NeoStoicism Can Save Our Failing Universities
So let [the American college graduate] habits be formed, and all his economies heroic; no spoiled child, no drone, no epicure, but a stoic, formidable, athletic, knowing how to be poor, loving labor, and not flogging his youthful wit with tobacco and wine; treasuring his youth. I wish the youth to be an armed and complete man; no helpless angel to be slapped in the face, but a man dipped in the Styx of human experience, and made invulnerable so, — self-helping. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Man of Letters, 1863
The government-enforced lockdowns attributed to COVID-19 have had significant impacts on society. One of the most significant may be the revelation of the poor quality in the American university system. Poorly designed distance learning has exposed the public to the low value of
college classes, previously hidden within the ivory towers on campus. Many Americans are now seeing first-hand the deficiencies of this so-called “education”. With modern technology and adult learning theory, education should have grown less expensive over the last several decades;
however, educational spending continues to outpace inflation significantly. We are left to ask: Is college even worth it? College, which once promised to educate individuals, so as to fully empower them as citizens of the Republic, now destroys creativity and initiative. Worse, it only re-enforces
submissive traits convenient for corporate employers.
It does not have to be this way. One of the greatest educational theorists in American history, US Army Captain Alden Partridge (1785–1854), offered a practical model for the full development of citizens. Unlike modern universities, Partridge’s model, which he developed as Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from 1814 to 1817, produced graduates who understood their national government, could function as statesmen, and had an understanding of economics (and also of agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, as well as other branches of industry). They were, moreover, trained in the military arts and highly developed in physical fitness and psychological resilience. All this was accomplished at relatively low cost. Students graduated as soon as they demonstrated the required competencies, sometimes after a single year.
Partridge embedded his educational model within the broader philosophy of NeoStoicism, a philosophy also at the origin of the early modern concept of a statehood and the American Republic itself. While some might find it hard to believe, Partridge’s nineteenth-century model for education might be exactly what is needed to unlock the full potential of our citizens in the twenty-first century.
Returning to Partridge’s NeoStoic educational model could dramatically improve not only the quality of university education while reducing the run-away cost of education, but also the physical and mental resilience of our citizenry. It could return years of productive time back to our citizens by enabling them to start earlier and also graduate earlier.
What Is NeoStoicism?
Alden Partridge’s complaints about problems of his own time, in his Discourse on Education (Middletown, 1826), are valid also today, if not more so. Before discussing his practical educational model, however, we must first understand NeoStoicism, the philosophical worldview intrinsic to it. While NeoStoicism is a rarely mentioned philosophy, it was critical in the development of the early modern state. NeoStoicism is a deeply individualistic philosophy combining the original Stoic philosophy with Christian theology. Indeed, the classical list of Stoic virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance) already intersected with that of Christian virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, and charity). Historical credit is due to the Flemish humanist Justus Lipsius for founding this school with his De Constantia [On Constancy] (Antwerp, 1584), based principally on a combination of Christian theology with the writings of the Roman philosopher Seneca. Other authors quickly followed his path, engaging the works of other ancient Stoics.
The contemporary stereotype of Stoicism as a cold, emotionless state is the opposite of what it really signifies. Stoics did not, and NeoStoics do not, seek to suppress emotion; the goal, rather, is to cultivate the ability to act through reason even if emotions may be high. Academic critics of Stoicism often present it as an unachievable ideal of always unperturbed rationality; but the Stoics realized that, even if we might sometimes fall short, still we should aim for this goal.
Archetypal Stoic stories, such as Virgil’s epic poem Aeneid, present heroes who strive to be animated by Stoic ideals, and who humanly fail, only to return again to strive further. NeoStoic thought contributed to the individualism inherent in the Age of Enlightenment in Europe. It deeply
influenced many great Western thinkers. Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe (London, 1719) depicts a NeoStoic archetype who fails frequently and is repeatedly redeemed: a parallel with Christian attempts to emulate a model of sanctity while never failing to take into account human
imperfection and possible failure.
The American Founding Fathers had a strong connection to NeoStoicism, as Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman documented in their book on Cato the Younger, Rome’s Last Citizen (New York, 2012). Many ideas expressed in the US Constitution derive from NeoStoic philosophy. If some will assert that the United States is a “Christian nation”, nevertheless Christian belief is not fundamental to NeoStoicism. Christian faith is unnecessary to the practice of the NeoStoic virtues, so long as the individual accepts the NeoStoic virtues and believes in a concept in fate, i.e. some ultimate rational order to the world.
It is critical to underline that NeoStoicism is not utopian. It takes into account both human fallibility and the eternal presence of evil (or “vice” in a non-theological sense). The NeoStoic does not dream of some perfect end-state but rather understands that life will be filled with hardships and
that not all injustice can be avoided. NeoStoics will place the fate of the world in God’s hands while understanding that they themselves may be the required instruments of divine action.
