we have proposed, as i said in my statement, work collectively. thank you very much. >> thank you. i think the representative for the russian federation for his statement. there are no more names inscribed on the list. the meeting is adjourned >> c-span's washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up, the executive director of americans united for separation of church and state will talk about the supreme court's handling of issues between church and state. tom bevan will discuss the political consequences of the republican efforts to repeal the obamacare.

bruce klinger discussing north korea's missile test and nuclear threat. be sure to watch washington journal live at 7:00 eastern this morning. join the discussion. >> now i look at freedom of speech on college campuses with a group of professors and offers. this from a two day conference called "finding meaning in america." >> good afternoon and welcome back to our conference on a worthy life: finding meaning in america. we have a very distinguished group of panelists to adjust the

question. i want to begin with a personal testimony of my own and an expression of gratitude. we will be discussing pathologies, undeniable pathologies, that exist in american higher education these days. compromising of academic freedom violations of core principles of freedom of speech, the lack of viewpoint diversity, the phenomenon of trying to win debates by labeling other people as bigots or haters or what have you. those pathologies are undeniable. they exist. they are very widespread. many people in the academy across the political spectrum not only recognize them, but recognize they present an urgent

.roblem and truly a threat recently a public letter called the threat "the threat from within the university, code saying that no threat coming from outside the university's is the equal of the threat inside the universities stemming from a certain kind of ill liberalism -- illiberalism. a tendency to groupthink and an unwillingness to permit discussions of key issues to go forward. some of you read the op-ed piece in the wall street journal by the self-described left-wing president of wesleyan university notonnecticut, calling for something i favor but interesting that he would make the proposal, affirmative action for conservatives in american

higher education. his reason is the need to have the points across the spectrum represented for learning to take place. i said i wanted to begin with it -- with an expression of gratitude. that is a gratitude to my home university, princeton university which is sponsoring our conference. the james madison program is a program of princeton university. this program has flourished for 17 years. i am grateful to my colleagues in two successive presidents at princeton university who have not only permitted our program to live, but indeed to flourish. i am now completing my 31st very happy year at princeton university. [applause] >> thank you.

perhaps not all of my colleagues which year -- would cheer. i entered this university fresh out of graduate school in the fall of 1985. i was out of the closet as a questioner, a denier of the local gods. a questioner of the established campus orthodoxies from the very beginning. me aeton did not deny position at the university because of that. in fact, i was hired. i was granted tenure could i was promoted and installed and permitted to establish the james madison program in american ideals whatever is to be said about the pathologies conflicting amick in higher education, whatever we will say. without claiming that my , i dosity is perfection

feel a profound sense of gratitude, especially in view of what i know, people i know who are far superior to me in their scholarship and ability and achievements have suffered at other institutions around the world -- around the country. i think we will be hearing about that. to discuss these vital issues, we have assembled an outstanding panel. i will introduce them all right now. a really incredible -- or really -- where he also directs the tocqueville program associated with the workshop and political theory and policy analysis. allen guelzo one of our nation's most distinguished historians is

director of civil war era studies at gettysburg college in pennsylvania. his work on lincoln and the civil war is unsurpassed and has been in knowledge for its excellence with prize at the prize. lincoln prize after lincoln prize after lincoln prize where delighted to have him back. he is been a visiting professor in the madison program here at princeton. graduate, also a phd of our university is a tutor at st. john's college that teaches across the liberal arts. defense ofin intellectual activity, the pursuit of truth, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake as against the defense the intellectual life on purely instrumental grounds for economic work -- economic or

political reasons. she was in 2010, a visiting fellow at the james madison program. finally, the distinguished scholar in whose honor we have convened this conference, leon kass, who is the scholar at the american enterprise institute and professor emeritus on the committee on social thought at the university of chicago. leon will clean up and i will first recognize the first professor. >> thanks to robbie and bread for inviting me to join the other panelists and since it is late and we have gone through several panel sites, i thought i would entertain you with a nice story. it has a theoretical part and a juicier part, the second part.

[laughter] teach ong semester, a , freedomhich is a book of thought and freedom of speech against the tyranny of public apparent -- public opinion. this is one of the books that should be on the mandatory reading list for those who care about education. [indiscernible] our students today can master the art. in this wonderful book, it reminds us that we should listen to those who disagree with us and gives us the leaders a few compelling reasons for doing so. first, he tells us that our opponents are invaluable as they can sharpen our arguments and can point out possible flaws in our own arguments, claims or

beliefs. second, he reminds us of the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of any opinion by doing so -- opinion. -- andg so, we deny correct them if necessary. this is what he writes, "if the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of .xchanging error for truth if wrong, they lose the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth provided, produced by the collegian with error. we can never be really sure that the opinion that we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion. even if we were sure that, stifling it would be an evil still." all silencing of dissenting or

disturbing threatening views is in fact an arrogant assumption of infallibility on our part. a failure to take any precautions against our own fallible views, a failure. liberty is widely taught in our universities today and here at princeton. many of our colleagues seem to like the idea of the book in theory. [laughter] what about applying them into practice. do they still guide themselves? do they live up to his recommendations? i don't want to imply anything. i don't pretend that this rhetorical question -- i don't pretend that these are rhetorical questions. i like to answer them by telling you a small story, hopefully irrelevant one. it is about a recent lecture given by charles murray from the

american enterprise institute on april 11 in bloomington. the famous lecture he tried to give at middlebury college where the person who invited murray was bitten and suffered a concussion. it has been widely discussed in the media. the bloomington lecture is less known but it can teach us something important about indication today. in particular, about free speech and pluralism and this agreement. speech seriously is not such an easy task. quite the contrary. murray was invited so here are a few details. he was invited to speak in bloomington about the 2015 elections as the author of

"coming apart." the invitation was extended by small group of students -- two students to be precise. an informal group, not registered to the university on the bloomington campus. the main sponsor was the american enterprise institute chose tomall -- cosponsor it. so is thisfor doing past semester like everyone else in the country, we had struggled to come with terms and to understand the results of the 2016 elections. to this effect in collaboration with the provost office and the center on representative government led by the former representative lee hamilton, we have organized a series of lectures that such a shed light on the increasing ideological

polarization and the intransigence in our society. we began in february with bill kristol who spoke about american politics in the age of trump, and yes, he did mention that name. tablewe organized a round on civility and moderation with a group of philosophers and political theorists. we felt that the discussion of charles marries ideas from coming apart would be a good feet. his 2012 analysis highlighted several trends that subsequently led to the victory of donald trump in november of 2016. on ay caught early zeitgeist, a spirit of the age that others have missed and has since been exploited relentlessly by our media. this year, he has been invited to speak on major campuses from middle barry -- from middlebury

to villanova. we were happy to work with the students to join our efforts and bring him to bloomington for free. we have no doubt that the controversial nature of his previous work, the bell curve, described by his critics as racists and misogynists which are strong protest. that book made a few controversial claims linking success to cognitive intelligence or a link between race and genetics. some judge this claim to be possible and is still controversial peter others accuse it of racism. few if any of the critics treated it as hate speech. was worthy of being discarded but certainly worthy of being discussed and discarded

