Michael S. Roth

Beyond the university: Why liberal education matters provides a comprehensive, well-documented historical review of philosophical thought about the role of higher education in the United States. Roth summarizes the views of Socrates, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Thomas Jefferson, William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jane Addams, Thomas Dewey, and others. Ultimately, however, I came away disappointed. Although the chronology of philosophical views is interesting, it is only in the last 10 pages that the author actually turns his attention to the topic implied by the title, why it matters.

Beyond the University must be judged a complete failure if Roth intended to craft a convincing case for liberal education. He relies exclusively on appeals to authority to support the importance of liberal education. Few readers—certainly not those who have benefited from a liberal education—will be content to uncritically apply the views of Socrates, Franklin or James to contemporary education. American society and the world are quite different from the situation confronting most of the writers reviewed in this volume. Through most of the book Roth made almost no attempt to relate the views of these philosophers to the issues and problems faced by contemporary students and educators.

Stylistically, the book reads like an undergraduate term paper. Roth relies primarily on quotations of the authors original words when paraphrasing their message would have yielded a more direct, understandable, cogent reading experience. He often writes in the passive academic style that lacks even a spark of liveliness. For example, an analysis of a representative selection from Beyond the University revealed that 29% of the sentences use a passive sentence structure.

Furthermore, the writing requires an unnecessarily advanced reading level. The Flesch Reading Ease score (28.3) of the portion I analyzed is close to that of the Harvard Law Review. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (12.0) greatly exceeds the 9th grade reading level that states commonly require for important legal documents such as insurance policies. As if that is not enough, the reading difficulty is further increased by the failure to break the text into digestible segments. Many of the paragraphs go on for an entire page and often for two pages or more.

Roth's research is impressive but his ability to convey his message in an interesting style and illustrate its relevance to the contemporary issues is lacking. Beyond the University addresses a topic that will appeal to a highly educated audience, but with a bit of thought Roth could have pitched the text at a level that is more accessible to the broader audience that pays the taxes that support our schools, and sends their children to universities. That audience could benefit from a consideration about the best approach to American higher education. Instead, the book seems like an academic exercise rather than an attempt to make a case for the importance of contemporary liberal education.… (mer)