Today’s Education: Not Really “Liberal”
Partridge’s first complaint about his own era’s education was that it was not “liberal” enough. “Liberal education” did not originally mean, as it is taken today, exposure to different academic fields so as to encourage a student’s “free thought.” Partridge’s approach takes a more literal interpretation, signifying the type of instruction that permits a citizen to live “free”.
The focus on the “liberal arts” collapsed over the course of the twentieth century. Indeed, since the beginning of the nineteenth, there has been increasing emphasis on producing monomaths (specialists) rather than polymaths (generalists). Monomaths can motivate increased productivity
through division of labor, but over-specialization hampers the understanding of the larger system, and it diminishes the ability to innovate by applying insights and methods in from other specialties. David Epstein’s Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (New York, 2019) explains the negative impact of this over-specialization and why more generalists are needed.
In many ways, modern universities are now largely geared to provide highly-specialized education. This monomathic emphasis has further eroded the “liberal” arts that would expand a student’s worldview. Bryan Caplan’s The Case against Education (Princeton, 2018) suggests that colleges have been reduced to institutions that mainly inculcate behaviours that would be desired in good corporate employees. (Compare Paul Goodman, Compulsory Miseducation [New York, 1964].) As the political diversity of liberal-arts professors has narrowed in recent decades, it is today very likely that students will encounter professors politically aligned with collectivist worldviews. They will fail to teach the virtues inherent in such individualist philosophies as Stoicism and NeoStoicism. The failure to educate students in their full rights and duties as citizens has created a population ever more willing to hand these rights over to an ever-expanding government.
Partridge’s original educational philosophy would need some adjustments. When he was alive, the United States needed many civil and military engineers; Partridge was himself an engineer. I thought at first that Partridge’s emphasis on knowledge about agriculture was outdated, as the United States is hardly anymore an agrarian economy. Recent food shortages from COVID-19 panic buying and the average American’s generally poor diet, however, have made me think that some knowledge of agriculture might not be a bad idea after all. As recently as the early 1940s, with World War II’s “victory gardens”, the average American family produced more of its own food in order to support national security.
Modern academia would be shocked and appalled by the suggestion that students learn the military arts, but this may be one of the best ways to prevent needless wars. Before Lipsius created NeoStoicism, European countries tended to employ mercenary armies whose absence of virtue led
local populations to despise them. NeoStoicism envisioned the creation of citizen militias in war-time. These militias, animated by NeoStoic virtues, would act honorably towards civilians. This concept of a citizen militia was so powerful that Prussia almost converted to an entirely militia-based military; and the United States, prior to the War of 1812, attempted to model its land force on that basis.
A college student today may be assigned to write a poem, or to solve mathematical equations, or to speak in front of an audience. A student will not be asked to learn or engage in any of the military arts. Casting a vote has real impacts on our national security, yet we never ask college students to experience a rifle’s recoil or the weight of a soldier’s pack. How can we then expect them to understand war? Even in the field of history, the majority of professors a century ago would have specialized in military history, yet today the discipline is highly fragmented. Only a small minority of historians concentrate in military history, and colleagues frequently treat them with opprobrium.
A requirement to learn the military arts would help to educate citizens about the realities of foreign relations while distributing knowledge about military skills if these were ever to be needed quickly. As late as the 1950s, some US colleges required one year of military training through the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC); indeed, the ROTC program evolved from Partridge’s own educational theories. This provision of training by non-federal agencies had the advantage that the US Government could not turn the college population into a large standing army. A return to such
instruction would be even more desirable than establishing a national-service requirement. In addition, it would significantly improve college students’ physical health.
An economics student may study the sources of national wealth, and a political science student may study foreign policy, but such a fragmented education is not by itself the best approach. American primary and secondary public schools fail to produce well-rounded citizens who are
prepared to engage in entrepreneurship, represent their local communities in political offices, or take up the soldier’s mantle in times of need. If available schooling, even including public and private universities, cannot provide this sort of education, then where can it be found? Citizens need these skills, but the public education system in the United States does not teach or inculcate them.
Why Physical Education Is Essential
Today over 40 percent of Americans are obese. This major health threat exacerbates other health problems and shortens life expectancy. It causes ever-increasing healthcare spending. It is an epidemic in America, and American universities are partly to blame. The typical American
undergraduate college student is asked to take one single semester-hour of fitness classes during their four-year program. This represents 0.8% of their college education and is clearly insufficient. Almost one third of US citizens between the ages of 17 and 24 are deemed unfit for military service
due to obesity. This military manpower problem is a national security risk. Our primary and secondary schools have failed to address this epidemic. College may be the last chance to address this American health problem before an individual enters adulthood.
