103 Reviews - Recensions leur utopie à cet égard et prennent même le soin de nous mettre en garde à l'égard de nouvelles défroques qui cacheraient un vieil humanisme libéral. A moins de croire comme une analyse récente de la Revue Mainmise le suggérait, 3 que ce soit la nouvelle culture qui récupère la société québécoise et non l'inverse, je crains fort pour ma part que nos auteurs aient plus raison dans leur crainte que dans leur utopie. Il ne me semble en effet pas rare de voir se côtoyer des tenants d'un néo-libéralisme, généralement majoritaires selon moi, et des tenants d'un nouvel humanisme post-étatique, évidemment minoritaires, dans les mêmes chamarrées défroques de la "nouvelle culture". Nos auteurs s'en prémunissent instinctivement et ne vont pas jusqu'à l'utopie postétatique. Mais que leur reste-t-il alors de palpable, qui puisse définir ce bon vieux "Socialisme d'ici", sinon des relents, tenaces, de l'idéologie nationaliste québécoise. . . J'utiliserai quand même régulièrement ce recueil dans mes cours. G.-Raymond Laliberté Université Laval Ignacy Waniewicz, Demand for Part-Time Learning in Ontario, Toronto, Ontario Educational Communications Authority and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1976. This study has filled a gap. We had heard much about how our society was on the verge of wholesale enthusiasm for lifelong learning but we had been told little about what people were actually doing or wanted to do. Waneiwicz tells us what people say they are doing and want to do. His study was based on a sample of individuals surveyed by an interview technique. The design of the survey divided them into three categories, learners, would-be-learners and non-learners. The data permits estimates of " d e m a n d " in the psychological rather than the economic sense, and the purpose of the study is descriptive rather than explanatory. Within these self-imposed limitations, the study does provide answers which were not available before. Excluding those who are full-time students at some institution, just over half of the adult population (defined as 18 to 69) are not interested in learning, in the sense of a deliberate effort to acquire knowledge or skill whether by self-directed study or more formally. Of the remainder who are interested, about two-thirds are engaged in some learning activity and one-third would if they could. The fact that half the adult population are interested in more learning endorses the exertions of those who see their mission as adult education, and the fact that half are emphatically not interested is an equally powerful rebuttal of excessive enthusiasm. Narrowing the focus, it can be estimated that 150,000 adults are engaged in degree-work and another 70,000 or so in "adult education", for a total of 220,000 people other than full-time students in the universities. This is less than five percent of the adult population, but it is nevertheless a large number. However, it is the accreditation picture which is more revealing: first, the study 3 Je fais ici référence à un extrait de l'étude du GIPQ mentionnée en référence précédente. 104 Reviews - Recensions reconfirms the well-substantiated discovery that " t h e more credits people have, the more they seek new credits"; second, the study shows that large proportions of those interested in personal development, hobbies and recreation, home and family, and other educational purposes having very little to do with formal steps, levels, grades, etc., would still have some kind of official recognition for their learning e f f o r t " . Also, Waniewicz asked all learners (excluding full-time students) and would-be-learners which method of learning they most preferred for the subjects of interest to themselves. The data shows that the force of traditional methods is overwhelming; and this basic pattern remains unchanged if the two main categories are sub-divided into age groups and genders. From the point of view of degree-credit work, the odds are ten t o one in favour of regular classes compared to teaching at a distance. These findings — and there are many more in the rich Waniewicz mine — invite those involved in any aspect of educational policy to reflect on two major questions, and many more besides. First, should we feel guilty about the half of Ontario's population which has had enough of education? Even framing the question in this way provides a partial answer because we had been led to believe that the main barrier to adult participation in higher education was the lack of opportunity caused by the invisible walls round the campus. So we had been told by the COPSE report in Ontario, The Learning Society, and by innumerable reports and exhortations emanating from UNESCO and OECD. These latter authorities have now acknowledged the paradox that advocates of adult education must concentrate on institutions of higher education in Europe while in North America it is at the population as a whole that they must take aim. Could it be that the wall around the Ontario campus is invisible because it does not exist? The second, and related, major question is what can be done to aid and encourage those who are interested in higher education? Those who do participate appear to be conservative in their beliefs about methods of learning. Where does one start if neither the teachers nor the learners are enthusiastic about departures from established pathways? Waniewicz's study provides a planning base which was entirely lacking in the formulation of policy for continuing higher education, a lack which put policy in this area at the mercy of rhetoric. We should be grateful for the careful and imaginative work he has done. We should also ask ourselves why such important work should have been left undone until someone relatively new to Ontario and in an agency peripheral to the system of higher education came along to do it? Another round of inquiry in this vein will be needed before the end of this decade and, collectively, we must not default. Mario Creet Queen's University E. Gordon Young, The Development Toronto Press, 1976. 130 pp. of Biochemistry in Canada, Toronto, University of The Science of Biochemistry has had an exciting quarter century just passed. During this time it progressed from hesitant probings into the nature and properties of the materials of which living things are composed to the present confidence that the workings of "life"