. it was seen as a claim based on data, perhaps true, perhaps false. yet, we invited murray to speak, not about the bulk curve but about the coming apart -- the bell curve, but about the coming apart and we were aware that major scholars on the left, such as cornell west, i was attentive to say brother cornell but that is not appropriate. the book that interests us at harvard university, this was one of only five books for their course on american democracy. i checked, there were only five, along with tocqueville. cornell west "democracy matters." west, -- unger and

digest charlesn murray's coming apart. they can do it. furthermore, only a couple of weeks before murray's talk at indiana, in the same room that he spoke in the furnished presidents all, washington post [indiscernible] toed our students to listen those whose views they do not share generally. he called on his friends on the .eft to try and develop empathy there's too much elitism he suggested that divides the country into bubbles, thick or thin, and prevents understanding dialogue and debate. it is time to end this elitism and treat the middle america -- between new york and a leg.

-- new york and l.a. the announcements of murray's lectures were met with strong criticism by faculty members and students. a good number of them were in humanities and in the english department. the critics implied that merely listening to a controversial speaker like murray would amount to endorsing his views. that is according to them racist views and misogynists views that can have no place on any discussion on campus. an open letter so that more people can sign it was drafted at the initiatives of two students from my own department that challenged, exercise their right to free speech and challenge the university's decision to offer that platform to a racist writer and promoter of white nationalism. ,he signatories of the letter

perhaps 200 by now, believed that providing a platform to charles murray was unwise. who are there words -- here are there words. i quote, "we are strong believers in academic freedom and speech. we do not advocate for blanket censorship of controversial views state institutions, nor by private actors and for that reason, we respect the right of charles murray's sponsors to extend to him an invitation to speak at indiana university. at the same time, public universities all so have a response ability act judicially particularly in the present climate of racial tension. providing a climate that providing a platform to charles murray is highly irresponsible to our community. in a perfect logic after declaring its commitment to free speech, the open letter asked for the university to this

invite giles murray. murray.invite charles i do answer at the request of the chairman. a complaint was launched with the faculty council. that it was inappropriate since he did not allow for debate or question and answers. he did have a question-and-answer eo -- question-and-answer period. , somethingarlatan like an coulter. the indication was that his place was not in an academic setting, respectable one like bloomington. in spite of the fact that murray had earned his degree from m.i.t. and has authored more than 10 books -- more precise, 12.

even murray's latest work, coming apart, they claim builds on the same evidence used in the bell curve. other spoke about the damaging decisions to invite to campus hate speech or even inside it -- or even incited hate crimes. -- hiss despicable despicable ideas do not deserve to be debated because they are racist, sexist, demeaning to women and threatening. if you think that i am exaggerating, let's listen to what they actually said. i am going to quote twice. murray's views are not just one side of interesting debate, they are vile and wrong. they are also being endorsed and disseminated in some form from the highest office in the country right now and for many numbers of the congress. it is an intimidating environment for many of us and this speaker brings that

chilling effect home. a student said this, "i am for free speech, but i am against giving people platforms to speak whose work is not up to academic expectation of indiana university, classified as hate speech." in the end the lecture was not canceled. the provost back to us and we went on with the massive police protection offered by the police department. they worked very hard to make sure the violence that had previously occurred at middle barry would not be repeated -- middlebury but not be repeated. the venue was selected in the number of free tickets distributed was limited to 150 which did not prevent the protesters to acquire 80 tickets and burn them. the protesters mobilized and they had the right to do so just bread their disagreement.

they encourage students to get their tickets and burn them afterwards so that the room would be close to empty. after do isld we really need to to make it relevant again. another claimed she was not listening to someon .omeone who would normalize the noise was audible inside the room, distracting the speaker. while the protesters were

exercising their right to free , we discussed why some of white america voted for trump, bringing up issues that should have been of interest to critics on the left. take a quiz to see how thick or thin your bubble is, and i did take it, and my number is very low, 12, some a number is very sick. exclusivelked about zip codes and how they contribute to the fragmentation of america. minutefollowed by a 30 discussion moderate up by an undergraduate. each was invited to ask a question.

there was no censorship, just an uninhibited conversation. everyone agreed and i must in i am not necessarily agreement, but the answers were civil and constructive. it was demonstrated by an article in the new york times. surprised bybeen universal, basic income. when it wasccurred xit ther murray to egg building. escort murrayy to out of the lecture building. sitting protesters had to be moved off the ground, but no one was arrested and there was no significant violence.

the only unpleasant thing was that my office door was fanned allies by -- was vandalized by a group called, and i'm not kidding, students against violence. painted a slogan on the door that said no racism and glued the lock was super glue. linealso posted a post on that claimed the event, which was nice so we could all know who they were, but it was anonymous. i received a threat on my office , after which the police disconnected it and i was assigned a new phone. some of my colleagues criticized me for cosponsoring murray's

lecture. i did nothing heroic. common sense. communis i was accused of complicity with i wasews because instrumental in organizing a that discussed the fragmentation of our society and propose some remedies for our programs. we brought people from the left to bloomington. ,e brought other people jonathan israel, bill kristol, and others.

murray's lecture tested our commitment to free speech and show many of us believe in free speech, but as only as long as we agree with their positions. they are ready to censor views with which they disagree, find deplorable, dangerous, and that threaten their safe bubbles. they are ready to discuss civility and engage in witchhunt against those whose views they find disagreeable. one of my colleagues proposed id denied a pay raise for 10 years for having invited murray. if some of my colleagues failed the free speech test, i was pleased to discover that it was passed with flying colors. a sophomore studying law and createpolicy, i can't effective policy if i refuse to read and listen to opinions of people i disagree with. my student remarked it was an contrast, dr.