Captain Alden Partridge was the first American educational theorist to recognize the importance of training the mind and body together. The colleges of his day produced sickly, feeble graduates who engaged only in scholarship and leisure. By contrast, Partridge’s students were put through a series of grueling fitness challenges to improve both their physical and their psychological resilience. The Stoic practice of voluntary exposure to hardships in times of comfort is sometimes referred to as “hard winter training”. The Modern Stoic scholar William Irvine calls it “Stoic Toughening Training”. Regardless of what it is called, this practice builds healthy and resilient citizens very effectively. Partridge’s curriculum would have had no “safe spaces”. He sought to produce citizens who practiced remaining calm and rational under significant stress.
Walking or marching was Partridge’s most common exercise in Stoic Toughening Training. He would give theoretical instruction in the classroom and then walk the students into the wilderness for application in practice. Partridge was thus a pioneer in experiential learning, perhaps the innovator of what we now call “field trips”. This practice had a long standing impact on the American Republic. Partridge’s mountain climbing and extreme distance marching inspired the construction of Vermont’s Long Trail, running the length of the state, and later the Appalachian Trail.
The re-implementation of rigorous daily exercise into the life of college students would go far to establish lifelong healthy habits. Routine exercises would improve citizens’ physical fitness and health of citizens, and their use to create exposure to stress would go build psychological resilience. Given the continuing abysmal decline of the population’s physical and mental health, it may be nothing less than imperative to return to this proven instructional method.
Advantages of the “Mixed Classroom”
Our current system fails to develop citizens properly, and it keeps them unproductive for much longer than needed. Even just a few additional years of productivity earlier in life would significantly increase personal wealth. In the United States, Obamacare extension allows children to
remain on their parent’s healthcare until the age of 26. This is more than twice as old as David Farragut (who later became the first American Admiral) when he was assigned command of a captured warship. Educators need to learn again how to develop fully instructed and mature
individuals at an earlier stage of life. We can ill afford the eternalization of adolescence.
Captain Partridge, like any good NeoStoic, was especially attentive to time spent in education. He believed the lengths prescribed for completion of studies placed “good scholar … nearly on a level with the sluggard”. He preferred a model that could permit students to graduate in as little as a year (or as many as five). If the purpose of college is to gain competence and enter society, then Partridge’s model is clearly superior. It allows not only for adjustments to the actual learning speed of the students but also, incentivizing disciplined study, for earlier graduations for gifted students.
Partridge’s model accomplished this by using mixed classrooms in which students of different skill-levels worked together on class materials, rather like in the old one-room schoolhouse of the past. This paradigm has several advantages. Students’ social development is enhanced in comparison with a ”standard” classroom, and without any effect on learning achievement. In adult life, it is very rare to find oneself amongst a group of individuals exactly one’s own age. Trapping students with their age-group peers retards social development.
The current educational model actually derives from the Prussian model for its peasantry. The Prussians offered their aristocracy an education along the lines of Partridge’s ideas; but they wanted their peasantry, who became the rank-and-file soldiers in wartime, to be obedient and unimaginative. The teacher acted as a surrogate for the state, and the yearly progression of classes with the same age-group prioritized obedience.
The mixed classroom was the preferred method everywhere for
centuries up until the shift to the Prussian model, which in the United States largely started during the 1860s (see John Taylor Gatto’s, The Underground History of American Education [New York, 2017]).
In a mixed classroom, the teacher has less time for individual students and must continually adapt to each student’s differential needs. This is not a detriment, because it encourages peer learning, strengthening students’ mastery, and re-enforcing their autonomy in developing their own
educational plans.
The capacity for self-directed learning is a critical skill that enables students to learn outside the classroom and without needing a formal instructor. It empowers graduates to continue their education in a way that the current model does not supply. Professional pedagogues have since developed various theories of “adult education”, but the ways in which late adolescents and young adults are taught today, defaults to the methods standardized for teaching children; and this trend is not slowing.
Even with the advantages that the mixed classroom presents to its students, it is frankly far more work for teachers and professors. Colleges would probably not want to change either. An option for accelerated education would hurt their profits. The current structure allows the college to
project monetary earnings from every new student. Partridge’s model would drive down the profitability of colleges; and honestly, this needs to happen. An accelerated model of education would also interfere with how college is sold as a place to “find yourself”, as students switch majors and extend their attendance over years, all of which increases the college’s profits.
Negative Influence of Luxury
The Stoics understood that health arose not out of luxury but rather out of contentment with what one had. Learning to live simply is a critical skill. It prepares citizens well for the meagerness of income likely in their early careers. Learning to live simply is an advantage for those who go into
established industries as well as for those who create their own businesses. Getting trapped into debt early in life is a recipe for misery.
