The Distinctive College [Paperback]

Burton R. Clark (Author, Introduction)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1560005920 | ISBN-13: 978-1560005926 | Publication Date: January 1, 1992

The factors contributing to the greatness of a first-rank liberal arts college are difficult to analyze. Hidden from view in the mysteries of tradition and institutional aura, the insistent questions remain: How has it been done? Can it still be done? In an intensive analysis of three highly regarded liberal arts colleges, Burton R. Clark uses a developmental approach to formal organization to seek out answers to these questions.

Product Details

• Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers (January 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560005920
• ISBN-13: 978-1560005926
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #883,162 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ANTIOCH COLLEGE: STILL AMERICA'S MOST INTERESTING SCHOOL, June 7, 2001

By 

David Roger Allen (Freeland, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Distinctive College (Paperback)

In the 1960's, Burton R. Clark wrote THE DISTINCTIVE COLLEGE: ANTIOCH, REED, AND SWARTHMORE. His highly influential book was a best seller of the times which argued, intelligently, that consumers seeking higher liberal arts education do well to avoid "me-too" and "wanna-be" accredited higher ed diploma mills in favor of "distinctive" colleges. Such places, he stated, are known not only for distinguished, high accomplishment, high energy alumni, but also for being genuinely "interesting and distinctive," populated by obviously dynamic and intellectually articulate and outspoken undergraduates. Clark also suggested other guideposts and evidences of "distinctive," meant in a positive, desireable sense.

His book was regarded as very important in a time of high intellectual ferment and soul searching in America, and in the world, generally. It deserved to be.

Of the three "ideal" colleges examined, Clark's obvious favorite was Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, 60 miles north of Cincinnati. The famous school was founded in 1852 by Massachusetts intellectual rebels in the decade prior to the American Civil War of 1861-65, and intended as an alternative to establishment schools of the times, especially Harvard. Horace Mann, then a U.S. congressman, was chosen to serve as Antioch's first president (1852-1859). Prior to his congressional service, Mann had set up the first widespread public education system in the USA (in Massachusetts), and became known as the "father of American public education." Interestingly, his successor, a Dr. Hill, served only briefly as Antioch president before being selected to become president at Harvard in Massachusetts, the school Antioch had been set up to improve upon.

The establishment of Antioch College in Ohio was a national pre-Civil War event, reported in the New York Times and all across the USA, then less than 100 years old. Over the following 149 years (I write this in June, 2001), the New York Times was to devote a great deal of coverage to Antioch College (several pages of the current print version of the NYT Index are devoted to Antioch) as the school repeatedly called attention to itself, its students, and the proposition that higher education in America is not a dull subject. Love it or hate it, no-one could deny that Antioch College in Ohio has always been an "interesting" school, and being "interesting," argued Dr. Clark in the 1960's, is the first and most important quality of "the distinctive college."

Now, the advice of sage Chinese (which is not all of them) on the subjecting of "being interesting" is reflected in a famous Chinese curse which, roughly translated, is "May you be born in interesting times." What does this tell us about "interesting" colleges?

One thing it tells us, by implication, is that any truly "interesting" college is going to experience rough, controversial, and highly risky times, and is likely to be subjected not only to praise and high regard (of the type delivered to Antioch College by Dr. Burton Clark in the 1960's), but also to criticism, unfair and untrue defamation, and even physical attacks. Antioch College in Ohio has experienced all of these, certainly in much higher quantities than the other two "distinctive" colleges mentioned in the title of Clark's book, Reed and Swarthmore (both far quieter, and, one might conclude, less "interesting" places than Antioch).

But like another uniquely American institution, the Mississppi River, Antioch College in Ohio still "keeps rolling along." It's been up (was one of America's most prestigious colleges in the 1950's and 1960's), and it's been down (following problems in the mid-1970's, its prestige dropped quite a bit for a temporary period, then returned in the late 1980's), but it's never been out. A book devoted only to reprints of New York Times coverage of Antioch College in Ohio over 149 years would make interesting reading, and would as well be an important comment on American higher education at its best.

Burton C. Clark's THE DISTINCTIVE COLLEGE: ANTIOCH, REED, AND SWARTHMORE is an important book. Anyone educated in America and anyone who cares about America's contribution to higher education in the 20th Century (and others) should get it and read it.