The Fate of Liberal Arts in Today's Schools and Colleges by Hayes William;

Author:Hayes, William; [Hayes, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2015-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

12

C. P. Snow and the “Two Cultures” Debate

Although there have always been disagreements over what should be taught in our schools and colleges, the debate was greatly stimulated in 1959 as a result of a lecture and the subsequent publication of the essay “Two Cultures” by C. P. Snow. In this work, Snow highlighted what he perceived as the division of “mutual incomprehension—sometimes (particularly among the young) hostility and dislike, but most of all, lack of understanding” between literary intellectuals and scientists. He suggests that these two groups have a “curious distorted image of each other.”1

There were very fierce and negative reactions to this thesis as well as other sections of the essay, and the result has been decades of debate over the arguments contained in the lecture and publication. Articles and whole books have been published concerning Snow’s ideas. Who is this Englishman who stirred the intellectual world in his native country and in the United States?

Born in 1905 in England to a poor family, he was able to earn a scholarship to the University College in Leicester and graduated with honors in 1927. After earning his bachelor’s degree, he did graduate work at Cambridge University, where he earned a master’s as well as a PhD in science. In the early 1930s, he held a teaching position at Cambridge and was active with other scientists in attempting to utilize science to aid the British war effort. During World War II, he was appointed to a government administrative program in the Department of Labor.2

Although he was never a member of the prime minister’s cabinet, when the Labor Party leader became prime minister after World War II, Snow served in an important government position as the parliamentary private secretary in Harold Wilson’s newly created Ministry of Technology.3 His extensive background in science and technology would be used by his defenders as evidence that he was knowledgeable in this area.

At the same time that he was working as a science professor and a government official, Snow was also launching a new career as a novelist. Beginning in 1930, he started writing what would later become an eleven-volume series of novels based on British life during the first half of the twentieth century. The series, entitled Strangers and Brothers, catalogued the life of Lewis Elliott, which was in many ways similar to that of the author. Along with this project, he also wrote several mysteries and technical nonfiction books.

Given his involvement in both the scientific and literary worlds, Snow and his supporters would argue that he was eminently qualified to speak about what he saw as a very unfortunate and dangerous divide between two types of intellectuals. His concerns were given serious consideration, at least in part because of his reputation, which was enhanced when he was officially knighted in 1957 and made a life peer in 1964. From that time, he was referred to, at least in Great Britain, as Sir C. P. Snow. Up until his death in 1980,

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