Robert M. Hutchins Quotes
It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts... it is to teach them to think.
Hutchins, Robert M. The Higher Learning in America. Yale University Press, 1936, p. 74.
This quotation illustrates one side of a major issue in modern education. Wilkins emphasizes the importance of the specific content taught while others argue that there is great dissention in the nation on exactly what should be taught and national agreement is impossible and we cannot predict the future to determine what content will necessarily be needed. However, they argue that it is the critical thinking skill and technique and that is most important irrespective of content.
Robert Maynard Hutchins was an American educational philosopher. He was president (1929–1945) and chancellor (1945–1951) of the University of Chicago, and earlier dean of Yale Law School (1927–1929). He was the husband of novelist Maude Hutchins. Although his father and grandfather were both Presbyterian ministers, Hutchins became one of the most influential members of the school of secular perennialism.
