Defense & Refutation of Theses on Higher Education
Summary
In fall of 2024, the Geoffrion fellows for 2024-2025 took a class on Education & the Public Good, Humanities 490. As part of the course, students collectively came up with a set of theses, and they refuted one and defended another in their final papers. The following post is Anastasija Mladenovska's final paper.
Author: Anastasija Mladenovska
In Defense of:
The American university system oppresses global universities by imposing Western standards (e.g., measures of excellence, accreditation, curriculum design and pedagogy, teaching materials, language of instruction, etc.) as the only valid framework for education, effectively marginalizing diverse educational practices worldwide.
Note: The appropriation of Arabic knowledge by European scholars, especially during the Middle Ages, raises the question of whether the dynamics of intellectual exchange this thesis presupposes are truly novel or part of a recurring historical pattern1. The 12th and 13th centuries, particularly in places like the Toledo School of Translators, illustrate a complex interaction between admiration, appropriation, and recontextualization.2 The Toledo School, with its collaboration among Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scholars, translated Arabic works into Latin, making key texts from Aristotle, Avicenna, Al-Khwarizmi, and others accessible to the European intellectual world.
However, despite this intellectual exchange, the translated texts were often restructured to fit European epistemologies, reframing them as part of a universal intellectual heritage rather than recognizing them as distinctly Arabic contributions. This process of admiration and appropriation is evident in how Arabic texts were revered as superior and indispensable, while their cultural origins were minimized.3 The intellectual debt owed to Arabic sources was acknowledged by early translators like Gerard of Cremona, but over time, the original context of these works faded from view as they became subsumed into the broader European intellectual narrative. This dynamic reveals a recurring tension in intellectual history: the simultaneous valorization of non-Western knowledge and its decontextualization for Western use.
Today, non-Western knowledge is often marginalized within global educational frameworks dominated by Western models, shifting from selective appropriation to dismissal. This evolution in intellectual dominance marks a significant change from earlier periods, such as the medieval era, when Arabic texts were valued for their intellectual contributions. This shift underscores the need for more collaborative and equitable approaches to global knowledge production. This thesis will focus on these changes from the Cold War era onward, with some reference to the post-World War II period due to space constraints.
Introduction
The end of the Cold War, followed by the proliferation of democratic missions and projects framed as the third wave of globalization, has created an environment in which Western models of education are valued above all others. While this hierarchy might not appear detrimental in Western societies themselves, it has disregarded the cultural and contextual relevance of other systems of teaching and learning and diminished the interest of students and faculty alike in acquiring language skills. By positioning Western standards as the benchmark of academic, professional, and, in some instances, cultural excellence, the American university has managed to effectively marginalize not only educational practices rooted in non-Western traditions, often forcing institutions worldwide to conform or risk losing funding and credibility, but also to deprive its own students of the same prospect it so proudly claims to bestow: global citizenship in an increasingly dynamic world.
This trend is closely tied to the Western world’s fascination with understanding and mapping culture. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations (1996) framed culture as a defining factor in global conflicts, positioning civilizations as monolithic, clash-prone entities.4 While Western society has since moved away from seeing cultural differences as inevitable sources of conflict, Huntington’s ideas helped solidify the notion that cultural identity significantly shapes global relations, including education systems, a notion easy to exploit in the post-Cold War context, where the desire to stabilize and “unify” the world has become prevalent. In response to Huntington’s generalizations, initiatives like the World Values Survey emerged, attempting to map out the values, norms, and beliefs of global cultures in a way that could facilitate cross-cultural understanding.5 These efforts, however, are primarily more aligned with advancing the concept of global governance than with achieving other objectives. Global governance itself is paradoxical: it is promoted as the ultimate mechanism for achieving global stability, yet it proves nearly impossible to enforce uniformly. This makes global governance less a concrete system of rules and more a practice of ongoing dialogue, with higher education institutions increasingly serving as platforms for these conversations. In this way, both education and its recipients have been commodified, the first as a product within a globalized marketplace and the second as a dependent on this system for success which is seen as a private, individual and localized investment. Culture has become a central lens through which both educational institutions and their recipients derive significance, albeit the most expensive exportable commodity. The promise of “global citizenship” thus becomes a promise to acquire culture—yet not the cultivation of one’s own—but rather the consumption of culture possible only through these commodified channels.
