The Calling of Education: "The Academic Ethic" and Other Essays on Higher Education

Edward Shils

Apr 2008 · University of Chicago Press

About this ebook

Throughout his long and prolific career, Edward Shils brought an extraordinary knowledge of academic institutions to discussions about higher education. The Calling of Education features Shils's most illuminating and incisive writing on this topic from the last twenty-five years of his life. The first essay, "The Academic Ethic," articulates the unique ethical demands of the academic profession and directs special attention to the integration of teaching and research. Other pieces, including Shils's renowned Jefferson lectures, focus on perennial issues in higher learning: the meaning of academic freedom, the connection between universities and the state, and the criteria for appointing individuals to academic positions.

Edward Shils understood the university as a great symphonic conductor comprehends the value of each instrument and section, both separately and in cooperation. The Calling of Education offers Shils's insightful perspective on problems that are no less pressing than when he first confronted them.

Edward Shils (1910-1995) was distinguished service professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the department of sociology at the University of Chicago. Among his many books published by the University of Chicago Press are Portraits: A Gallery of Intellectuals and the three-volume Selected Papers of Edward Shils.

About the author

Edward Shils, an American sociologist, is a professor at both the University of Chicago and King's College, Cambridge. The editors of a Festschrift prepared in his honor note that he has been a pioneer in clearing up the logical confusion over the concept of ideology and in exploring the role of intellectuals in contemporary life. Shils's work on the institutionalization of sociology as an academic discipline has been fundamental to all discussions of this question. His interest in sociological concepts has been valuable in analyzing political and cultural leadership and societal cohesion. These concepts include his interpretation of "charisma," his own concepts of "center" and "periphery," and his revision of the term "mass society." Shils also introduced into sociology the concept of "scientific community," now central to the sociology of science. He is the founding editor of Minerva, a major journal in the field of higher education and the sociology of knowledge generally.