Monday, November 02, 2015
The Idea of a University
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), speech delivered at the inauguration of Bryn Mawr College, reported in Pennsylvania School Journal 34.5 (November 1885) 203:
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When it was first proposed to change Harvard from a college to a university, the opinions of several were asked. I said that my notion was that a university was a place where nothing that was useful was taught. I thought America would never be capable of sustaining a university until a man could get a living by the digging of Sanskrit roots. I meant it was a reaction in my own mind against the theory that a university education is to help a man as a bread-winner. The better part would be the life-long sweetener of all the bread he ever gets.