murray's nuanced analysis versus the protesters uninformed and perhaps intellectual chance outside. communitys of the pass the free speech test when they were asked whether it was right to invite murray and all to do yes, it was right so. it did more than test our commitment to freeze each. it taught us that while disagreement is normal and inevitable, it must be realpanied by reliance on facts, balanced moderation, and real civility and we should never think of ourselves as infallible moral authorities, that we are never allowed to pigeonhole people, call names, avoid seeing the world in black and white and we should never

make pronouncements before we examiningcts right them critically and listening to different interpretations. that's white the steady habit of correcting and completing our own opinions by collecting them with all others should be a habit we cultivate in our .iberal arts education we should listen to everything that could be brought against our position. if the opponents of truth did not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most capable advocate can. new saintzation of a has a procedure, and i think that we should apply that in our universities as well.

what would mill say if he were ?live today i'm pretty sure he would encourage our administrators to make chamfered to of on liberty mandatory reading for incoming students and faculty. he would also have been skeptical of polls for trigger warnings and safe spaces. spaces cannot exist and we should not try to create them artificially on our campuses. when we suppress speech, we become less able to defend freedom. our democracy should not allow us to pick and choose which viewpoints and ideas we are allowed to hear. we should not merely tolerate views with which we disagree. depends on vibrant engagement with viewpoints which we think for better force or wrong, flawed, or in dangerous.

we should honor it if we are to serve liberal education. thank you very much. [applause] >> i also want to offer my thanks to the madison staff. for organizing this conference, and i'm honored to be part of this panel and happy to be celebrating someone who models in so many ways what it means to be a teacher of the liberal arts. since i returned to teach at st. john's college of couple of , it is also where i was an undergraduate, i was

sometimes overwhelmed by essence of my own and adequacy to follow in the work of my teachers, and this might seem like awkward over sharing, but it is interesting for a couple of reasons. thehe one hand, i think sense of inadequacy is the outgrowth of my in norma's --titude for my education enormous gratitude for my education and all the teachers who made it possible. i can formulate this gratitude in the following way. at st. john's as a 17-year-old and i was met where i was with all of my moral, intellectual, and personal effects and offered on a kind of responsibilityme for a series and free inquiry. that is the source of my

gratitude. collegess like many operates in a kind of tradition of democratic liberal arts , and onehe great books of the benefits is about 100 , that one of the benefits of her tradition is that in individual does not need to rely on his or her own talents to reinvent the wheel in each classroom or speaking at each conference, but can rely on the habits and structures that are passed on from those who have taught and learned before us. in these brief remarks, i want therticulate as best i can type of learning that i think is currently threaten with something like extinction. to be clear, there is a general

way which liberal education is being shot into the corners, .ushed into the margins i think the shrinking movement, this contraction of it, two aspects of it, that they be extended to anyone of everyone, and the depths the liberal arts education, going to the deepest heart of what it means to be a human being. first, some account of the of the liberal arts education. the education i received and try to pass onto my students assumes that a student is an adult capable of taking responsibility learning, and own so on one hand assumes responsibility.

on the other hand that the motivated naturally or driven from within to pursue fundamental questions in a serious way. contrast with viewing as student as a potential subject of correct opinions or a consumer whose experience must because in a managed, either images of the student implicit in some of our educational , no by contrast we assume this responsibility and .is motivation this motivation and responsibility that are assumed areffered on trust, they not necessarily rooted in intellectual aptitude. they are not rooted in being a achievement oriented or being a future leader here it they are not rooted in being male or white or conservative or christian or american. it is a human responsibility and a human motivation.

it is on the grounds of our gatherhumanity that we in our little classrooms to discuss philosophy, literature, history, or math and science in fundamental ways. grounds of our common humanity that we are able to have real conversations regardless of our at accor national backgrounds, sex or gender identity, political outlook, religious background or lack of one. an education in the common a shared andis collaborative pursuit of fundamental questions is needs,ng a human being desires, and flourishes under. a liberal education prepares many people for lucrative and procedures careers. it prepares more people for thoughtful and imaginative modes of reflection and ways of doing

even in the midst of disappointment and abject failure. build the bridges in an artificial way between disparate groups. it reveals common ground. like all serious work with others, especially others different from us, it breaks through our imagined superiority to others. so that is my account of the breadth of the liberal arts education as is currently threaten. to see something about the atths, it will help to look some of the things threatening liberal education. liberal education is threatened among 10 million things you could say, but i will focus on a couple, liberal education is threatened by a shortsighted concern with the immediate economic a off. -- payoff. this relies on two false assumptions, one that contributing to the economy is the point of life, not a point,

but the point, and secondly that wrought are forms of human accidents of mind and imagination have no economic value. that is the second false assumption. liberal education is also threatened by the politicizing of everything, the desperate to feel that somehow our intellectual work ought to produce social and political results. that otherwise it is useless, pointless, or self-indulgent. most of these threats, that is economic and political totalizing, results in seeing the value of human beings exclusively as a matter of social and economic worth. the one hand that we diminish or ignored the dignity of the human being, the sense that a human being has value beyond any social or economic or political purpose. other hand, and this

point is in honor of leon, without the liberal arts, we are abandoned to the realm of fantasy where human beings operate without limitations. that is to say i think we overvalue social and political good and part because we imagine we are capable of a total transformation of medical and social life. the fantasy,e have that their economics, politics, and social science that we can overcome the inherent shortcomings of human life or a human life with others. i have indicated, i don't believe that the liberal arts are justified by their contribution to citizenship, political life. they are justified in what they do for human beings as such. nonetheless, i believe that the loss of the liberal arts as i have described them in their will hasteneadth the eroding of our political

community, and part because healthy politics allows that there are things beyond politics , but it is also because without common ground, without common culture, common activities in which we acknowledge other members of the community and work with them, our fellow citizens, neighbors, and so on, without all of these things, we are eaten alive by our differences. i don't think anyone can doubt that some such movement of eating eaten alive i are differences is already underway and is manifest in our common life. right, itof this is is a matter of enormous urgency to fight, preserve, and promote the liberal arts in their depth and breadth. it is an urgency e.on other political and social urgencies, but if my remarks are on the right track, it is also remarks

in summary on how we might fight for the liberal arts, not fighting for them as whites, conservatives, christians, but fighting from common ground, the common ground revealed by these types of studies. so we must reach out to people that are different from most politically and religiously who value this mode of education, and there are many such people, i think we all know. we should fight i think for our mixed institutions, our religiously, politically, ethnically, nationally mixed institutions especially because it is in these institutions that the human character of this kind of education is revealed in a its general that is character, its human character, and it is only in such institutions where anyone might turn up and be met where they were at the bonds of common

culture might be forced that our political community said desperately need. those are my remarks. thank you. [applause] concrete mason in the neighborhood who was well known for his love of children. on one occasion, he was out doing some repairs to his front sidewalk, poured new concrete, did a very fine job of it, and tell some children came along , greatly playing in it

