John Macmurray’s Learning to Live and the new media, 1931–1949: learning for labour or leisure?

Abstract

John Macmurray was a public intellectual and an early proponent of popular education through the new medium of radio. National broadcasting of the time was finding its role in the competing cultures of education and entertainment, and significantly one of Macmurray’s first radio projects in 1931–1932 concerned the issue of ‘Learning to Live’. Here he explored the tension between learning for labour and learning for leisure. Public understanding of education over the following two decades was fostered through the media of print and cinema. Three examples are identified here to explore how this ‘conceptual couple’ of ‘learning’ and ‘life’ were treated: a propaganda film (1941) that adopted Macmurray’s title, Learning to live; School and life, an official report published in 1947; and a commercial documentary production in 1949 entitled Education for living. Macmurray conveyed his ‘applied philosophy’ through public broadcasting even before his major academic publications and his use of radio itself demonstrated its potential for learning as leisure activity for a mass audience. As in radio, so in documentary film, and even in official reports new understandings of education had to be accessible and attractive. Appraisal of Macmurray’s work must include an historical examination of new media in the development of educational discourse.

Keywords:

• John Macmurray
• learning and living
• education and radio
• education and film

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Michael Fielding’s infectious commitment for leading me to John Macmurray in the first place, and to Michael and two anonymous reviewers for subsequent guidance.