The Goldberg Variations | Mises Institute

[Why Schools Fail by Bruce Goldberg (Cato Institute, 1996; xi + 124 pp.)]

Why Schools Fail is a neglected libertarian classic. Since its publication in 1996, the Cato Institute has done nothing to publicize it, and the book is not currently available from them. This is surprising, because Goldberg was a distinguished libertarian philosopher, and he was for some time a member of Murray Rothbard’s legendary Circle Bastiat. He had been converted to libertarianism by his friend, the great historian Ralph Raico, who introduced him to Rothbard; and Goldberg went on to convert Robert Nozick. You would think that with such stellar credentials, the book would have attracted attention, but sadly, this wasn’t the case.

The dominant theme of the book is that public schools fail because educators have sought a science of how people ought to think. Once in possession of such a science, the educators can mold the children entrusted to them into rational adults. But, Goldberg says, there is no such science, and trying to train students in its pseudo-precepts stifles their individuality.

The search for a science of human behavior on which to base education began in the United States with the most influential nineteenth-century educator, Horace Mann. He claimed that such a science existed and it would not only teach children how to think but also mold their character. “Horace Mann wrote, ‘No idea can be more erroneous than that children go to school to learn the rudiments of knowledge only, and not to form character.’”

The “science” by which this was to be accomplished was phrenology (i.e., reading head bumps). Different bumps were supposed to be correlated with aspects of one’s personality, and—by judicious manipulation—areas of the students’ personalities could be shaped by the all-powerful teacher, who would completely control the students in his classroom. Hegel, by the way, was a notable early critic of phrenology, and readers interested in the topic may consult with Alasdair MacIntyre’s essay, “Hegel on Faces and Skulls.”

Things by no means improved in the twentieth century. The psychologist Jean Piaget said that children are incapable of logical thought before around age 11, and to prove this, he adduced a dialogue between a teacher and a boy of 6 or 7, in which the boy was shown a picture of a tulip, and next to it, a picture of several daisies. When the boy was asked whether there were more daisies than flowers, he said “daisies,” even though this cannot be right because both tulips and daisies are types of flowers. Goldberg is not convinced, saying that the student was trying to make sense of the question:

The question “Are there more daisies or flowers” is unnatural and confusing. In virtually every life situation in which one is asked to compare two groups of things, A and B, it is not the case, as it is here, that A is a subclass of B. One is asked, “Are there more cups or saucers?” “Are there more cars or trucks?” “More men or women” but not “Are there more blue cups than cups?” “More men or people?”

Goldberg extends his criticism in a philosophically illuminating way. Piaget and many others, such as the structuralist psychologist Jerome Bruner, have sought to model human thinking on mathematical logic. When I lecture on praxeology, I very frequently encounter students who want to “axiomatize” Mises’s praxeology and make his presentation more rigorous through the use of symbolic logic. Goldberg dissents:

But it is simply false to say that rational thought can be represented in the terms of mathematical language. . . In fact, it is an old idea, one which philosophers and logicians [like Leibniz and Boole] have been familiar with for centuries. . . But, as is well known, neither Boole nor Leibniz, nor before that Plato, succeeded in producing such a calculus. . . The reason for the failure, it has become clear, is that human thought and language cannot be adequately represented by a symbol system that is mathematically precise. Such a system, though it may be quite useful for certain kinds of calculations, will necessarily leave out many nuances of meaning that exist in natural language. . . As an example, the English word “and” often has temporal connotations that the logical symbol ∧ never does. Similar differences obtain with regard to the other terms of propositional logic and their English counterparts.

Goldberg does not confine his criticism of educators to those who want to make human thought “scientific.” He also opposes those, such as Mortimer Adler and E.D. Hirsch, who think there is a fixed list of “classics” that students must be compelled to read, whether a particular book excites their interest or not. He instead thinks that students should be encouraged to read books that grip them and even to neglect reading in favor of other activities in which they can engage creatively, such as art, music, and science.

He amusingly points out that great writers do not always revere the standard “classics” but sometimes revile them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, who is on most educational lists. . .doesn’t appeal to everyone. The English poet [Algernon] Swinburne didn’t think that Emerson helped him understand himself better, Emerson, he said, was “a gap-toothed and hoary-headed ape, carried at first into notice on the shoulders of Carlyle, and who now in his dotage spits and chatters from a dirtier perch of his own finding and fouling.” Nietzsche expressed his distaste in a somewhat milder fashion: “Emerson is one who lives instinctively on ambrosia—and leaves everything indigestible on his plate.”

Shakespeare—usually deemed the greatest of all English writers—is no exception.

Tolstoy, not an insensitive man, wrote, “The works of Shakespeare, borrowed as they are, and externally, like mosaics, artificially fitted together piecemeal from bits invented for the occasion, have nothing in common with art and poetry.” George Bernard Shaw put his reaction to Shakespeare in somewhat more extreme terms. “With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise entirely as I despise Shakespeare. . . It would be a relief to me to dig him up and throw stones at him.”

And, of course, there are people who cannot stand Tolstoy or Shaw. Goldberg is not saying that he has a negative opinion of the writers he mentions but rather that you should have your own opinion.

Goldberg realizes that the cure for all of these attempts to mold students to a preset pattern is to get rid of state schools completely, allowing parents to pick the best school for their children or to homeschool them. I disagree with him that education vouchers are a good first step toward this goal, but Goldberg is an important thinker who deserves your attention.