Michael Oakeshott on higher education

From the philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901–1990):

A university will have ceased to exist when its learning has degenerated into what is now called research, when its teaching has become mere instruction and occupies the whole of an undergraduate’s time, and when those who came to be taught come, not in search of their intellectual fortune but with a vitality so unroused or so exhausted that they wish only to be provided with a serviceable moral and intellectual outfit; when they come with no understanding of the manners of conversation but desire only a qualification for earning a living or a certificate to let them in on the exploitation of the world.

“The Idea of a University” (1950), in The Voice of Liberal Learning (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).

Rick Perlstein on higher education

Rick Perlstein on the life and death of educational opportunity:

The history of American higher education over the twentieth century is an extraordinary one, the story of the creation of a powerhouse set of institutions that are the envy of the civilized world. . . .

Now all we seem to care about is reproducing the managerial class.

On the Death of Democratic Higher Education (The Nation)

Everything in this essay hits home.

Thanks to Matt Thomas at Submitted for Your Perusal, who pointed me to this piece.

King and Paar

“Now my mother was a terrible cook . . . probably the worst cook in the world. If I see anywhere a sign, ‘Pies — The Kind Mother Used To Make,’ I get chills all over me.”

At One Foot in Oz, Margie King Barab tells the story of Alexander King’s first appearance on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar. There’s also a Billy Crystal connection. This is history, folks.

A related post from One Foot in Oz
Who Is Alexander King?

[I feel both happy and unhappy about not hitting upon what might seem like the inevitable title for this post: Jack and King.]

Whither tuition?

“You think all those comedy hypnotists are stopping by out of the kindness of their hearts?” A report on what tuition really pays for.

[They left out the foam parties.]

Use less words

From the New York Times public editor’s journal, on how to refer to Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning:



Yipes. Perhaps only the copyeditors themselves, not those who supervise them, are expected to know that one uses fewer words, not less.

[The Times Manual of Style and Usage recommends copy editor; Garner’s Modern American Usage recommends copyeditor.]

Lexikaliker at 1,000

At Lexikaliker, Gunther has just posted his thousandth post, with a photograph of an 1888 inscription from a house in Bad Doberan, Germany:

Der Eine betracht’s
Der Andre verlacht’s
Der Dritte veracht’s
Was macht’s

Google Translate turns that into gibberish. A plausible idiomatic translation might read:

One contemplates it
Another laughs at it
The third despises it
Who cares

Reading these words, I thought I was facing some impossible riddle. But no. It is the building itself:


[The American Architect and Building News 28 (1890).]

Thank you, Gunther, for this post and so many other thought-provoking posts and beautiful photographs. Hurra!

[“Hurra”: German for “Hurrah.”]

Word of the day: presbyopia

I went in for my biennial eye exam this week and learned that I have presbyopia. No, I am not seeing the world through Presbyterian eyes — though in a way I am.

The Oxford English Dictionary makes presbyopia sound dire:

Deterioration of near vision occurring with advancing age, owing to increasing rigidity of the lens of the eye with reduction in the power of accommodation.

The New Oxford American Dictionary sounds not nearly as bad:

farsightedness caused by loss of elasticity of the lens of the eye, occurring typically in middle and old age.

My optometrist’s explanation was closer to the NOAD. Presbyopia is a matter of becoming more farsighted with age. It’s a fact of life, and it’s why the gods gave us progressive lenses.

But why presby-? My optometrist said it had to do with age. Sure enough: presbyopia joins the Greek πρέσβυς [presbus, “old man”] and the “post-classical Latin -opia or its etymon ancient Greek -ωπία.” The ending -opia (“forming terms denoting visual disorders and abnormalities,” such as ambylopia and myopia) joins -op, “eye” and the suffix -ia. That suffix, used in both Greek and Latin, turns up everywhere — Australia, dahlia, mania. And, says the OED, “in French -ia became -ie, whence Middle English -ie, English -y.” Nouns ending in -ency, -ography, and -ology owe their -y to the ancient -ia.

And why Presbyterian? The OED explains:

In Presbyterian Churches no higher order than that of presbyter or elder is recognized, the “bishop” and “elder” . . . of the New Testament being held to be identical. All elders are ecclesiastically of equal rank; but, in their function in the church, while some are “ruling and teaching elders” or “ministers,” others are only “ruling elders” (popularly called “lay elders,” but erroneously, since all elders are ordained or “in orders”).

I’m glad I went in for my eye exam and got these things cleared up.

[All quotations and examples are from the OED.]

Cedar Walton (1934–2013)

“Mr. Walton sat in with Charlie Parker, spent a year accompanying the singer Abbey Lincoln, and recorded with both John Coltrane and, much later, the saxophonist Joshua Redman. . . . Yet he probably remained best known for his early work with one of the most influential incarnations of the Jazz Messengers, the group that the drummer Art Blakey ran as a kind of postgraduate performance academy for rising jazz stars”: Cedar Walton, Pianist and Composer, Dies at 79 (The New York Times).

Two great musical losses in the news today. As the bluesman Skip James is reported to have said when surveying the musical scene, “The old heads are dying off.”

Marian McPartland (1918–2013)

“As the host of Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, an NPR program pairing conversation and duet performances, she reached an audience of millions, connecting with jazz fans and the curious alike”: Marian McPartland, Piano Jazz Host, Has Died (National Public Radio).

Of all the duets Marian McPartland played, my favorites are the ones on a 1973 Halcyon LP with Joe Venuti, The Maestro and Friend, now out of print. I’ll put it on the turntable later today.

The Beloit Mindset List, 2017 edition

The Beloit Mindset List is back, with a 2017 edition purporting to map the cultural landscape of eighteen-year-olds entering college this fall. I see three problems with the idea of the Beloit List:

§ The “cultural touchstones” the list claims to collect — in the interest of reminding faculty “to be aware of dated references” — are often mere bits of grit. From this year’s list:

25. Planes have never landed at Stapleton Airport in Denver.

43. Don Shula has always been a fine steak house.

Better scotch those Stapleton Airport analogies, Professor Higginbotham! The kids today won’t “dig” them.

And yes, as the list points out — rather crassly, I think — “Dean Martin, Mickey Mantle, and Jerry Garcia have always been dead.” Which means — what, exactly?

§ The list includes items that would be difficult or sometimes impossible to establish as having a basis in fact. For instance:

5. “Dude” has never had a negative tone. [Really? Dude!]

9. Gaga has never been baby talk. [Lady Gaga’s first CD appeared in 2008.]

§ The list fosters the belief that if it hasn’t happened in your lifetime, it isn’t real and you can’t be expected to know about it. It patronizes young adults while purporting to explain them to their elders. I will quote what I wrote in 2010:

What bothers me about the Beloit list involves some unspoken assumptions about reality and young adults. The list reads like a nightmare-version of the proposition that begins Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921): “Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.” “The world is all that is the case” — all that is the case, that is, in the life-experience of a hypothetical eighteen-year-old American student.

Thinking that your reality begins with your year of birth: that’s the most terrible mindset of all.

Previous Beloit List posts
2010 : 2011 : 2012

[“Orange Crate Art: Expressing skepticism about the Beloit Mindset List since 2010.”]