An Incurable Academic. Memoirs of a Professor

232 Pages·1983·13.011 MB·English

by  Torsten Husen (Auth.)

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PROFESSOR T. HUSfiN
An
Incurable
A c a d e m ic
Memoirs of a Professor
by
TORSTEN HUSEN
Translated by
TOM GEDDES
PERGAMON PRESS
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Copyright © 1983 Pergamon Press Ltd.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may
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tronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical,
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First English edition 1983
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Husen, Torsten, 1916—
An incurable academic.
Translation of: En obotlig akademiker.
Includes index.
1. Husen, Torsten, 1916- 2. College teachers—
Sweden—Biography.
3. Educators—Sweden—Biography.
I. Title.
LA2375. S82H873131983 378Μ2Ό924 82-22455
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Husen, Torsten
An incurable academic.
1. Husen, Torsten
2. Education, Higher—Sweden—Biography
I. Title II. En obotlig akademiker English
378'.0092'4 LA2377.H/
ISBN 0-08-027925-2
First published in Sweden by Natur och Kultur
under the title En obotlig akademiker—En pro-
fessors memoarer by Torsten Husen. Copyright
© 1981 Torsten Husen
Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd.
Preface
A few years ago the Journal of Higher Education invited me to write
a fairly long article about how I developed an interest in the problems
of higher education, and to approach the subject from an autobio-
graphical angle. I was doubtful whether I would have the time to do
it, since as usual I had many other things on hand. But then a
situation arose that I had not experienced for several decades: during
a stay as a Fellow at the National Humanities Center in North
Carolina in the winter of 1979, when I had completed a study for the
OECD of American educational policies, I realised one day that
there was no immediate task clamouring for attention, no deadline
just around the corner. This gave me some time to devote to more
frivolous writings. For a month I sat down for a few hours each
morning and wrote what I called "My Life as an Academic, or, A
Marriage to Higher Education". The journal chose the latter part of
the title—which was less appropriate than the former, and, needless
to say, less palatable to my wife.
What I had written (in English) at the National Humanities Center
gave me the urge to continue. After my return to Sweden I followed
my well-established habit of writing a few pages every morning—this
time in my own language—usually without relying on documents.
After about a year, this resulted in an extensive draft from which the
manuscript of the present book has been drawn.
I must also admit that even before the Journal of Higher Education
issued its invitation, I had plans to write about Swedish psychology
and education in the 1940s and 1950s, the breakthrough period for
the behavioural sciences, in which, in my youth, I myself played a
part. My intention was to do this in the form of a sequence of
portraits of researchers, administrators and politicians with whom I
had come in contact. When the present memoirs were being written,
I had already started on a number of portraits, including one of my
teacher, John Landquist. I had also dealt with a few prominent
scholars in the international sphere. This book, therefore, does
v
vi Preface
not present a portrait gallery: I hope that that will appear separ-
ately.
It was my intention at the beginning to commit memoirs to paper as
they emerged at the moment of writing, without making use of any
documentary sources. But it so happens that I do have two kinds of
source material available. Firstly, I still have all my private
correspondence, in chronological order. This has to some extent not
merely provided the backbone of this memoir, but also put some flesh
on the bones by means of quotations. I have thus attempted to bring
some events to life by reference to my letters, especially from the
years 1945-50. The second source consists of press cuttings, also filed
chronologically. In the forties I began subscribing to a press-cutting
service for material on my own books, but the bureau soon started
sending me everything that was written about me in the newspapers. I
have used this material when writing about the public debate on
intelligence tests in 1949-50.
Regrettably, I have never kept a diary. When one attempts to write
about periods in one's life long in the past without the records that a
diary provides, descriptions can all too easily become abstract and
schematic. The vitality of events is missing. This limitation is manifest
in much of what I have written here. Only in recent years have I tried
on a few occasions to capture on paper the experiences of the
previous day, or to note down reflections prompted by current
events. I have collected together a few such notes here in the section
entitled "Brief Glimpses of a Busy Life".
These memoirs were originally intended for a Swedish readership,
which was the main reason for writing them in my mother tongue
instead of expanding on what I had previously written in English for
the Journal of Higher Education. But because of my various activities
over many years on the international scene, it was suggested that I
should publish the memoirs in English as well. This raised the
problem of deciding what might seem to be so parochial and trivial to
an international audience that it should be deleted from the original
version. In consultation with my publisher and translator, I have
Preface vii
omitted some sections that were in the Swedish edition, notably one
on graduate students and colleagues, and some of the episodes in the
section entitled "Brief Glimpses of a Busy Life". I am aware that
