by emulating his masters. Perennialists like
Hutchins claim that our greatest failure in contemporary American education is our retreat from pure reason
and rigorous intellectual discipline.
Faculty Psychology:
Perennialists hold to a theory of learning that many consider outdated. All modern educational
psychology texts repudiate this theory. It is considered faculty psychology. This view says that the human
mind is divided into distinct functional parts or “faculties.” According to this theory, the three main faculties
are Reason, Memory, and Will. Each “faculty” has sub-divisions, but these three main faculties represent the
central powers of the intellect. Of these three, perennialists view reason as the dominant human faculty.
Perennialists believe that whatever we do in school should exercise our faculties and thereby strengthen
them. This is analogous to strengthening a muscle by exercising it. Examples of this kind of “intellectual
workout” abound in practice. For example, one strengthens his faculty of memory by memorizing the
multiplication tables or “memory lines” from classical poetry. In a similar way, a course in logic or plane
and solid geometry can help strengthen the faculty of reason. A very difficult or distasteful course - lets say
Greek - can help strengthen the will (will power). The author once was persuaded to take Latin II by a
perennialist educator even though he protested that he hated Latin I. This educator argued that if you can
make yourself do something well that you are pre-disposed to hate, then one gains by developing self-
discipline and a strengthened willpower.
Seating Arrangements:
As far as seating arrangements are concerned, the perennialist is a traditionalist, and just like the
essentialist, he favors orderly seating arrangements. For example, desks are usually arranged in rows. It is
okay if the desks are bolted to the floor. Students are usually assigned to desks alphabetically by last names
or in some other logical way. Seating charts are frequently used to take class roll. These habits reflect the
logical, impersonal and systematic nature of the perennialist. Some type of orderly seating arrangement
would obviously make it easier for a teacher to learn students’ names. Quite frequently, however, the
perennialist won’t bother to learn names because he thinks familiarity with students leads to an atmosphere
of equality between teachers and students. He reasons that familiarity would lessen the “social distance”
between teacher and student and therefore might interfere with learning. The perennialist firmly believes that
the teacher should remain aloof from his students, and his seating patterns reflect this view. Actor John
Houseman who played Professor Kingsfield on the TV series “The Paper Chase” serves as a good example
of an aloof teacher operating with a seating chart.

4. Ability Grouping:
Like the essentialists, the perennialists favor homogeneous grouping of students by ability as a means
of coping with individual differences among students. They don’t see anything undemocratic about it. They
say there is nothing undemocratic at all about recognizing ability either in or out of school. After all, they
reason, does not athletics operate on a “star system”? Isn’t the same true for the performing arts? Therefore,
what is wrong with recognizing and giving special treatment to students with high academic aptitude? This
one issue- perhaps more than any other- really separates traditional (classical) educators from progressive
educators.
Subject Matter:
The perennialist shares the essentialist’s concern about teaching “the basics” in our schools.
However, he wants to emphasize those subjects that are primarily intellectual and disciplinary in nature. This
is so that the chief faculty of our minds – reason - can be exercised and strengthened. Therefore, the
perennialist wants to emphasize such subjects as: logic; all kinds of mathematics, but particularly geometry;
all kinds of foreign languages, but particularly the classic ones - Latin and Greek; the sciences - particularly
the “hard” (sciences with very predictable natural occurrences) ones such as physics and chemistry; and
finally history. Subjects such as these - if properly taught - are supposed to help us learn how to think and
reason! This is because each of these subjects has a logical “structure” to it. For example, in some languages
verbs always begin the sentence and adjectives come after nouns that they modify. In a similar way, there is
a logical outcome to a chronological sequence of historical events. Mathematics has certain “properties”
such as commutative and associative which always apply to various mathematical operations such as addition
and multiplication. Thus, by dealing with logical things, a student can learn to think logically in the abstract.
Preferred Teaching Methods and Materials:
Like the essentialists, perennialists use a lot of teacher telling. In other words, they like the lecture
method. However, it is not their favorite method. Perennialists frequently use catechism. This is simply a
refined version of the recitation method where the student “lectures back” to the teacher. All of the questions
relevant to the subject matter are ordered and organized in a published list. Each question has one and only
one correct answer. The student commits both the question and the answer to memory. After this, there is a
catechetical recitation, which is basically a testing device to see if a student has memorized his lesson.
Although this method is used mainly in parochial schools (Ecclesiastical Neo-Thomism), you
can find evidence of its application to some extent in nearly every school. For example, what else is
memorizing the multiplication tables for the digits 0-9? The student deals with certain ordered questions
(e.g., what is 9 times 6; what is 9 times 7, what is 9 times 8?), which have only one correct answer. He
memorizes both the questions and the right answers for quick recall.
Perennialists also use a lot of drill as a teaching method. The assumption behind this method is that
we develop the mind just like the body - through exercise. Thus, we can strengthen the mind by giving it
“mental calisthenics,” according to perennialists. An example of this is putting math problems on the board
and having students work 2 or 3 every day at the start of the period to develop their “thinking muscles.” This
method is used a great deal in plane geometry.