These perplexing efforts to bridge American education with global culture have created internal contradictions on the soil of Western universities themselves, contributed to the view of culture as a fixed and measurable entity and the exclusion of local traditions, perpetuating a cycle in which Western ideals dominate and non-Western knowledge is sidelined.
Roots of Western Educational Dominance: Dewey & Wallerstein
John Dewey, an American philosopher and educator of the early 20th century, in his 1944 address Between Two Worlds, championed the idea that education should foster democratic engagement and global understanding.6 Unlike more rigid, traditional models at the time, Dewey advocated for an educational system that encourages critical thinking, active participation, and a deep engagement with the world. Dewey viewed education as a means of not just transmitting knowledge but as a force for social reform and international cooperation—an antidote to the ideological conflicts that dominated the era, particularly World War II.
Later, Immanuel Wallerstein, an American sociologist and economic historian, in his 1997 work titled The Cold War & The University, argued that post-World War II developments, like the establishment of area studies programs, were shaped by U.S. national security interests.7 During this time, universities were harnessed to produce knowledge supporting Cold War objectives, shaping academic structures for U.S. dominance. As a result, Dewey’s visionary ideas were overshadowed by political realities, forgotten in the face of global power politics. American universities became hotbeds for intelligence activity, with Cuban and USSR operatives for example, identifying some of their most prominent spies within these institutions.8
Dewey’s global vision of education then became tangled with American exceptionalism as the nation emerged as a global hegemon. While Dewey envisioned an interconnected world of free individuals learning from one another, the Cold War pushed American universities towards a different path, turning them effectively into instruments of intellectual control.
The Hierarchy of Knowledge: Epistemological and Ontological Impacts
The imposition of Western knowledge models is not just an epistemological issue—concerned with “how we know” and “what we know”—but also an ontological one, shaping students’ sense of being. This shift alters how students view themselves and their place in the world as they acquire knowledge. For many, the college experience becomes a defining moment in solidifying their identity. Studies confirm for example that international, albeit Western schools in many countries reshape the ethos and self-conception of students.9
Today’s students enter a fragmented global society, charged with the expectation to change it, but without a well-formed sense of self that allows for such transformation. The educational system fosters a student body that is both radicalized and disoriented, struggling with a sense of belonging in a world that privileges only one dominant framework of existence. This creates a paradox where students are expected to reshape the world, but they do so without the personal grounding necessary to critically engage with and transform the very structures that shape their identities.
Ultimately, the diversity of thought and culture that universities claim to value is eroded as students become disconnected from both their own identities and those of others, leading to a decline in global, not just local, diversity. Society reflects this shift, evolving into an extension of the university, influenced by a Westernized, standardized mindset. This transformation stifles alternative ways of knowing and existing, creating an educational system and society that contradict the very diversity they profess to nurture.
The Crisis of Global Education: Institutions and Individuals
In many postcolonial countries like India and Nigeria, universities have adopted Westernized educational models to access global networks and funding. For example, India has seen a rise in Western-style private universities and aligned its system with global rankings, while countries like Kenya and Ghana have restructured their education systems to reflect Western ideals of academic rigor and competition.10;11
Bill Readings, in The University in Ruins, argues that the concept of “excellence” in Western universities has shifted from intellectual exploration to a focus on global competitiveness and rankings.12 This market-driven approach has turned universities into sites of commodification as previously discussed, prioritizing measurable outcomes over critical thinking. As a result, universities worldwide, in aligning with Western standards, are increasingly adopting neoliberal models, showcasing how the changes occurring within Western universities have far-reaching influence that extends beyond their original intent for localized improvement of university structure.
