Here's something everyone should know about!
George Welton, Cal-State Northridge

Throughout industrialization there have been attempts to rectify the classical ideal of leisure with urban and industrial life. "Penny" newspapers, public libraries, and Chautauqua are examples from the first half of this century. The early 1950's saw the publication of The Great Books (54 vols.). Mortimer Adler of the University of Chicago was associate editor for the project. His involvement and belief in The Great Books is reflected in the Article "Labor, Leisure and Liberal Education" which first appeared in the Journal of General Education in 1951. Adler represented a growing interest in leisure by the nation's intellectual elite. His thoughts are presented and summarized below.

"From antiquity to recent times people were confined to a life of work and sleep. Only a few, an aristocracy, had time to pursue politics, education and the arts. Today industrial democracy divides human life into three segments: sleep, labor, and free time. Hence for the first time in history the majority are faced with the prospect of a good life, through the proper use of free time. Here lies the importance of liberal education."

To appreciate the role of liberal education Adler is compelled to define his terms. From his perspective, there are essentially two types: vocational and liberal. If the end of education is extrinsic, i.e., "lies in the goodness of an operation" it is vocational. If the end is intrinsic, i.e., "lies entirely within the person being educated" it is liberal.

Next Adler defines the parts of human life, sleep, labor and free time. Sleep refers to those things done to maintain the body. It includes eating, cleansing, and exercise. Labor or work is defined as:

"That activity which is required, is compulsory, for all men in order for them to live or subsist and which therefore must be extrinsically compensated, that is, the laborer must earn by his labor the means of his subsistence."

Play is "recreation, amusement, diversion, pasttime, and, roughly all ways of killing time." It is of two types: for the sake of work (recuperation or recreation) and for its own sake. This latter type is the play of children. It is play in excess of refreshment and devoid of quality, thus useless.

Rest is equated to the Thomist idea of contemplation. It is when we consider the phrase "heavenly rest" or ask whether there is any rest on earth. It is the rest of the sabbath. And, not to be confused with recuperation from fatigue; a result of work.

Leisure is that which is intrinsically rewarding, good in itself, and identical with the classical Greek notion of virtue. It includes such things as "thinking or learning, reading or writing, conversation or correspondence, love and acts of friendship, political activity, domestic activity, artistic and aesthetic activity."

Only liberal education can promote leisure. To accept the importance of such a statement and move into a Leisure Age we must realize the aristocratic error and the industrial fallacy. Aristocracy promotes only two divisions of life, sleep and labor, for the working masses; creating a leisure class and working class. This class distinction has disappeared in our society. Industrialism falsely suggests that productivity itself is the highest good. It regulates leisure to the level of play or idleness to be justified only as recreation, a byproduct of productivity.

In an industrial democracy a liberal education "should be and can be for all men." For, says Adler, "The good life depends on labor, but it consists of leisure."

Illinois Parks and Recreation      23       March/April 1982