Some would say that Partridge took the notion of avoiding luxuries to a “Spartan” extreme. The university provided everything a student needed. Students were not allowed to purchase anything without the headmaster’s approval. They were not allowed to keep extra cash on hand, for fear of the vice of gambling. Their uniforms cost less than civilian academic attire. These circumstances normalized students from different social strata, who had no way to display wealth openly as a signal that their families of origin were affluent. Feather-beds were strictly banned. Finally, students’ schedules were highly regulated to keep them constantly focused on their studies. In short, college was made to be a strict environment, so as to encourage students to complete their courses rapidly while learning how to live simply.
I might not go to Partridge’s extremes, but the negative influence of our current educational system’s luxury in cannot be denied. Students cannot afford the lifestyle that they adopt in our current universities, and this sells our citizens into debt. Over half the students who attend four-year colleges leave with college loans to repay. The average student-loan debt amongst recent graduates is over $29,000. Students leaving universities face not only the culture shock of re-entering the workforce but also the challenge
of lowering their living standards at the same time. This situation encourages students to remain at school to pursue additional degrees, often still acquiring greater debt.
The first time I entered the athletic gymnasium at a state college over 20 years ago, I found a plain room made of white-painted cinderblocks that had limited equipment, including a duct-taped pad on the bench press. Today on the same campus, you would find a highly decorated facility filled with truly state-of-the-art equipment. Dormitory rooms have seen a similar design change. These changes in the standard of living for college students drastically increase the cost of education without returning any additional educational value. What is driving these changes? Mainly, it is the Federal Student Loan Program.
The Federal Student Loan Program had good intentions, viz., to incentivize higher education. The Federal government did this by guaranteeing low-interest loans for students who might not be able to secure private loans. The loans were designed to pay not only for tuition but also for some living expenses. The program, however, removed the incentives for colleges to keep their costs down; in many cases, it even incentivized tuition increases. Average college tuition has increased over 160 percent over the last two decades. Colleges could increase their tuition, knowing exactly how much students were guaranteed through Federal loans. Congress responded by continually increasing loan limits, so that the students could afford the cost of living. This created a vicious cycle.
The number of colleges has multiplied to keep pace with easy money that there is to be made. They have used predatory recruiting practices to enroll students who are not prepared for college academically. With more and more students flooding into colleges, the job market has defaulted into screening by credentialism (i.e., “Do they have a degree?”). This process has devalued the bachelor’s degree and led to the growth of master’s programs, all the while funneling still more money into universities while selling young citizens into greater debt and keeping them non-productive. Colleges are well known also for continuing to enroll students into already-oversaturated career fields, fully aware that their chances of gainful employment in such fields after graduation are quite limited.
With easy money to be made with every student enrollment, colleges began adding luxuries to compete for students. The fancy gymnasia, luxurious dormitories, and lavish recreation rooms became the honey in the student-loan trap. These luxuries not only attract students to universities but also keep them there. With such strong and multifarious non-academic distractions on campus, it should not be a surprise that over 40 percent of college students will fail to complete any degree program within six years from entering.
The student-debt situation is highly unfortunate. There have been calls to provide student-loan relief, but that would only encourage expansion of the existing system, unless the colleges themselves are going to be forced to make the restitution. Universities have already made their profits. Repayment of these loans only shifts the burden of student debt to other citizens. As painful as it might be, we must end this loan program if we want to see the return to affordable education.
Conclusion
The university system has long since lost its way. Citizens should be educated in the fullness of their civic duties in a manner empowering them to utilize their innate talents. A university system that privileges institutional profit over all-around education leads only to hollow and narrow credentialism. Young people should be educated to live simply, avoid consumerist traps, and use their talents to build wealth throughout their lives in order to enjoying retirement without being saddled by eternal debt.
Carrying a soldier’s pack and firing a rifle are experiences that enhance appreciation of the right to vote. Students must face physical trials to improve their physical fitness; this teaches them to see hardships as challenges to be overcome. The experience will inculcate physiological resilience and action based on rational thinking. Citizens deserve an education that respects their aptitude for learning, combining of the traditional mixed classroom with online courses to develop proficiency as
quickly as this permits. The speed of academic advancement should be adapted to the student, not to institutional convenience.
The current system increases the cost of education while decreasing the value of diplomas. This is unsustainable. Debt forgiveness or subsidized repayments to loan companies will do nothing to correct this course. Universities must reduce the cost of education and provide greater value.
Alden Partridge’s educational philosophy can motivate a NeoStoic return education based on the development of personal virtues, enhancing the Republic through fuller appreciation of citizenship. Providing students with such tools as enable them to continue life-long education will be
conducive to a renaissance of individualism and public virtue. These are prerequisites for recruiting people more fit to hold the public trust, to start businesses, and to understand their country’s place in the world. In short, such an educational system would promote the formation of citizens of a
Republic.
A special thank you to Robert Cutler for his help in editing this article.
The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Department of Defense or its components
