Ronald Gross - The Independent Scholars Handbook

Also by Ronald Gross

Peak Learning The Lifelong Learner Future Directions for Open Learning The Teacher and the Taught Pop Poems

With Beatrice Gross

Radical School Reform Will It Grow m a Classroom?

The Children's Rights Movement The New Old: Struggling for Decent Aging The Great School Debate

With Paul Osterman

Individualism The New Professionals

With Judith Murphy

The Revolution in the Schools

With George Quasha

Open Poetry

For permission to reprint copyrighted material the author is grateful to the following publishers and copyright proprietors:

CROWN PUBLISHERS, INC.: From Buckminster Fuller: At Home in the Universe by Alden Hatch. Copyright 1974 by Alden Hatch. By permission of Crown Publishers, Inc.

HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS, INC.: From Before the Sabbath by Eric Hoffer. Copyright 1979 by Eric Hoffer.

HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON, PUBLISHERS: From Two Tramps in Mud Time from The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1969 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Reprinted by permission of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers.

LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS: From The Ascent of Man by J. Bronowski. Copyright 1973 by J. Bronowski.

CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS: ]. L. Barkas, Victims. Copyright 1978 by]. L. Barkas. Reprinted with the permission of Charles Scribners Sons.

THE COLLEGE ENTRANCE EXAMINATION BOARD: Reprinted with permission from Expand Your Life by Allen Tough. Copyright 1980 by College Entrance Examination Board, New York.

E. P. DUTTON, INC.: Reprinted by permission of E. P. Dutton, inc. from This Way Out: A Guide to Alternatives to Traditional College Education by John Coyne and Tom Hebert. Copyright 1972 by John Coyne and Tom Hebert.

TEN SPEED PRESS: From Finding Facts Fast by Alden Todd. Copyright 1972 and 1979 by Alden Todd and Julian Bach Literary Agency, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Alden Todd.

SATURDAY REVIEW, INC.: From What I Have Learned: A Collection of 20 Autobiographical Essays by Great Contemporaries from the Saturday Review. Published by Simon and Schuster. Copyright 1966, 1967, 1968 by Saturday Review, Inc. Reprinted with permission from Saturday Review, Inc.

FOUNDATION CENTER: Foundation Center Cooperating CollectionsFree Funding Information Centers.

Copyright 1982, 1993 by Ronald Gross

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

TEN SPEED PRESS P. O. Box 7123, Berkeley, California 94707

Text design and composition by Ralph Fowler Cover design by Fifth Street Design

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gross, Ronald
The independent scholars handbook / Ronald Gross, p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-89815-521-5 1. Learning and scholarship, I. Title AZ103.G75 1993
001. 2dc20 93-19276

Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 97 96 95 94 93

The tragedy of AIDS has been especially grievous in the arts and intellectual life. Independent scholarship is no exception. Many in the field are suffering; many have died. We offer our support, mourn our losses, and treasure our memories.

As this book goes to press, Jim Bennett, one of the brightest sources of light and warmth in this field, is in a hospice in Chicago. He has written wittily, learnedly, and passionately about independent scholarship. His writing has inspired us, his erudition has illuminated our experience, his scathing irony has sometimes infuriated its targets. He has made a difference. Jims major book on independent scholarship has been awaited keenly by everyone in the field. We wish him well in bringing it to fruition.

In his name, many of us in this sector of creative life have rededicated ourselves to doing what needs to be done to support our friends and colleagues with AIDS.

Without the breach of life, the human body is a corpse; without thinking, the human mind is dead.

Hannah Arendt

For those who have experienced it, the hour of the awakening of the passion for knowledge is the most memorable of a lifetime.

Colin Wilson

The world needs the inspiration of our undamaged instinctive love for the truth. Buckminster Fuller