 Although Education for Modern Man recognized the place of the major intellectual disciplines in the sciences and the humanities in the curriculum of the public school and the college, the stress was not laid upon the learning of the substantive subject matter as much as upon the development of the student’s ability for independent thinking and the fostering of his capacity for exercising critical intelligence. Similarly, although the authority of the teacher and administrator was recognized, the stress was placed upon the democratic character of the classroom as a community of free inquiry. In Hook’s interpretation of education, a condition for the identification of an educational institution as a democratic institution was the requirement that it sustain freedom of inquiry.