シカゴ・プランとR. M. ハッチンズ : 1930〜40年代のシカゴ大学カレッジ・カリキュラム改革をめぐって

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This paper historically examines the relations between Robert Maynard Hutchins' ideas of higher education and the actual college curricular reforms in history during his presidency and chancellorship at the University of Chicago. Hutchins at the age of thirty, Dean of the Yale School of Law, was named to be the fifth President of the University of Chicago on April 17, 1929. While he was President (1929-1945) and later Chancellor (1945-1951) of the university, many innovative educational concepts and practices were introduced particularly to the collegiate education of the university. The curricular reforms and controversial educational programs at the College of the University of Chicago during the 1930s and the 40s, during Hutchins' presidency and chancellorship, was called "The Chicago Plan," which was one of the most comprehensive experiments in general education in the history of American higher education. However there are lots of confusions about the relations between the educational ideas of Hutchins and the Chicago Plan. It is generally believed that the plan was completely the embodiment of the ideas of Hutchins, and that the plan offered the prescribed Great Books curriculum for all college students. The Chicago Plan has been loosely identified with the curriculum of St. John's College of Annapolis, Maryland, or with the Great Books program which has been conducted in the university extension. On the contrary, this paper will prove that the Chicago Plan was somewhat removed from the educational ideas or ideal plans of Hutchins. The curriculum offered in the Chicago Plan never carried a complete great books program. Through a historical analysis, this study demonstrates that the Chicago Plan is not President Hutchins' original or favorable one. Hutchins took metaphysics for a guiding principle of higher education. It was reflected in his views on the administrative system of university and the ideal curriculum of general education at college. He intended to divide a university into four divisions, the College Division, the Division of the Metaphysics, the Division of the Social Sciences, and the Division of the Natural Sciences. His purpose of general education was to train the minds of students for intelligent action which meant to study the first principles, namely, metaphysics. So his ideal program of college education aimed to help students to master the leading ideas in the principal fields of knowledge which could be learned by reading and understanding the great books, and to help them to learn the arts of reading, writing, and thinking which he called the liberal arts, in his context, it meant grammar, rhetoric, logic, and mathematics. Have such ideal plans of Hutchins ever been attained at the University of Chicago? A historical study from the following points of view will show an answer to this question. 1. On October 22, 1930, the University of Chicago was reorganized into five divisions, the College Division, the Division of the Biological Sciences, the Division of the Humanities, the Division of the Physical Sciences, and the Division of the Social Sciences. But there was not the Division of Metaphysics which included in Hutchins' original plan. 2. The College faculty adopted the new college program on March 5, 1931, and it put into operation the following autumn. It included the system of comprehensive examinations at the end of the courses by an independent examination staff. The plan of comprehensive examinations, however, had been already seen in the unaccomplished college program in 1928. 3. On November 19, 1932, President Hutchins proposed grouping the last two years of the secondary school with the first two years of college, and to form a new college devoted entirely to general education. At the end of that four-year period, the student would be given a Bachelor of Arts degree. But it revived an earlier suggestion of William Rainey Harper, the founding president of the University of Chicago. 4. The major curricular reforms at the College of the University of Chicago in 1932, 1937, and 1947 never adopted a complete great books program which was Hutchins' ideal curriculum. To conclude, the Chicago Plan was never Hutchins' original plan or his ideal program. Thus Hutchins was in deep disappointment over his failure in the reforms and experiments at Chicago. But the failure played an important role on developing his educational ideas. His experience and failure as president of the University of Chicago changed his educational thought, so that he deepened his insight into the reality of American education and society.
国際基督教大学の論文

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松浦良充
国際基督教大学

シカゴ・プランとR. M. ハッチンズ : 1930〜40年代のシカゴ大学カレッジ・カリキュラム改革をめぐって

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