Between Classic And Reality

The first 50 years of 20th century were a period of time twisting between hope and desperation. On the one hand, science and technology developed rapidly and democracy spread on a very large scale. On the other hand, it was a time full of misery. Within less than 50 years, the world experienced two world wars, slaughters between human beings which, in such an extent, never had happened before. After the First World War, fascism spread around the world. Within this development, the fascist nations evolved, Germany, Italy and Japan. These three governments pushed not only their own countries but the entire world into a bloody war. After the slaughtering stopped, several questions evolved. How to avoid war? How to teach citizens to use their rights properly? Facing the weakness of the scientific development and the social crisis, educationists tried to find ways to approach these questions. British representative of Perennialism, Richard Livingstone was one of these educationists. As a classicist and humanist who had received an excellent classical education, Livingstone regarded the social crisis as a result of the absence of traditional culture. He suggested that mankind must return to traditional culture lived by the ancient Greek and the Roman, and the spirit of Christianity in order to gain the real meaning of democracy and to avoid another disaster such as the two world wars. Only by living these philosophies, the chances that science and technology are misused again can be minimized.This thesis mainly describes Livingstone's ideas on education. Besides the opinion of Livingstone himself, disputes about his educational thoughts and probes the forming factors are discussed. This thesis consists of three major parts.Part one describes the life of Livingstone, including his educational background, his work experience as a tutor and Junior Proctor in the Christ Corpus College of Oxford, his work experience as a Vice-Chancellor in the Queen's University Belfast and his work experience as a president of Christ Corpus College and a vice-Chancellor of Oxford.Part two describes Livingstone's educational thoughts. In this part, the article tries to put his thoughts into five sections: tasks of education, classical education, training of characters and fostering of citizens, university education and adult...