OVER RECENT DECADES, ACADEMIC qualifications have become an essential, or at least highly desirable, entry ticket to an increasing range of careers. (Think journalism, marketing and indeed many other areas of business.) Traditional forms of “experiential learning”, relying on what Tamson Pietsch calls “on-the-job experience and the guidance of practitioners” rather than books and lectures, have been devalued in the process. Her dazzling new book vividly recreates the story of a striking educational experiment to illuminate the history and nature of this major development.
The set sail from New York in September 1926. Some 306 young men, 57 young women and 133 mature students embarked on an eight-month, round-the-world trip which stopped off at