upset him. he lost it completely, yelling at him, you kids get off my concrete. people were puzzled by this. they said, we thought you loved children so much. he said, i do, but in the abstract. [laughter] >> not the concrete. [laughter] i want to talk for a few minutes about the concrete, ouruse these are not as first at two speakers have manifestly indicated, happy times and liberal arts education , but let me draw your attention whichew aspects of that belong more on the concrete than the abstract. one is management of finances. figures on american colleges and universities

previous financial year went down 2%. 13%.while the market rose out of the 40 biggest endowments of american colleges and , 35 of them declined last year. , andin 10 private colleges three in 10 public colleges or theirsities, missed enrollment or tuition goals last year. --i's investor services moody's investor services expects that the closure rate of small colleges will triple by the end of this year. are entirelys press and the abysmal generated by student and faculty

behavior such as we have heard here today. americans, thef face of american higher education has become that of universityick at the of missouri, of face contorted with anger, calling for force to , but it is ary pattern that has been repeated at yell, at claremont, at berkeley, at middlebury, and most recently added notre dame. -- recently at notre dame. it reinforces the perception that these institutions inhabit , kind of cloud cuckoo land that these colleges and universities have become lands of hoax, as in the example must in which all boundaries

between reality and fantasy have disappeared. and yet, almost nothing happens to change this. tuitions continue to spiral ever upward, as do fees and room and board. there is a continued pressure and demand for access to these very same institutions generated by the perception that college is still the ticket, perhaps the only remaining ticket, to a middle-class success and comfort. and there is a diminishing sense of accountability, diminishing because for one thing colleges are increasingly managed by insular professional bureaucracies who answer to no

one. oh, yes, there are faculty meetings, oh, yes, there are faculty committees and faculty consultations. they amount in many contexts to little more than high school student council. bureaucracies are themselves unwilling to students faculty or because they are in large upwardlyompose of mobile careerists whose chief goal and life is to keep their noses clean. faculty also share responsibility for the diminishing of accountability. as faculties, and especially faculty departments, develop into self sealing tanks of in which,heory

especially in liberal arts departments, the acting out of rage at their own cultural unimportance becomes the most significant public activity. might be therts key to renewal in these institutions. ,or in the liberal arts historically considered, we possess a treasury of wisdom and back to the reaches fact tol past, back in the law codes of homer robbie and of moses, forward to the renaissance, the to the conviction of the

reformation, to the enlightenment of the 18th century. ofre are deep wells reflection available for renewal. and in deed they can act that way for as dr. johnson reminded us, when cultures or polities depart or breakdown, the answer to that departure and that breakdown is to recur to first principles. ,hat is the source of renewal and it is in the liberal arts that deeper bank of first principles. but these have not been working for us. they have not been performing the work of renewal for 150 years.

why? why? one is because of the dominance of the evolutionary trope which is in fact the fundamental trope that defines our culture today. that inean by that is and within the evolutionary trope, there are no first principles to recur to. changes only ceaseless without point, direction, or os, change which we are obliged to adapt to or perish. it is no wonder that the decline of the liberal arts education begins with the rise of the evolutionary trope, and which is at harvard in the

decade after the civil war, which then from there set a pattern for the rest of american higher education. that pattern, and this is the second reason why the liberal arts have failed to act as a source of renewable, is because across american higher education of the germanic model of mass institutions in service to the state. mass institutions dominated by professional vocational educational goals and instruction, and promoted in the name of efficiency. state by the bureaucracies of the 19th century, but also in the american context by progressives for whom efficiency was the name

of the social and political game. game. and then the third reason why the liberal arts have not been successful in producing renewal is the assertion in the name of that efficiency, and as a function of those bureaucracies of governmental oversight into the smallest aspects of college life. we are most likely today to think of that kind of intervention in the terms of title ix letters. that at least has been the most sensational aspect of it recently, but they really extend much earlier and too much more, shall we say, small-scale points. 2011ember particularly in when we were notified by means of a dear colleague letter from the department of education.

that we were now obliged to offer a fourth hour. the idea of course had been that coursellege curriculum, is generally offered as three , however the department of education had grown anxious that these three credit hours were not entailing any other kind of academic efforts of the mandate went for -- went forth that we should document a fourth hour, composed of who knows what. when i was apprised of this by the provost and our college, i have to admit a little and charitably on my part that i thought perhaps he was suffering from a bit of over anxiety, but when i corresponded with the president of the american association of university professors he assured me that yes, in fact this mandate was being sent out quite broadly.

i don't know that it has been enforced quite vigorously, but the idea that a single bureaucratic letter embedded from the department of education could completely rewrite the nature of everybody's syllabi, courses, requirements, and expectations is simply staggering. and yet, there it is because in large measure, whether we call ourselves public or private institutions, none of us could survive without public funding and public funding can be removed quite easily and quite readily. that threat, not the reality of it, just the threat alone is sufficient to send administrators fleeing in the direction of faculty with memos and directives. been that the liberal arts have been made into

an entertainment appendage to college and university curriculum. yes, there is still an english major, a history major, still other majors that we define as the liberal arts, but they are rather thanfrage because there is a recognition that they provide a significant aspect of our cultural life. thatare the entertainment is provided to a college education. liberal arts faculties themselves quote rate -- who operate in their own -- cooperate in their own humiliation by trying to imitate scientific professionalism and thus become de facto vocational exercises themselves. cease to seetments

their mission as the training of andterate graduating body instead see themselves as the training of english professors getting ready for graduate school. do not seeartments themselves as providing an education in depth concerning human past, but as training future history department professionals. we deplore on the one hand the vocational as asian -- zation but liberal arts departments turn and do the same thing in imitation, and the result is often that we become collections of self-perpetuating societies, furious at our own self marginalization and happy theeek ways of tweaking

noses of the culture at large. can this change? arts teachers, departments, and programs resume ?heir role of cultural renewal perhaps, here are some of the things that i think must happen. artsst separate liberal education from vocational studies. we must admit that that was a mistake, and institutional mistake made in the 19th century. this does not mean that liberal arts institutions thus separated out will be besieged by hordes of willing applicants, but that is a price we will have to pay.

