Always learning.(The Student Chronicles)(Book review)

The Student Chronicles, by Alice Garner; Miegunyah, 2006, $24.95.

THE POPULAR PERCEPTION of the universities is likely to range from an unrealistic vision of ivy-clad colleges and oak-lined studies to an extension of school with more spare time to spend in the playground, or a grinding apprenticeship for a well-paid professional career. Preparation for lifelong learning and serious scholarship would not rank high, but it is a credit to Alice Garner that this aspect of the experience does feature in her account.

One of the least discussed topics, even among highly educated people and intellectuals (by no means the same people) is the ecology of higher learning and scholarship--the design and maintenance of "the house of intellect", in the language of Jacques Barzun. Throughout the explosive growth of the university system and the traumatic reform process that followed, major decisions were made without any clear understanding on the part of the decision-makers of the life of the mind that the universities are supposed to sustain. Among the reasons for this are the neglect of Barzun's report on the outcome of the American experiment with mass higher learning (The American University, 1968) which anticipated the Australian experience by a couple of decades, and the dearth of reflective writing on student life.

Alice Garner has made a small contribution to the genre, small enough to be capsulated in an essay, so the resources devoted to this book could have resulted in a collection to provide a wider cross-section of university experiences. She has done her best to justify the effort:

 
   I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to read 
   the story of a conscientious Arts student from the 
   infamously "apathetic" 1980s and 1990s [but, once 
   started] I began to think that there might be 
   something to tell after all--if only to give the 
   perspective of a "serious" student from those 
   unrebellious years, a story not often heard. 

The best part of the book is Garner's account of her studies, the philosophy essays that never seemed to get past definitions, the overwhelming majority of students struck dumb in tutorials, the discovery of hidden treasures in the library stacks, the deliberate progress through the whole of Plato's Republic, the thrill of handling original research materials in a foreign land. Some of the tutorials worked, like one in Fine Arts with ...