November 1957 Education in the Western World by James Bryant Conant http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/95sep/ets/edwe.htm One thing is certain: the average American medical man, lawyer, chemist, physicist, or engineer has acquired a quite different store of general knowledge from that of his European counterpart. If command of foreign languages is the test of a well-educated man or woman, relatively few Americans can claim to be well educated. If knowledge of European literature and art is taken as a measure, there again the average American professional man will fail in comparison with the Europeans. European pre-university education is in essence literary education; American college education can rarely be so described.

On the other hand, every American in school and in college will have sampled at Least a bit of some of the social sciences. Indeed, perhaps the majority of those whom we are here considering will have acquired a considerable knowledge of economics and political science; a large proportion will have studied psychology and sociology. With rare exceptions these disciplines are only available to a European in a university; and while the student enrolled under the law faculty may find time to listen to some lectures in these fields, the medical man and natural scientist will not.

In other words, those Americans who complete at least three years of a four-year liberal arts college course will have had a kind of academic experience unknown on the continent of Europe. (A possible exception to this statement is the education provided for the future teachers in the pre-university schools who are educated in the famous Ecole Normale in Paris and in the philosophical faculties of the German universities.)

But it is not only the content of the program which characterizes the American college. The whole atmosphere is different from either a European school or a European university. There is far more freedom for the student than in a school, of course, and there is far more personal instruction of the student by the professor than is possible in a university of the European type with its relatively small staff in proportion to the size of the student body. The American student is ready to express an opinion to anyone; discussion is encouraged at every turn. Student activities ranging from dramatics through debating and journalism stimulate student independence; there is no parallel to these expressions of student initiative in Europe. All of which, of course, reflects what Americans have come to believe are important aspects of college education.

Indeed, one can sum up the comparison I have been making by saying that the leading citizens of Europe and the United States have quite different aims in mind when they talk about education as apart from professional training. And the difference reflects the different social histories on the two sides of the Atlantic.