Dr. Horace M. Kallen, Professor Emeritus at the New School for Social Research, asserted today that the intellectual stature of Jewish students in American colleges and universities “which used to be outstanding” had declined materially “during the past generation.”
Speaking at the 45th anniversary banquet of the Jewish Teachers Seminary and People’s University of New York, held at the Hotel Astor, the noted philosopher and educator said the decline had been accompanied by “the displacement of Yiddish and Hebrew, which were in regular use in the Jewish enclaves, by English exclusively” in the United States.
Dr. Kallen told the 500 banquet guests that “the connection between intellectual distinction and linguistic diversity is traditional, and liberal education has always been identified with the study and use of more than one language and literature. With the Jewish people this has been a part of their way of life and a source of their achievements in the non-Jewish world. Its lapse is a serious loss which the Jewish schools can repair, if their teachers are adequately equipped for the task”
He then cited the curriculum of the Jewish Teachers Seminary, and what he termed “its design to develop in students an orchestrated competence in English, Yiddish and Hebrew” and told the audience that achievement of that design could “serve to restore the intellectual stature” of Jewish students in American colleges. He appealed strongly for more consistent and widespread support by American Jewry for the Seminary’s program to help assure achievement of that goal.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