wait aid, secondly, to transfer the hiring of faculty members -- we need, secondly, to transfer the hiring of faculty members out of departments. i am not sure this is an alternative that will produce a positive result because when they pass in the hands of bureaucrats the results may be worse, but i do know that what we have now as the present regime of hiring tends only to self perpetuation and navelgazing. that new oring is newly configured liberal arts programs and its petitions must link themselves to existing academe totside ensure accountability. the great question of course is,

will this happen? happen, we must overcome three major obstacles. one is public incredulity. renewal of the culture is not what customers of public or private colleges and universities want today. students come to colleges and universities, to tell them that what they are being educated for his cultural renewal will draw in most instances the blank asked upstairs. secondly, there will be professional resistance. arrangement of liberal arts education is not lturatedulties are encu

to expect, either by their own training or by the lives within their guilds. barrier, we must admit that this kind of reconfiguration is not what outside agencies are prepared to pay for. to their shame. then, i expectn, at least three thing. one is that we shall see over the next several years the continued trend of mergers and closures. this of course has already begun. we have seen some very significant examples of this. more significant examples are coming. we will see, secondly, further

government intrusion. sometimes it will be well-intentioned, intrusion designed to reverse the course of previous intrusions, but it still will be operating on the basis and assumption that the intrusion is justified and legitimate. and i expect that what will ,appen will be more alienation sm. do wetionaliz believe in this thing called the liberal arts? bywe believe that we live more than bread alone? believe that the stories we have told ourselves from the planes --eir ringing of the ringing planes of windy troy, are we really great

spirits urinating to follow knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost bard of human thought? only if we are will we see such renewal. will the tide and ill , andquences be reversed will we be able to move into broader, sunnier uplands of truth and wisdom? thank you very much. [applause] >> these are really wonderful presentations. i had a very long say yesterday and my orders where that i would join this -- my orders were that i would join this panel not with

prepared remarks but to offer comments and in the interest of having a full discussion back and forth. join the partyo particularly pick up on the evils of that we are facing. i think the first presentation -- the first and the last presentation presented, i think a diagnosis, very powerful diagnosis that my own spirit as you will see is more aligned a's but i have one insight on the question of the current crisis about beach. the unit of -- about speech. , whereversity of chicago i spent most of my teaching career, has been a pretty good place in these respects. president zimmer had a good

statement in defense of freedom of speech, though he couldn't quite bring himself to say that it is ultimate -- it's ultimate justification was that it was necessary for the pursuit of the truth. the climate of the university of chicago is based and knowledge creation, and why you need freedom of speech to create knowledge i am not quite sure. but still, the climate is better than in most places although i have to say the usual suspects on the faculty protested the letter that the dean of students sent the students, and there has been a lot of pushback from the faculty and a lot of the students who think certain opinions are beyond pale. a faculty committee was appointed to establish principles and procedures for disruptions of discourse on campus. and the committee has recently reported, and in fact i think

the faculty senate is debating today these recommendations. statement was quite good, quite good. there was the obligatory paragraph about the importance of civility and fact, etc. -- and respect, etc., on the way to defend unpopular opinions, and then there was a sentence -- i should have written it down -- it went something like this. a restrictive, hostile, and unwelcoming environment is bad for learning or bad for the community, and then the --allel, whereas a rich opposite of restrictive in the sense of narrow -- friendly, opposite to hostile, and what do you think you have found in place of unwelcoming? what?

inclusive. welcoming, to which you would say all opinions are , the current thinking is the opinions belong to people because they belong to groups, and the groups have to have their opinions included. , i the consequence of this had a kind of illumination here. if that is what you think is the basis of people's opinions then it is perfectly clear why you cannot attack somebody's opinion because the attack on their opinion is to be understood as an attack on their identity. legacys is in a way the thinking of tribalist

about the university and its student body, which it is partly the culture, it is partly the government intrusions here, that it is going to be very hard to produce a kind of climate in the university which sees itself as if inp of truth seekers fact we have adopted the post martyr view that the truth is a social creation and each group is entitled to live by their own , and god for bid you should attack somebody's truth because it is by definition, disrespectful of their person and there being. that i think is worth calling attention to and paying some attention to. is, i point i would make politicization of the university are over scribed. one cause among the students

which is not sufficiently commented on, there is nothing going on for those students that feeds their souls and to which they can give their passions. and therefore, into that void, comef the controversies -- all of the controversies of the day and they take over. where whata campus was going on in the classroom was meaningful to students, about the things that matter to them, they would be much less seduction into these kinds of controversies, and the english department faculty could do what it wants. but the students would go to the places where they could read the books that mattered to them. i think this is on the way to the third point, which is to say, yes, we can complain about the politicization of the university but the problem is with what we are offering.

grasso has given a wonderful but depressing analysis of why we are in that circuit in. -- circumstance. here i would like to take small difference with him. i am not sure that the way to describe what one wants, at least today, in liberal education, should be put in terms of renewal of a culture or the handing down of the treasures of our heritage. i think, given where we are today, the starting point should interest may be just intrusively --the enduring questions intrusively be the enduring questions of young people starting out in life, to find them where they are rather than to try to hand them something to begin with that they do not know that they need or want.

-- and ireally with mean really began, i am not talking about degree granting programs but initiation to a college experience in which, if a small collection of faculty members say we designed the following introductory course for freshman, take it if you would like, and the question of the course might be for openers, what is a good human being and a good citizen? not -- you do not simply ask their questions -- asked their opinions but you put forward a series of texts to agitate that question, and by the end of the year they will have met in literature a collection of exemplary individuals from achilles and odysseus to socrates to moses to

jesus to huck finn. you go through, you present readings which put the alternatives before them and you proceed not so much to know about these books from the outside, but to use these books to think with about questions that you can legitimate for the students because you know in a way they really are interested. , theyave just left home are joining the big world, they have been filled with all kind of nonsense. the opinions they have are superficial and skimpy, but if you treat them as if they really care about they things that the things they ought to care about and ask them the questions you suspect they would like to have asked, and discuss the books in the spirit of which you would like those questions pursued then you are treating them not tradition heirs of a

spoke,the way that zena that you are guessing as young adults with a lifetime before them and probably not very far away from the big questions, including questions about love and marriage, including the nature oft justice,ip, freedom, war and peace. you can create the kinds of courses by totally ignoring what is going on around you, do not argue with them, present the alternatives, and certainly in our experience in chicago, you built it and they will,. we evenwill come.

