This is a must read about the state of liberal education in America.
"Apart from any pre-professional training they may obtain, successful
applicants gain about the same advantages as those sought by young
Englishmen from their somewhat less formal eighteenth-century education."
"They sharpen useful skills in writing and speaking, they pick up enough
of subjects thought interesting in their circle and the style of
discussing them to permit agreeable and acceptable conversation. They
learn the style and manner, political opinions and prejudices to make
them comfortable in a similarly educated society. They have excellent
opportunities to make friends who may be advantageous to them in later
life."
"This education, of course, is purely secular."
"There is, moreover,
no attempt to shape good character, for the better universities lead the
country in the direction of a kind of relativism, even nihilism. The
message that seems to get through is: “Do your own thing, and demand
that everyone else in the world behave according to the strictest
possible moral code (as it is currently understood in the halls of the
most favored colleges).”
