A Century Old Argument

I'm reading My Life in Art by Constantin Stanislavski. The book was first published in 1924. Stanislavski was born in 1863. Somewhere between those two dates, he started his life long study of theater and the arts.

In Chapter 8, he complains about the state of artistic education. Schools, he says, are not what they used to be. Institutions are accepting students regardless of talent as long as they are willing to pay. Standards are slipping. Teaching is suffering.

I'm reading his book nearly a century later, and it makes me smile.

People still say the same thing.

Every generation seems convinced that education was better in the past and that today's institutions have lost their way. Whether the subject is acting, writing, music, or higher education in general, the complaint is remarkably consistent.

The truth is that there are more students of the arts today than at any other time in history. There are also more opportunities to learn. Books are no longer reserved for the elites. There are more teachers, more performances to observe, and more ways to share creative work than ever before.

This website, for example.

At the same time, some of his concerns still feel relevant. When institutions depend on tuition, the tension between maintaining standards and attracting students never completely disappears.

It's hard to boast of having gone to a university with a one hundred percent acceptance rate...

Perhaps the most interesting thing is not whether Stanislavski was right or wrong, but that the conversation repeats with every new generation.

In 1924, Stanislavski worried that artistic education was not what it once had been.

A hundred years later, we're still having the same discussion.