produced a kind of undergraduate major were the fundamental thing was a question, not understood as a verbal interrogative but a species of desire and which one wants to know but does not know, and is willing to invest the effort to pursue that question. , it might have been a time when a different way was appropriate, but i think now if one is going to catch these young people before they are in a way corrupted by the university,m of the show them that this can be a safe place in the true sense, namely a place where the things that are dearest to their heart can be discussed openly, in a , searching,espect and with a kind of sense that all of us, even if we are going

to wind up disagreeing, are fundamentally interested in something called h rumor and better understanding of the and betterruer understanding of the things that distinguish humanity. i do not know whether we could started up again. you build up these programs and you leave, and the terms like times rush and everything to waste, you build it up and they tear it down. but i think for people to care about these things, fight the battles of the public, make sure people will come to your campuses can speak, that the real word is to find a couple of partners where you are located on a campus and try to ask yourself, how could we and less these young people at the start and -- in list these young people at the start and what would be an enlightening in the deep and broader sense that what

they want up doing and the rest of their careers will be vastly enriching to their life. would bringa change about this way? i am not hopeful. grip of see, given the the current way of teaching these things has on the curriculum, i don't see any other way unless one lines up st. john's or the university of dallas or some of these other places where the faculty is actually -- has actually asked itself the question, which is to say no one asks the question, what do we think these young people need to know to venture into the world? if you cannot get the institution to do that, find a couple colleagues and do it and do a few things. and i suspect that these things will be popular and it will

begin to make a stir in a ripple in this -- a stir and a ripple in the surroundings. [applause] >> we will now move to cute and a.- q and we think your epiphany is indeed a pacific -- indeed an epiphany. the statement we put out expression,eedom of democracy, and truth seeking," there was a sentence in which we said that for liberal learning to take place, people need to be willing to expose themselves to challenge, to have challenged their deepest, most cherished,

and we added the words "in an --ntifying forming a lease," beliefs," unless people are willing to do that, unless they know that is the essence of liberal learning they will experience criticism of their asas or opinions or belief personal attacks on them. and then that blocks the enterprise of education right at the beginning. you never get the horse out of the starting point. unlessot proceed students and faculty members, unless there is an eco-'s -- ethos in the institution that communicates to everyone concerned, the understanding that part of the exercise here, central to the exercise here is

challenging our deepest, most cherished identity forming beliefs. that comes out of the concrete experience, not just an idea we came up with. it came out of our concrete experience of doing exactly what you recommended, the two of us deciding we are going to teach a course together in which we asked the great questions, and enlist the assistance of the great writers from sophocles and plato and saint augustine up to hike and cs lewis and martin luther king. the great questions, and less the assistance of the great thinkers in the enterprise which will be an enterprise in which we subject each other's opinions and arguments to scrutiny. we subject our students arguments to scrutiny. we encourage our students to subject our arguments to goal of within the end

each of us becoming our best critic by internalizing the process to the point at which we can do better than any the job ofr interrogating our own beliefs. our experience here has began that the effects of that go far beyond a particular classroom in which we have 18 students. in order to make it a seminar we had to make it -- limit it to 18, we had to exclude the vast majority of people. it sent the very message that i think is at the core. tiffany. at -- core of your epiphany. i just want to reinforce what you said to everybody, there is no need to wait around for some external force to act on the university's. we can just decide we are going way, this in our own small

begin the process of doing it. end of sermon. we have hands up and i first have the pleasure of recognizing sarah cass. >> so as some of you may know, i also went into the family business but in a different way. many years ago, struck by the notion that public schools were in effect designed to prevent education, i joined the then nascent revolution called charter schools and opened the first charter public high school in boston. at the time, anyone in the public educational establishment who saw me or heard of this would, if they saw me come across the street. we were against the tide and now i am happy to say 20 some odd years later, charter schools are not only mainstream but they

have not only performed revolutions for young people but have been really singularly responsible for attracting talent into the teaching of young people. i have to say, in listening to this panel, i must say that while i agree with you, robbie and dad, that there are things one can do with an existing and institutions,-- listening to this panel it strikes me that what is called for is a kind of disruption. just as what we know in the early 1990's was a monopoly of public education for venting the education of young people and we assumed there was a market for a different kind of education. you see their appetite for the kind of real question and thoughtfulness that these institutions of higher learning seem to be categorically preventing, i wonder if there would be a way given the kinds of technology we have today that

do not have to confine learning to the places of higher learning, or to walls and all, whether there might be kind of a disruption the most thoughtful educators to reach that market of desirous young people. the last thing i would add is a point of evidence, perhaps, that many of the most talented graduate students join think tanks. nk sponsored this talk at your university. perhaps there are institutions not necessarily of higher learning but stand for the help thes that could disruption. i would be curious to know what you thought of that. the spirith you in of those remarks. there are probably a lot of things that can and should be

done outside the formal university setting. it could he contemporary technology facilitates that in a way that people that are more tech savvy will know about. still very open a can to me. to me.l very opaque i know within the university the creation of programs and institutes waste on the model of liberal learning our what ans are promoting, impact they can have. there are people here today that are the founders and directors of programs around the country, our program is one, but my guess is there are 15 or 20 people here that are leaders. program at arizona state university. i think those are important within the university. i will give it over to the

panelists to see if they have reflections on what may be done outside the university, what kind of disruptive work can be done. clarify, i wasn't questiong -- i met the in the form of inventing a new kind of institution. i was not suggesting it be instead of. institutions of higher learning representing liberal education. agree. one thing that i hope supporters of higher education, including financial supporters of higher education, one thing i hope they it isake to heart is important not to write off the universities. when you see the kinds of things that happened at a berkeley, were other places that

spoken of, people can become disgusted and give up on the project. while i am all for think tanks, we cannot give up on our students. our students are in the university and what supporters of american higher education need to do is to support initiatives that will live up to the highest ideals of liberal learning in the universities, time at the same supporting think tanks and initiatives outside the university's. -- outside the universities. any comments? dad, do you have a comment? [laughter] >> this might be a generational thing. in the sense that i am ignorant and unimaginative about real innovation in education.

designs to me you could say, thelet me first outrageous expense of getting an education and the precious little that a lot of people get from this outrageous expense, i don't think that we have begun to see the pushback that will be coming. you will see closures, that will be the first sign. i am not sure this can continue indefinitely without there being a call for something very different from what we have. lot fromrn a interactive things online, but the experience of living together, learning together, aboutg half the night

what you are reading, talking during the day, the one-on-one, face-to-face possibilities that that i learning can see it doesn't have makes me think you can find things to do that will help people get more than what they are now getting. that i speak for, that i think the whole panel speaks for, still presupposes face-to-face human contact. people knowing their students. not only knowing the subject, but being able to read the face, encourage the silence, and withrage conversation "what do you think about what so-and-so just said?" >> i teach in the religion

department at the university. chair of the humanities council here. say the great books in the undergraduate secrets are overprescribed. we have our challenges. i am deeply sympathetic of the represented here, but i think it may be a question of privilege from an institution that has the financial resources to do this. one of the words now is a global humanities. finitude,of chin thoughts of how global curriculum could work in an american university. for the version

of humanities, is it curricular chaos, does it all depend on how it is done? do you have any thoughts on global humanities given the references made towards european-derived civilizational achievements? >> i think that is for you. >> let me say one thing. i was talking in the break this influx that we have had of international students from all over the world, especially china, but other parts of asia, the middle east, and africa. they have brought a tremendous vitality, enthusiasm, and kind of studythis that sometimes the american students don't have. , in that sense, global humanities makes a lot of sense to me.

