Even this article, in diagnosing a current problem, doesn’t contemplate that possibility that the brightest students from the best universities might choose to be creators of literature, art, music, or . . . thought. All the Ivy League colleges, like the historic European universities, were founded primarily to train clergy, who for many generations then tended to be the best-educated, most intellectually focused members of American communities. What a change it is to turning out a steady stream of investment bankers! The second President of the United States, the Harvard graduate John Adams, was a kind of prophet when he predicted how things would go at his college, which was a mighty contributor to American culture before the current dismal trend:
I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.
RogerEvansOnline.com 