The brain drain phenomenon, a notable consequence of the global academic hegemony, sees students from smaller countries leaving for Western universities in search of better opportunities, depleting intellectual capital and reinforcing dependence on Western knowledge. The Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, a Hungarian-American businessman and investor, with the intent of promoting democratic ideals in hybrid regimes, have inadvertently created institutions where students are actively preparing to leave for the West in pursuit of these opportunities.13 Furthermore, study-abroad programs shipping Westerners to other countries and vice versa, promoted as life changing cultural exchanges by the university have exacerbated inequality. These programs prioritize affluent students from the West and abroad who can afford the high costs, reinforcing elitism. As these students adopt Western ways of thinking, they become part of a global elite, perpetuating the Western worldview and further alienating those who remain excluded from such opportunities.
Reflections & Conclusions
Kantian cosmopolitanism, rooted in Enlightenment thought, influenced European colonial expansion.14 Today, Western universities in promoting global unity mask structural inequalities.
Martha Nussbaum, an American philosopher at the University of Chicago, is widely known for her critique of this approach, which she labels superficial and an elitist form of liberalism that emphasizes abstract universalism.15 True cosmopolitanism should be grounded in empathy, reciprocity, and justice. However, even this assumption carries echoes of colonial ideology, as it still assumes that one cultural framework should dominate the rest.
This calls for a reimagined cosmopolitanism—one that values and incorporates diverse knowledge systems, especially indigenous and local perspectives, into global academic discourse…
Yet, to escape the melting pot, one must cultivate a sense of self so strong it resists the currents of homogenization, so rooted in its origins that it stands firm while embracing the world. Only then can true plurality emerge, where all voices are not just heard, but woven into the fabric of a shared global understanding, one that honors difference rather than erases it.
Bibliography
Afenyadu, Dela, Kenneth King, Simon McGrath, Henry Oketch, Christian Rogerson, and Kobus Visser. Learning to Compete: Education, Training & Enterprise in Ghana, Kenya & South Africa. Education Research Paper No. 42. Department for International Development, 1999. ISBN 1 86192 314 7.
Aydın, B. C. “Toledo School of Translators and Its Importance in the History of Translation in the West.” Abant Journal of Translation and Interpreting Studies 2, no. 2 (2024): 38-44.
Compier, Abdul Haq. “How Europe Came to Forget Its Arabic Heritage.” Alhakam, January 18, 2019. https://www.alhakam.org/how-europe-came-to-forget-its-arabic-heritage/.
Dewey, John. “Between Two Worlds.” Address delivered at the Winter Institute of Arts and Sciences, University of Miami, March 20, 1944.
Elerian, Martyna. The Issue of Western Affiliations and Native Identity in International Schools. 2021.
Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Touchstone, 1997.
Kelley, Robin D. G. Cold War University: A Political History of American Higher Education during the Cold War. New York: The New Press, 2001.
Khanna, Tarun. “One Aspirational Future for India’s Higher-Education Sector.” Daedalus 153, no. 2 (2024): 149–66. https://doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_02071.
Kleingeld, Pauline. Title of the Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139015486.
Nussbaum, Martha C. The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019.
Open Society Foundations. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/.
Readings, Bill. “The Idea of Excellence.” In The University in Ruins, 21-43. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Tolan, John, et al. “On the Shoulders of Giants: Transmission and Exchange of Knowledge.” Europe and the Islamic World: A History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2012; online edn, Princeton Scholarship Online, 19 Oct. 2017.
https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691147055.003.0006. Accessed Dec. 9, 2024.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. “The Unintended Consequences of Cold War Area Studies.” In The Cold War & The University: Toward an Intellectual History of the Cold War Years, 195-232. New York: The New Press, 1997.
“WVS Cultural Map: 2023 Version Released.” World Values Survey, February 17, 2023. https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSNewsShow.jsp?ID=467.
In Refutation of:
Education is inherently political. To deny this is to disregard the moral culpability of the institution, embedded in its past, present, and future.
