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Book review/Compte rendu
Anne Alexander. The Antigonish Movement: Moses Coady and Adult Education
Today. (Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing, 1997). Pp. 247.
Reviewed by Eric Damer
Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’éducation 11, no. 1 (Spring/printemps 1999)
During the 1920s Catholic priests of St. Francis Xavier University appropriated
the increasingly popular label “adult education” for their efforts to revitalize
rural areas near Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Townsfolk, farmers, and fishermen
learned how to organize and operate credit unions and cooperatives through
mass meetings and study groups. The visible success of this project made
the “Antigonish Movement” a model in the history of Canadian education.
Anne Alexander’s book aims to link historical understanding to current
adult education practice. She begins with an historical overview of the
Movement, provides an analysis of the ideas of central figure Moses Coady,
and concludes with a discussion of the Movement’s relevance to contemporary
problems. Despite these grand objectives, the book suffers from various
weaknesses which, alas, turn out to be disabling.
The first section proves the most valuable. Alexander provides a useful
service to education historians by surveying a broad range of social antecedents
to a complex activity, summarizing relevant secondary research, and providing
a solid bibliography. But she never states her own view of just what the
Antigonish Movement might have meant. We do not learn what a “movement”
is, nor exactly what constitutes the famed economic “middle way” of cooperativism.
We never know why St. Francis Xavier University established a Department
of Extension (although we learn that it was in response to a threat by
the Scottish Catholic Society to raise funds and “do it themselves"). In
short, Alexander presents excerpts from other research but introduces little
historical evidence or perspective. Despite normative exhortations, her
own voice is weak.
Alexander’s attempt at a popular and accessible writing style is all too
frequently careless and imprecise. We find, for example, several “mirrors,”
plenty of “context” and “milieu,” “emerging” events, social movement “thrusts,”
vague “needs,” “holistic” views, and, of course, we meet “the people” of
"the community,” the “oppressed” and the “oppressors.” I counted some twenty-two
occasions of the word “reflect” (or variations). Three are in the same
paragraph, each with a different meaning: Coady “reflected the optimism
and many ideas of other progressives;” “while his ideas represented the
ideal... they reflect the base from which Coady and his colleagues informed
and motivated themselves;” “these ideas that underpinned this social reform
movement give us... a base for critical reflection” (176). Presumably the
first means “shared,” the second “were a consequence of,” and the third
"thinking about” (in some unspecified way). But it is not the reader’s
job to define terms.
Charitable readers who dismiss such language as mere sloppiness and overlook
vague terms and passive voice to seek the author’s deeper meaning and understanding
will not find rewards. Alexander’s work is conceptually weak, avoiding
many essential questions. The second section of the book, which promises
to be intellectual history and conceptual analysis, is particularly unfulfilling.
Why, in discussing the Catholic “social gospel,” is it important to note
Aquinas as a philosophical realist; and is “realist” meant in its mediaeval
or modern sense? Pierre Bourdieu’s name appears on page 133, but in an
inadequate discussion of the relevance of his views to the study at hand.
Alexander hints at the conflict between charismatic authority and what
Weber called legal-rational authority, but never delves into the topic.
Accepting Coady’s “philosophy” at face value as declared in speeches and
credos, she appears more an apologist than critical analyst. To read that
“to Coady, democracy meant ‘rule by the people’ and not ‘rule by the elite’”
(166) tells us virtually nothing.
Catholic intellectual history should be a central aspect of this study,
but again appears in a weak and shallow form. Alexander rightly ties Coady’s
philosophical and social views to the papal edicts of Leo xiii, but only
hints at their relevance to the social role of the Catholic Church in an
increasingly secular and scientific age. We are told that Coady believed
in “scientific thinking,” but nowhere do we find what science meant to
Catholic clerics. Was social science conceived in positivistic terms, leaving
moral and social judgements to the church? We learn that Coady equated
scientific thinking with “straight thinking” and “real thinking.” Alexander
explains that scientific thinking means “reducing a complex topic to simplest
components and developing an understanding about it” (135). To put it mildly,
this is not conceptually informative.
There are puzzling inconsistencies. How can Alexander characterize the
Antigonish Movement as non-professional if she recognizes the professional
status of priests in the 1920s (32, 182)? If Coady preached that adult
education leaders ought to break alliances with “vested interests,” one
would expect the author to consider seriously the tremendous influence
of Carnegie Corporation money (acknowledged by Alexander) in evaluating
Coady and his “philosophy.” Such consideration is missing.
Alexander wishes to show that Coady’s normative beliefs about adult education
contributed to the Antigonish Movement, and that similar beliefs might
contribute to similar programs today. Although portrayed in heroic terms,
Coady is shown to be an actor surrounded by other social forces that contributed
to the Movement; a critical reader might see in Alexander’s account someone
less charismatic and more domineering. From the evidence of this book,
Coady was pushy and brusque, with high self-regard, and used simple-minded
rustic metaphors to illustrate a folksy (and probably in consistent) philosophy.
Alexander’s thin conceptual analysis makes him appear more political opportunist
than visionary educator. Although the humanitarian accomplishments of the
Movement are hard to ignore, one must wonder if Coady is the proper figure
for adulation.
The Antigonish Movement: Moses Coady and Adult Education Today is a useful
introduction to the topic, especially as a casual read at the undergraduate
level, but its considerable shortcomings make it of limited use to historians
or educators. As history, it simply does not bring new insights or evidence
to bear on a fascinating topic. As education, it promotes political bravado
over careful philosophical consideration. At a time when many decry the
lack of “vision” among adult educators, we must resist a vision of empty
rhetoric fuelling mindless activism.
Eric Damer
University of British Columbia
Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’éducation 11, no. 1 (Spring/printemps 1999)
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