5. Perennialists generally don’t use demonstrations and they tend to think that the pupil project method
is a complete waste of time.
As far as teaching materials are concerned, perennialists, like the essentialists, use books a great deal.
About the only other kind of teaching material they use a great deal is the chalkboard.
Discipline:
The perennialist view on discipline is the same as that of the essentialist. They both seek to impose a
system of control on the student and back it up with an assortment of punishers. They say that they must do
this in order to facilitate learning.
Testing and Evaluation:
With the regard to testing and evaluation, perennialists tend to use both essay and objective written
examinations to see if their students’ minds have been disciplined to clear thinking. In addition,
perennialists do oral quizzing as, for example, when they listen to a student recite a catechism.
Sometimes on their quizzes, perennialists like to use complicated word problems. These problems
combine mathematical skill and verbal reasoning. For example, the following is a standard test question for
5th
graders in Switzerland, where the educational system is heavily influenced by perennialist ideology. See
if you can solve it.
“A stock of pamphlets is in three piles. The first pile contains 1/6 of them, the second pile contains
several fifths of them; the third pile has 6 pamphlets. What is the total number of pamphlets in the
three piles combined?”*
*[“Some Lessons from Swiss Education,” by Harold Clapp, in Modern Age, II., No.1, (winter, 1957-
58), 10-17.]
As far as grading is concerned, perennialists and essentialists are alike in their philosophical view.
They both want to “maintain standards” and they will measure a student’s performance against standards
imposed by the teacher. Both perennialists and essentialists are only concerned with grading and evaluating
intellectual tasks. They have no interest in making personality and trait assessments. They don’t evaluate a
student’s social and emotional development or his physical conditioning. These kinds of assessments are
beyond the role of the school.
References:
Contemporary Theories of Education by Richard Pratte.
Philosophy and the American School by Van Cleve Morris.

6. Perennialists generally don’t use demonstrations and they tend to think that the pupil project method
is a complete waste of time.
As far as teaching materials are concerned, perennialists, like the essentialists, use books a great deal.
About the only other kind of teaching material they use a great deal is the chalkboard.
Discipline:
The perennialist view on discipline is the same as that of the essentialist. They both seek to impose a
system of control on the student and back it up with an assortment of punishers. They say that they must do
this in order to facilitate learning.
Testing and Evaluation:
With the regard to testing and evaluation, perennialists tend to use both essay and objective written
examinations to see if their students’ minds have been disciplined to clear thinking. In addition,
perennialists do oral quizzing as, for example, when they listen to a student recite a catechism.
Sometimes on their quizzes, perennialists like to use complicated word problems. These problems
combine mathematical skill and verbal reasoning. For example, the following is a standard test question for
5th
graders in Switzerland, where the educational system is heavily influenced by perennialist ideology. See
if you can solve it.
“A stock of pamphlets is in three piles. The first pile contains 1/6 of them, the second pile contains
several fifths of them; the third pile has 6 pamphlets. What is the total number of pamphlets in the
three piles combined?”*
*[“Some Lessons from Swiss Education,” by Harold Clapp, in Modern Age, II., No.1, (winter, 1957-
58), 10-17.]
As far as grading is concerned, perennialists and essentialists are alike in their philosophical view.
They both want to “maintain standards” and they will measure a student’s performance against standards
imposed by the teacher. Both perennialists and essentialists are only concerned with grading and evaluating
intellectual tasks. They have no interest in making personality and trait assessments. They don’t evaluate a
student’s social and emotional development or his physical conditioning. These kinds of assessments are
beyond the role of the school.
References:
Contemporary Theories of Education by Richard Pratte.
Philosophy and the American School by Van Cleve Morris.