The Delicate Thing About The University Is

The American Farmer, Whose Holdings Were Not So Extensive As Those Of The Grandee Nor So Tiny As Those Of The Peasant, Whose Psychology Was Protestant And Bourgeois, And Whose Politics Were Petty-capitalist Rather Than Traditionalist, Had No Reason To Share The Social Outlook Of The Rural Classes Of Europe. In Europe Land Was Limited And Dear, While Labor Was Abundant And Relatively Cheap; In America The Ratio Between Land And Labor Was Inverted.

To The Zealot Overcome By His Piety And To The Journeyman Of Ideas Concerned Only With His Marketable Mental Skills, The Beginning And End Of Ideas Lies In Their Efficacy With Respect To Some Goal External To Intellectual Processes.

A University Is Not A Service Station. Neither Is It A Political Society, Nor A Meeting Place For Political Societies. With All Its Limitations And Failures, And They Are Invariably Many, It Is The Best And Most Benign Side Of Our Society Insofar As That Society Aims To Cherish The Human Mind.

As With The Pursuit Of Happiness, The Pursuit Of Truth Is Itself Gratifying Whereas The Consummation Often Turns Out To Be Elusive.

If There Is Anything More Dangerous To The Life Of The Mind Than Having No Independent Commitment To Ideas, It Is Having An Excess Of Commitment To Some Special And Constricting Idea.