me there are a lot of different people in different parts of the world that are interested in the study of fundamental questions for its own sake, looking at the foundations of things. in that sense, it sounds great. in terms of rounding out the curriculum, i think that the worry is, as you said, how it is going to be done. there are all kinds of wonderful, rich materials from non-western cultures that raises the fundamental questions, and that is implicit in why we are saying these are human questions, not just hours here and now. i think there is a real danger superficiality, and have people teach things without knowing the language, culture, and nuances.

established way of doing things with these particular sets of books. we have the faculty that knows the language, background, cross-sections, history, and even especially the things that i left off the curriculum for one reason or another. i think that you would want to have circumstances where that is the case -- my suspicion is to have that you would want to have institutions in the other countries to have liberal arts colleges in nepal, china, middle east, and africa where you can draw people from the culture that will have their linguistic and historical background to do this with some kind of .eriousness the danger would be that you into disavowing the human character of the books if you somehow think that you have to

include on a laundry list as many different cultures on your curriculum as possible. i hope that is helpful. i think the answer is obviously yes, there is something valuable to be gained in broadening our students' horizons, as long as we avoid the temptations to tokenism and superficiality. those of us who taught in political theory have been teaching medieval islamic philosophy for years to the benefit of ourselves and our students. in one a small example particular field in how this could be done well without .uperficiality and tokenism as far as eastern traditions are

concerned, i personally get something of a kick out of exposing my students to the onught of mahatma gandhi contraception, abortion, and morality. they should learn what especially thinkers, great thinkers, had to say about that. yes, professor? i have a pair of questions. first, i have no idea why you would be more confident in the then theative class faculty. the faculty is yesterday's dragon, the ideological faculty. decisivelyas shifted in favor of administrations. --i not sure there is

don't think there is more reason for confidence in that group. i understand the problem. these two groups seem to be all there is. i am not sure why you think that .hift would help the second question, i think you are too harsh on american vocational listen. the desire to make a living is a totally legitimate american desire. i agree that we need to remember in thee liberal arts is first place free from the immediate need to make a living, but we have to say something to that desire on the part of our students, because it is real and not going anywhere. >> perhaps i should say that i optimistic about the capacities of the administrative class. i am simply reflecting on what

we have been living with as a product of the current way of doing things. i don't know that moving away from that will move into a new area of improvement. i do know there is a problem of self perpetuation and exclusion. i have seen this operate in many places. with reference to many individuals. i have seen many a search decision onke its on the kinds of decisions we would prefer to be ,ade about academic potential about a dedication to the life of the mind, but instead on political considerations. much let's is not so

hire someone who has these political convictions as much as let's make sure we do not hire someone who has these political convictions. recourses there is no that prevents that from happening, that is what motivates me to say should we be looking at another way in terms of how we populate faculties. i have no guarantee to offer. is a lifetime of unpleasant experiences watching this play out in search committee, after search committee, after search committee. i offer only an example with reference to a very prominent ivy league institution in which a candidate for a position was excluded in terms bordering on

horror because prior to his undergraduate education, living in italy as the child of missionaries he had taught sunday school and committed the falling --e after unspeakable act of folly of putting that on his resume. who was under discussion noted on the resume that he had been the recipient of a grant from the bradley foundation. immediately protest was registered that we could not have someone like that participating in this fellowship program. two out of those many more to say we have a

dysfunctional system for how we populate our departments. i would consider the floor to be open to suggestions about how we do it, but what we have is dysfunctional. >> yes? dame.m at notre i like the idea of setting up alternative programs and letting students vote with their feet. that is something where trying to do it notre dame. i wonder if that is a long-term winning strategy. here is my specific question, can real liberal education take place in the university as long bythe university is captured modern notions of identity, identity politics, pervasive in this humanity? don't we have to fight that

fight directly? i'm worried about minority students, because these are students that get told certain identities and segregated into certain majors and minors, who are perhaps intentionally or unintentionally left out of these programs and deprived of the liberal education where trying to offer to been. i wonder if a more direct confrontation of these impoverished notions of identity that are pervasive. don't they have to confront that head-on? >> yes. [laughter] , how are we supposed to do this? how do you propose to do this?

the impulse towards increased publicis to begin with spirited -- a public spirited practice or impulse to make it of thee for members american community who would not have the privileges of higher education. i suspect we might have gone off the road very early in , andmative action programs we have certainly gone off the in a way accentuating those

specialces by starting programs, special houses, special dormitories, those sorts of things. , the university of chicago when i was a student was the history of western civilization, one of two capstone courses. when i came back to teach 14 years later, there were alternative civilization courses. russian civilization, chinese civilization, south asian civilization. during the early time there there was a proposal -- these were rigorous programs which required study of the languages,

culture, and so on -- but, there was a proposal early in my time there to start an african and african-american studies program. requirement. partly as a question of each department. it was denied that this was a black studies program. this was a civilization program. the question is, what idea of civilization do you have that fits that description and does study of the the foundational things of civilization? i went to complain to the dean, an old friend of mine. i said, how are we doing this? worry., leon don't we're doing this to show solidarity to our black students. we do not expect anyone to take

it. that was almost 30 years ago. lots of mistakes have been made. the question is how now under the present circumstances, when you have every administrator scared to death of being called a racist, sexist, or homophobe to somehow lean against the classification of individuals by these groups when there is a huge pressure to make sure we have diversity of every sort of intellectual diversity. i am open to fighting back and calling attention to it, but it seems to me if you can figure out a way to do it, fine. the alternative is to look at the students as if they don't have the identities that the administrators see them as

having, but see them as young which is what the whole idea of the push for integration was about. it is what america is all about. suggestions, if someone has suggestions, we should have them. i think it is hard. right, you could have a civilization's program in which african civilizations were studied, but studied properly with the languages and serious attention to history without the superficiality and tokenism on the same terms as russian or chinese civilization. wouldn't that be how to proceed? ambivalent about civilization studies altogether.

it is very important to understand that there are lots of different ways in the world to negotiate being a human being . we do not have a monopoly on humanity. the introduction of these non-western sources and programs was a way to fix our condition. it wasn't to begin with an attack on the west, but an expansion in a sense. nothing human beings have seriously built is alien to us that we should try to understand. that still seems right to me. >> i agree. if we go back to the comment, why call it a global literature course?