Note: The argument that education has become a perversion of politics and must be freed from its political influence is an increasingly dominant perspective. However, this notion has led to the paradoxical result of further shaping universities through political agendas aimed at protecting their integrity. A recent example is Ohio’s new law mandating several public universities in Ohio to create civic engagement centers.16 This law is presented as a response to concerns about political indoctrination, framed as an effort to maintain educational neutrality. Yet, this framing is misleading. In reality, such policies deepen the politicization of education by reinforcing state control and introducing political bias into academic institutions while falsely claiming to protect their independence. My refutation calls for a comprehensive restructuring of universities—one that eliminates the politicization of education while ensuring the continued vitality of political engagement.
Additionally, this refutation primarily addresses the historical and philosophical development of the Western university, particularly within the context of liberal education traditions. While its arguments may resonate with broader themes in global education, they cannot be universally applied to every university system worldwide, as cultural, political, and institutional contexts vary significantly.
Introduction
The claim that education is intrinsically political suggests that universities and colleges bear moral culpability in addressing political and social issues, rooted in their institutional legacies and ongoing roles in shaping democratic and civic discourse. However, this thesis risks mischaracterizing the primary purpose of education. While acknowledging that politics may influence education, particularly in the present day, this essay argues that education must strive to remain apolitical—disinterested, nonpartisan, and detached from the political concerns of the moment. The contention surrounding politics in education has been debated since the formation of the university; however, modern times have made this debate unbearable, blurring the lines so much that the modern institution increasingly bears politicized identities rather than producing politically informed citizens.
While universities cannot entirely escape their political and historical legacies, they must resist succumbing to them, preserving their role as spaces for knowledge, exploration, and intellectual
Defining Key Terms
To refute the claim that education is inherently political, we must first distinguish between politics and education.
Politics traditionally involves governance, decision-making, and power dynamics within a society. Modern universities, adopting corporatized models, often resemble political entities in their decision-making. However, the term “political” is sometimes misapplied to encompass social or personal issues, which are not inherently tied to governance. Framing social grievances as political crises, as in “the personal is political,” has only provided checkbox solutions that instrumentally use politics to satisfy the public temporarily. Woodrow Wilson’s view of education counters this, defining it as a process that fosters independent thought, intellectual growth, and the pursuit of truth, beyond political ideologies.20
The Crisis of Education: Reclaiming a Space for Free Thought in Historical Context
Education has always been influenced by political and social contexts, though the nature of this influence has shifted over time. Understanding this evolution is key to grasping the current crisis in higher education.
In the early history of higher education, particularly in Europe, universities emerged to foster intellectual inquiry and cultivate a scholarly elite, grounded in religious and philosophical traditions. These institutions were closely tied to political and religious authorities, with political ideologies shaping curricula and practices.
The rise of democratic ideals in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially after the Enlightenment, marked a shift in the role of education. Philosophers like John Locke and Immanuel Kant emphasized individual reason and autonomy, advocating for educational systems that promoted critical thinking and intellectual freedom. This led to the modern conception of education as a space for intellectual exploration and the development of independent thought, with the university seen as a site for cultivating citizens who could engage thoughtfully with the world, albeit the work and intentions of Kant and Locke remain questionable for the non-Western world.
By the 20th century, political forces began to exert more control over universities. Arendt, in The Crisis in Education, expressed concern about the politicization of education, particularly in the context of rising totalitarian regimes. These regimes used education for political propaganda, undermining independent thought. Arendt believed that the university’s role was to provide space for students to engage freely with ideas, uncooped by political agendas.21
Similarly, Wilson, writing in the early 20th century, saw the university as a place for cultivating character, intellect, and moral development, but he also warned against political ideologies dictating education. His vision of the university as an apolitical space was a response to increasing politicization in American society, especially following the Civil War and the rise of progressivism.22
Ralph Waldo Emerson, critiquing the utilitarian vision of education in 19th-century America, argued that education should foster intellectual independence rather than serve the state’s or economy’s needs. Emerson’s call for intellectual freedom was a reaction to the pressures of industrialization and the growing alignment of education with political and economic interests.23
Today, universities are under pressure to take sides on political issues, whether in the classroom, research priorities, or institutional policies. In this context, the insights of Arendt, Wilson, and Emerson are more urgent than ever. The crisis in education is part of a long-standing struggle to define the proper role of education in a democratic society.