further cuts could have been justified and have, therefore, to
apologise for what still remains of a provincial character.
For about thirty years I have been involved as an academic,
primarily as an educational researcher, in various international
endeavours. Some of these have taken place under the auspices of
intergovernmental bodies, such as UNESCO and OECD. Others
have been concerned with international co-operative research,
notably the comparative studies of national systems of education
conducted in the sixties and seventies by the International Associa-
tion for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). During
this period an extensive international network was built up which
later turned out to be highly beneficial to me in my role as
Co-editor-in-chief of the International Encyclopedia of Education:
Research and Studies.
Colleagues at many research institutions and universities around
the world as well as those in international organisations will, I hope,
constitute the audience of these memoirs of "an incurable academic"
who greatly enjoyed working with them. A researcher has two
constituencies: society at large, both national and international,
which hopefully in the long run will benefit from his work; and the
international community of scholars, which has to judge the scientific
quality of his work and his contribution to disciplined fundamental
knowledge. Nothing, therefore, in a world of global interdependence
can be more rewarding for an academic than to work with colleagues
all over the world engaged in the same pursuits as himself. No
wonder, then, that in my present position as an Emeritus Professor I
am as enthusiastic as ever in pursuing my international engagements.
The way I conceive of my role as an academic, a professor and a
researcher, is epitomised in general terms in the concluding pages of
this book. One might consider this to be my "academic credo". My
consciousness in relation to the academic way of life has been
considerably heightened over the last decade, not least by the recent
university reform in Sweden. Goals which are in themselves
important and valuable within higher education, such as equality of
viii Preface
access and "vocational relevance", have come into conflict with other
important objectives of quality and free enquiry.
I should like to express my gratitude to those who have helped me
in the preparation of the English edition of my memoirs. My thanks
go in the first place to my wife Ingrid, my stern critic, who had me
remove even from the Swedish manuscript what I had written about
her own role. Her support and "home-base service" is evident to our
acquaintances and, I think, to other readers of this book as well. I am
also indebted to Mrs. Barbara Barrett of Pergamon Press, who took a
personal interest in this book and with whom I had a fruitful and
rewarding working relationship in preparing the International
Encyclopedia. Mr. Tom Geddes undertook the translation of the
book into English. I want to thank him for a good job and for his
patience with the changes I proposed. I am grateful to Mrs. Peggy
Ducker for her competent editing and for the improvements in
substance and style which she suggested.
TORSTEN HUSEN
Chronology of Main Events
1916 Born in Lund.
1935 Enrolled at the University of Lund.
1944 Ph.D. "Disputation".
Military psychologist in Stockholm.
1947 Senior Lecturer at the University of Stockholm.
1953 Professor at the University of Stockholm.
1956 Professor at the Stockholm School of Education.
1962 Chairman of the International Association for the
Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).
1970 Chairman of the Governing Board of the Interna-
tional Institute for Educational Planning.
1971 Return to the University of Stockholm as a Professor
of International Education.
1982 Professor Emeritus.
XI
My Background
I could be said to be a typical product of a Swedish society which,
both geographically and socially, had by the turn of the century
become increasingly more mobile. This change came about through
industrialisation, internal migration and the rise of political and popular
organisations. My "background", outlined briefly, is as follows:
My father's ancestors were all from the province of Uppland, north
of Stockholm, the majority coming from the county of Roslagen.
They were peasants, mostly smallholders and soldiers. My eldest
cousin, a farmer's wife in the village of Frösunda, whose husband
took over the farm that my father's brother ran until the beginning of
the twenties, once commissioned a genealogist at the county archives
in Uppsala to trace her ancestry back to the early seventeenth cen-
tury. I have a copy of the family tree inserted in a family Bible, which
happened to be among the few things saved from a fire in which
almost all my parents' belongings were lost a few months after my
mother's death.
My paternal grandfather, Erik Höglund, was a tenant farmer on
one of the farms owned by the University of Uppsala. The majority
of his many children died in infancy. Only my father, one of his
brothers and a sister reached adulthood. My paternal uncle died a
few years after handing over his farm to his son-in-law and daughter.
My aunt married a haulier and had half a dozen children. My father,
Johan Sakeus Höglund, left home at an early age. After studying at a
technical school, he found a job as a book-keeper in Borrby in the
southern province of Skäne. He moved from there to Vislanda in the
adjoining province, where he was book-keeper at the sawmill. From
there he went to Nässjö, in Smäland, where together with a Danish
partner he set up a timber business. In Nässjö he met my mother,
Betty Prawitz, who worked as a telegraphist and was then in her early
thirties.
My mother's family came from Skäne, and, by the way, appears in
the 1979 edition of the Swedish Genealogical Yearbook. An artisan
1