do you have books that could be put in the course that would address would you want the course to talk about. >> like the islamic political philosophers in a standard philosopher course. they are there like thomas aquinas. a note inht i heard the question that wasn't addressed. maybe i'm wrong, but one of my concerns about this type of socussion is that we think hard about the various difficulties facing our that wety community forget a basic principle of any community is that you have to meet people where they are. i wanted to say that. studentsyou know, our come politicized in a particular way. if they don't come that way, they can get that way pretty quickly, even in places like st.

john's where it is not being offered by the institution. person by person, student by student we have to meet these people where they are and offer them something better, rather than coming at them in a spirit of confrontation. that is what i wanted to say. that might have been a misunderstanding of your question, but i wanted to put that out there. asay this simply as raising question to be discussed, how seriously should we think, among the various strategies that we in defense and justification of liberal , how much do we want to suggest there is a benedict

option that has to be considered as well? i think what springs to mind is one example of this and 451" iny's "fahrenheit a cult that burns books because they're threatening. far, far away there are little bands of people that memorize, because they can't trust to the page that can be incinerated, but memorize shakespeare. i look upon bradberry's tale as a cautionary one. i sometimes wonder how far off we are from that. i hope a good distance, but is

that not a kind of benedict option. i am not saying i am advocating that, but i am suggesting is there a multiplicity of strategies we can pursue? is that one of them? ericaere others such as described, such as st. john's represents, as professor kass described? , each in our own capacity, generate support for those endeavors? how can we resist those who would silence thought? how can we appeal to those who can arm and support what we do? oft are the multiplicity

strategies. we would make a great mistake if we think there is one solution. how can we develop the multiplicity of solutions, whether it be think tanks or the heroic band in the swamp. it seems to me we could take a n intelligent step identify what the multiplicit ies are. and giving encouragement and thinking through of each. >> i wonder why we call it yniversity and not multi-versit if that is the case. the danger in professor gregory's case is we offer a global education and the students would be lost in length which they don't understand. french takes time, let alone persian and mandarin.

it takes a lot of effort to bring everything together. we are in a university because we want to bring that plurality under the guiding vision of something. that guiding vision is right difficult. has global-- indiana youinternational studies if are wondering. you have to have global and international. it is like a buffet, the chinese buffet, it is very nice. a little bit of indian food, and you think you are an expert. yes? we lose a sense of university and we have a where students are dazzled by the variety of options, but they will not bring it under the guiding vision of

what is their efforts. i very much enjoyed this conference, especially this panel. leon, have been persuaded it is important to begin where the student is. the problem is knowing where the student is. [laughter] there are two things i want to my about that from university experience. university professor, i can teach and have taught undergraduates in the school of medicine and public health. in each of these areas, in the undergraduate i was teaching in the writing seminar. in the public health school i was teaching a course in mental disorders and mental health. washe medical school i

teaching a regular psychiatry course throughout the 4 years. the issue in helping them to be more broad is to find out why they were narrowed by their purposefulness. the thing that brought them there. they were vocationally committed to begin with. in the writing seminar, they were locational he committed to writing, therefore they were interested in ideas. the problem is, they couldn't write. you had to teach them the difference between affect and effect and various types of things. they were all very surprised and grateful someone had taken the time to talk about their grammar, not simply the broad idea, which were silly ideas most of the time. medicine the of

peopleas these young have struggled very hard to get into the medical school. the hurdles are high. a tremendous internal competition with themselves, and ultimately commitment in the process of wanting to become a doctor. is toportant thing then get them to stop saying, will you please tell me what the answers are going to be, what the questions are going to be on the exam? questions.ns are big think about what kind of research and openness that would make it possible to even come at an answer. i got many of them going into research for this reason. they began to realize getting

the classic was a mite to get through the board exams -- the cataclysm right to get through the board exams. standing in the way of public health problems as being the enemy and they being the champions, they tend to ultimately fight about the west. they wonder if the west is in the enemy. the grasses, leftists. leftists.gressives, you begin to tell them this is a great country, we have a great job to do, start thinking about what it means to be supportive of our kinds of countries that make it possible for us to think in better terms of public health. we have to get everyone on the same wavelength. agree, startat i

where they are. from a developmental perspective. then realize that maybe the problem we are working with early.oo that we should be working with the kids in grammar school and high school fighting issues there. johnsns hopkins, i think hopkins has had a terrific record supporting me. i'm very pleased with the academic freedom that has been shown to me, and the willingness to go further. there may be trouble in lots of places, but johns hopkins is doing pretty good. i'm very pleased. >> are you suggesting you have said things that are controversial? [laughter] things every doing

now and then you have to punch them back. not physically. [laughter] even at johns hopkins they will occasionally say something, there will be a wave of something, and you have to give them a punch back. the most important thing in the university is respect. that is the cornerstone of the university, respect. hopkins says the truth will set you free what am i getting around to? a developmental perspective. maybe we in the universities should be spending some of our time, our part-time, to the high education kids are getting. i believe kids are coming to college without the kind of high school education we used to get.

we had wonderful high school the 1930's andn 1940's. my father was one of them. many of these people said you can have those high school teachers back again if you just have another depression. those were great high school teachers. courses -- my education in history, for example, in high school was a four-year course that began at 13 years old with ancient history with the sense of spectacle and pageantry of history. by the time we had gone through four years, we saw history as process, ideas, motivations, and themes. perhaps the toughest american history course taught in high school. they got you prepared for college. the kids now we are trying to

correct. teachers in high school are not doing their job. perhaps we should commit more high school teachers to talk about how they ought to be preparing them for us. [applause] way, may i say on the half of all of us, happy 86th birthday -- on behalf of all of us, happy 86th birthday. [applause] comments from the panel? we have just about exhausted our time. >> i want to say one word, not about this panel, but i want to say a word that i suspect is a word that will speak for everybody.

is an extraordinary institution here at princeton. it has produced a climate for honest inquiry, it could lead lity,ut a -- collegia taking things seriously, fighting for things that should be fought for. there are wonderful people on the staff that support. it is the extension of a national treasure and experience we have had here today -- [applause]

>> thank you. >> i just paid you back. [laughter] >> i will get the final word. if any of what you just said was true, we have a small number of , you are at the top of that list, to thank above all for the inspiration. thank you all. [applause] president trump arrived wednesday in poland ahead of the g-20 summit that will be held in hamburg, germany. he will make a public policy speech in the morning. we will have it live on c-span 2.