The Detrimental Effects of Political Influence on Education
The politicization of education disrupts academic institutions by polarizing students and undermining education’s true purpose. Arendt cautioned that when politics dominates the classroom, it fosters ideological conformity, stifling free engagement with diverse ideas. This polarization discourages debate, as students fear ostracism or labels. The rise of “cancel culture” and ideological segregation further isolates students, eroding the collaborative nature of education.
Through this process, the pursuit of truth which every university champions is undermined. Arendt, Wilson, and Emerson each warned against reducing truth to political rhetoric. For Arendt, truth is objective and independent, resisting political compromise. She argues that education should nurture students’ engagement with universal truths, not manipulable ideologies. Wilson emphasized higher education’s role in cultivating reasoned inquiry and moral development, shielding truth from ideological distortion. Similarly, Emerson championed self-reliance and intellectual independence, viewing truth as something discovered through reflection and critical thinking, that is then shared with a community, not imposed by authority. This raises a key question: How can universities preserve their role as spaces for the independent pursuit of truth when political forces increasingly shape educational discourse?
Separation of Education from Political Agendas
The distinction between exploring politics and the politicization of education is essential. Politics, derived from the Greek polis, involves collective participation in governance and public discourse as mentioned previously, making it a valuable subject of academic study that can prepare students for professional engagement. However, politicization transforms education into a tool for advancing specific agendas, stifling open debate and critical inquiry.
For instance, universities can and must present issues like climate change or immigration from multiple perspectives—scientific, economic, and ethical—without endorsing political ideology.
The challenge facing universities today lies not in their failure to present issues through factual analysis but in their position within a fragmented society that struggles to agree on the very nature of truth. The focus, therefore, should not solely be on preventing the indoctrination of students but on addressing the deeper societal rifts that undermine collective understanding and the pursuit of truth. If anything and everything can be contested, the realm of politics, as envisioned by Arendt—a space for dialogue among equals—loses its essence, transforming into a mechanism of self-manipulation rather than a purposeful means of shaping policies that impact many, including the sphere of education. In this sense, modern society has made politics nothing more than a self-serving means to an end, ultimately circling back to where it began.
The Western university often finds itself positioned in contrast to authoritarian regimes like North Korea or Russia, emphasizing that “we are not there yet,” or at least we enjoy more freedoms than “they” do—“they” being the other, shaped by decades of political interference in education to begin with. This distinction in freedom is crucial in the educational context, as academic freedom remains one of the few truly significant and distinctive elements of the Western educational system.
It’s important to recognize that the perception of freedom can differ greatly from its actual experience. Freedom is a natural extension of our everyday lives, a product of the social fabric we inhabit. For the average citizen in Russia or North Korea, preoccupied with daily survival, the absence of broader freedoms may not even be perceived as a deficiency, as their concept of freedom is shaped by their immediate reality. Our sense of normality then shapes how we perceive everything around us—how we feel, touch, and understand the world. However, they don’t provide insight into the cultivation of a broader social fabric or a wider perspective that allows us to define truth, individual or shared.
This is where education plays its crucial role—or at least strives to—but is often hindered by the very frameworks that shape our humanity —systems that prioritize maintaining the status quo over fostering the critical thinking necessary to see and experience freedom in its fullest form. Overcoming this tension between the constraints of our social constructs and the transformative potential of education to broaden our perspectives and challenge our assumptions has been relegated to politics—a task that politics cannot accomplish as politics is a realm that exists beyond the critical cultivation of individuals. Only fully formed students can enter the world and contest it, as those who lack the depth of education and self-awareness are bound by the limitations of their own narrow perspectives.
Conclusion
A call for the restructuring of the university emerges from this refutation.
Political interference within educational institutions is a two-fold process: it is perpetuated both by external political actors and, ironically, by the universities themselves. On one hand, political actors exert influence through policies, funding, and pressures to align educational content with political agendas. On the other hand, universities, often in an attempt to navigate these external
pressures or secure resources, can inadvertently compromise their own principles, allowing political ideologies to infiltrate academic spaces.
