Heritage; Mortimer J. Adler. Part 3: Education in a Democratic Society

KETC-TV (Television station : Saint Louis, Mo.) · 1961

Episodes 115 - 118 of Heritage feature Mortimer J. Adler, director of the Institute for Philosophical Research in San Francisco, where he is guiding an extensive program of research in an attempt to organize a topical history of Western philosophy. Host for all four programs is Dean Thomas S. Hall of the College of Liberal Arts of Washington University in St. Louis. Dean Hall also teaches in the college's department of zoology. In this episode, turning to the subject that has occupied him for more than forty years, Dr. Adler talks with Dean Hall and the Reverend Walter J. Ong, SJ, professor of English at St. Louis University, about the need for liberal education. He explains what he means by a "liberal education" and what he understands to be the purpose of leisure in a free society. He also has some provocative things to say about the functions of technical training, and about the different kinds of education provided in this country. During the final part of the program, he offers some concrete criticisms of education and some suggestions for raising the level of public and private schools and colleges in the United States. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche) Through "Heritage," a selected group of prominent persons individually address themselves to broad areas of subject matter in fields where they are particularly qualified to speak. Rather than being a simple series of conventional pattern, this is a "series of series," where each guest appears on several episode in several formats (i.e. straight talk, interview, talk with small group, conversation). This series totaling 131 half-hour episodes was originally recorded on various formats including film and videotape. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)