Universidad Francisco Marroquín Guatemala I. Theory and Practice

Francisco Marroquin University will emphasize the theoretical rather than the "practical" or "occupational" aspects of higher education.

The disdain for the study of theory in universities throughout the world is due, in part at least, to an incomplete understanding of the fact that all human thought finds its raison d'être in some form of action or practice. In the final analysis all knowledge, whether the most general and abstract or the most specific and concrete, consists of knowing how to do something.

However, it does not follow that practice ought to replace the study of theory. Indeed, every practice involves the application of one theory or another, whether or not this is known by the person who acts. The difference between those who learn to apply a theory without knowing what theory they are applying and those who apply it knowingly is that the latter are in a position to look for alternative methods which are compatible with the theory.

Obviously, the purpose of emphasizing theory is not to separate theory from practice; rather it is to provide the necessary foundations so that practice becomes flexible, more thoughtful, freer and more effective.

Those who are not aware of the theoretical foundations of their professional activity will not be able to go beyond the methods or techniques that they learned to apply, nor will they be in a position to discover anything new in their professional field. They will not have received, strictly speaking, a higher education -they will simply have acquired the necessary skills to perform certain tasks. It is not necessary, however, for universities to teach these skills since technical schools exist throughout the world to do precisely that.

Theoretical education, which necessarily involves practice, attempts to provide the basis for a vision that goes beyond the present in space and time; a vision which widens horizons instead of narrowing them, and which makes for intellectual modesty rather than arrogance and intolerance, the products of a narrow outlook and limited knowledge.

The disdain for theory and the emphasis on the "practical" have had a decisive influence on university instruction and on the contemporary academic philosophy of many universities. Many believe, for instance, that humanistic studies ought to be replaced by technical studies that have an immediate application to social development. This thinking has contributed to the idea that universities are centers for the study of specific techniques.

Human society has always felt the need to create and support institutions of higher learning, dedicated to teaching and to the search for principles or theories whose practical consequences may contribute to a better way of living. We believe that although the training of technicians in different fields is an important function which centers of higher learning must perform, it is not less true that universities, by definition and universal tradition, are and have been much more than centers for the training of technicians. Research is essential to academic work, and the teaching of techniques is essential to the work of technical schools. Since principles and theories do have practical consequences which are important for society to take advantage of, it is critical for society to teach techniques of application.

In the field of the natural sciences, the advance of knowledge has been so great that most universities in Latin America could dedicate themselves less to research in the natural sciences and more to the training of technicians in the application of the principles of those sciences -without greatly harming the advance of knowledge in these fields. After all, the majority of people in the world live in underdeveloped societies, where a great many practical applications of scientific principles (discovered long ago) have scarcely been put into practice. Thus, in these countries the application of old scientific principles rather that the search for new ones seems to be the more urgent task.

However, in the field of the social sciences, the situation is quite different. The difference is not merely that progress in the social sciences has been small when compared to the natural sciences, or that the principles of the social sciences are not applied to advantage, as evidenced by the poverty, the uneasiness and the convulsions that plague many regions of the world today. The fact is that, unlike in the case of sciences such as physics and chemistry, there is disagreement as to the very nature and scope as science of philosophy, economics, sociology and politics. Disagreements concerning specific theories are no less notorious. Under these circumstances, what is important is to re-examine and to re-formulate theories and principles rather than to train technicians in their application, for it is the validity of the principles themselves that is in question.

For this reason -and by way of example- the curriculum of the School of Law will emphasize the study of human rights -their nature and foundations, or philosophy- rather than the study of legislation and the auxiliary sciences such as sociology. Likewise, the curriculum of the School of Economics will emphasize the study of economic theory rather than accounting and other disciplines auxiliary to economics.

Through its teaching and publications, the new University will try to examine, critically and objectively, the theories that have had a decisive influence on contemporary social organization. It is the University's hope that as a result of a broad, free and rigorous training its graduates will contribute to the adoption by our society of policies of collective improvement, within the framework of the fundamental values of Western civilization.