Arguing that education is inherently political only further perpetuates this toxic dynamic, failing to acknowledge that current higher education institutions, deeply woven into the fabric of society, must position themselves as the strongest opponents of this influence. They must define their own purpose, direction, and integrity, independent of the political pressures of the present, while recognizing that the political landscape of tomorrow will inevitably differ.
Bibliography
Arendt, Hannah. “The Crisis in Education.” In Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought, 170–93. New York: Penguin Books, 1954. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23403-7_13.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The American Scholar [1837].” In The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 43–63. New York: The Modern Library, 2000.
Higgs, Rick. “More Ohio Universities Added to Senate Bill That Would Create Intellectual Diversity Centers.” Ohio Capital Journal, June 29, 2023.
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/06/29/more-ohio-universities-added-to-senate-bill-th at-would-create-intellectual-diversity-centers/.
Wilson, Woodrow. “What Is a College For?” In College and the Future: Essays for the Undergraduate on Problems of Character and Intellect, edited by Richard Rice, 88–106. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915.
Footnotes
1 John Tolan et al., “On the Shoulders of Giants: Transmission and Exchange of Knowledge,” Europe and the Islamic World: A History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012; online edn, Princeton Scholarship Online, 19 Oct. 2017), https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691147055.003.0006, accessed Dec. 9, 2024.
2 B. C. Aydın, “Toledo School of Translators and Its Importance in the History of Translation in the West,” Abant Journal of Translation and Interpreting Studies 2, no. 2 (2024): 38-44.
3 Abdul Haq Compier, “How Europe Came to Forget Its Arabic Heritage,” Alhakam, January 18, 2019, https://www.alhakam.org/how-europe-came-to-forget-its-arabic-heritage/.
4 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1997).
5 “WVS Cultural Map: 2023 Version Released,” World Values Survey, February 17, 2023, https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSNewsShow.jsp?ID=467.
6 John Dewey, “Between Two Worlds,” address delivered at the Winter Institute of Arts and Sciences, University of Miami, March 20, 1944.
7Immanuel Wallerstein, “The Unintended Consequences of Cold War Area Studies,” in The Cold War & The University: Toward an Intellectual History of the Cold War Years (New York: The New Press, 1997), 195-232.
8 Robin D. G. Kelley, Cold War University: A Political History of American Higher Education during the Cold War (New York: The New Press, 2001)
9 Martyna Elerian, The Issue of Western Af iliations and Native Identity in International Schools (2021).
10 Tarun Khanna, “One Aspirational Future for India’s Higher-Education Sector,” Daedalus 153, no. 2 (2024): 149–66, https://doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_02071.
11 Dela Afenyadu, Kenneth King, Simon McGrath, Henry Oketch, Christian Rogerson, and Kobus Visser, Learning to Compete: Education, Training & Enterprise in Ghana, Kenya & South Africa, Education Research Paper No. 42 (Department for International Development, 1999), 122, ISBN 1 86192 314 7.
12 Bill Readings, “The Idea of Excellence,” in The University in Ruins (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 21-43.
13 Open Society Foundations, https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/
14 Pauline Kleingeld, Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139015486.
15 Martha C. Nussbaum, The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019).
16 Higgs, Rick. “More Ohio Universities Added to Senate Bill That Would Create Intellectual Diversity Centers.” Ohio Capital Journal, June 29, 2023.
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/06/29/more-ohio-universities-added-to-senate-bill-that-would-create-intellectual -diversity-centers/.
17 Hannah Arendt, “The Crisis in Education,” in Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought, 170–93 (New York: Penguin Books, 1954), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23403-7_13.18 Woodrow Wilson, “What Is a College For?” in College and the Future: Essays for the Undergraduate on Problems of Character and Intellect, ed. Richard Rice, 88–106 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915). 19 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar [1837],” in The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 43–63 (New York: The Modern Library, 2000).
20 Wilson, “What Is a College For?” in College and the Future, 88–106.
21 Arendt, The Crisis in Education, 170–93.
22 Wilson, “What Is a College For?” in College and the Future, 88–106.
23 Emerson, The American Scholar, 43–63.