Secretary of Education William J. Bennett plans to team up with Allan Bloom, the University of Chicago scholar, to form a research center to study liberal-arts education and other public-Education Department officials said last week.
The proposed 鈥淢adison Center,鈥� which would be research, publish books, and hold summer institutes for college students and faculty members. 鈥淭he classics of Western philosophy and literature amount to a great debate on the perennial questions,鈥� Mr. Bennett said. 鈥淭o deprive those students of this debate is to condemn them to improvise their ways of living in ignorance of their real options and the best arguments for each.鈥�
The Madison Center鈥檚 summer institutes will seek to ensure that at least some students are exposed to such masterpieces. Up to 100 students will be invited to spend three or four weeks 鈥渆arly in their college career鈥� conducting a 鈥渟erious examination of classic texts,鈥� according to Mr. Jackson.
At the same time, he said, the institutes--which will take place at an as-yet-undetermined college campus--will 鈥渄raw together faculty members to engage in a helpful, sustained discussion on the state of American higher education.鈥�
Mr. Bloom will serve as a director of the institutes, Mr. Jackson indicated. Unlike such 鈥渢hink tanks鈥� as the Brookings Institution or the American Enterprise Institute, however, the Madison Center does not plan to maintain a 鈥渟table of senior scholars,鈥� he said.
