THE CADRE, TUES. MARCH 5, 1974, Page

History cont. 4

The inevitable result of the marriage of elitism and str- ucturalism is the division of one's students into two classes: those who adapt rapidly and eagerly tO‘the structure and are rewarded with the symbols of elite status, i.e., high grades, and those who do not.

The former are the students to whom the professor ad— resses himself, the only ones who can be "saved" and who are worthy of salvation. The others are treated with more or less disdain. Their fai- lure to respond is generally attributed to lower intell- igence, sometimes to emotio- nal instability. Whatever the "reaSon" they are not seen as recruits to the dis- cipline and can be written off. There is even an ex— pression for this in aca— demic circles: the cooling off process.

How does all this apply to history? In the same way that it applies to philosop- hy, the classics, the fine arts, literature and the ot- her humane disciplines. It means that a discipline ori- ginally intended to offer all students certain guide— lines applicable to their lives, whatever vocation th— ey choose to follow, is dis- torted into a corporate guild dominated by aareerists. This is a development that has been in train a long ti— me, since the early 19th cen— tury. History was, in fact, one of the first humanistic disciplines invaded by scien— tism and elitism. The German school of historical resea- rch and the German graduate school of history of 150 years ago became the models for similar developments affecting all other disci— plines in the humanities and social sciences.

However, the nature of his- tory, and the character of the men who chose to study and teach history, long re- sisted indoctrination by scientism, elitism and str— ucturalism. These doctrines have had their dedicated en- thusiasts among_historians, but the independence and autonomy of historians, who rejected them was respected or at least not seriously threatened. .

This\autonomy is becoming increaSingly difficult to maintai , at the very time that eli ism in the discipl- ine is driving non-careerist students away from it.

It is no coincidence that these tendencies are occ— uring simultaneously. When an institution,in this in- stance the discipline of history, is believed to be threatened, it becomes more orthodox. Dissent is feared and curtailed. "Standards" are tightened. This very pr- ocess of "drawing in the ‘walls" makes the discipline less attractive to the un—

converted or the unorthodox.

History, threatened by an economic bear market for its "products," is taking defen- sive measures which it hopes will make it more reputable in an age of scientism, quan- Vtification and professional- ism. This strategem cannot succeed. History, unlike the social sciences which are of advantage to the political and bureaucratic power stru- cture, is a discipline use- ‘less to the Establishment. It is, in fact, by its very nature, anti-Establishment, being a discipline of criti— cism, dissent and even re- bellion. If history becomes exclusively an orthodox "science", closed but to an elite and aspirants to an elite, it will commit sui- cide. This is precisely what is happening in the disci- pline today.

"Certainly a few of our st- udents will still need train- ing in the historical tools necessary for graduate scho- ols and careers as profess— ional historians," wrote Peter J. Frederick in The History Teacher eecently. "But only a few. It cannot be emphasized enough that most of the students in our schools are not going to graduate school....We sh- ould take heed not to sour the many while speaking to the few." ~

If we are to heed Frederick's injunction, however, there must be a veritable revolut- ion against the elitism and structuralism dominating university history depart- ments. Such a revolution cannot succeed at large uni- versities whose departments are dominated by graduate professors and their discip— les. It must begin at small undergraduate universities - like UPEI.

Perhaps it is time for such schools to break decisively with the "graduate school syndrome" and teach courses in "people's history", as is being done at some of the American community and jun- ior colleges and a few of their counterparts in central and western Canada. Perhaps a compromise is possible, on the lines of Britain's "Open University"; \ in

ovative scholarship is allied

with flexible pedagogical experiments directed at a mass audience.

Professors indoctrinated in the graduate school mystique are obsessed, as we have se- en, with the transmission of approved knowledge and the mastery of prescribed conte- nt, even at the expense of general intellectual growth. The ordinary history student, even the average history ma— jor, is at best marginal to their objectives. Such stu—

' dents, relatively low in ve-

rbal skills and reading com- ' prehension, not avidly fac- inated by the printed word

or possessed of studious ha— bits, are "turned off" by

the structural elitists.

The techniques of the latt- er -- lectures, reading ass- ignments, occaisional dis- cussions, exams -- are at best tolerated by most con- temporary university stu- dents. In a study I made la- st year of student opinions on examinations and evalua— tion, I found few who de- fended compulsory exams. In other student opinions I ha— ve elicited, dislike of the boredom and confinement of the typical lecture has come through strongly. Yet in our own UPEI History Depart- ment, as at other Canadian Universities, the trend tod- ay is toward greater rather than less structuralism, for the reasons I have indicated.

Academic history is there— fOre at a critical stage. My own view, paraphrasing Clemr enceau's opinion of war is that "History is too import- ant a subject to be left to the professional historians-‘ It is time for our consti— tuents, the students, to sp— eak up and tell us what they want. Are they satisfied to be the receptacles of trans- mitted knowledge? Or do they, like the historical philoso- pher, Ortegay Gasset, see history as existential in their own lives, that under- standing of one's self im— plies a personally aggired understanding of the past of which each individual is the product? Ortega's kind of history is not in vogue with the_conventional wisdom of the discipline.i wiawa