Universities Quotes

During this period—especially the first 500 years, the Islamic world was far ahead of the Christian intellectually and culturally. A university in Bagdad actually had women students as well as men. Ironically, the Muslims studied and preserved the ancient Greek and Roman science and literature while the West slipped into the Dark Ages. The Muslims developed science and the arts to new heights. However, around 1100 a religious orthodoxy began to take hold that saw new innovation of any kind as blasphemous. Intellectually, Islamic society began to decline while at the same time the Christian world was emerging from the dark ages. After the Protestant reformation, Christendom intellectually began to thrive while Islam continued in its anti-intellectual and intolerant mode which still prevents most Muslim nations from modernizing, Note that there was American intellectual interest in Islam towards the end if the 19th century,

McCarthy accused thousands of people of being communists and disloyal. He claimed to have lists of communists in universities, the Army and other agencies of government, but never produced such lists. In addition to being a overbearing demagogue, he suffered (and died from) from a serious case of alcoholism. McCarthy’s false and irresponsible attacks eventually caused the Senate to censure him. That and his drinking destroyed his career. Not a single person “exposed” by McCarthy was ever convicted of anything. Many had their careers destroyed however. A number of universities fired Professors because at an earlier phase of their careers, they had been a member of an organization that was communist or affiliated with communists, and then left. These firings led to intensive efforts to strengthen the rules of tenure and academic freedom so that the McCarthy abuses could never be repeated. McCarthy could not be sued for his defamatory lies as he always made his accusations from the floor of the Senate where there is absolute protection even for malicious and irresponsible statements.

This quotation is inscribed in the Madison Memorial Hall of the Library of Congress.

The Connecticut state legislature had questioned why Greek and Latin should be required of entering students. If any language should be required, why not French, Dutch or German—the more “practical” languages. Day wrote this report to answer the question. The ancient Greek and Roman classics were, in his view and that of the faculty, the best reading for American citizenship. There is a similar quasi political argument today regarding the classic Western literature as the foundation of American citizenship and patriotism, and some critics argue that non Western literature is equally important and should be taught also. The traditionalists argue that the classic Judeo Classic Western literature is what America was founded upon and informed the Founding Fathers, and therefore should not be diminished in the curriculum.

In 2012 University President James Wagner and Gary Hauk, Emory's vice president of the Emory University made an apology for the anti-Semitic practices of earlier decades when the few Jewish Students who had been accepted because of their high grades and test scores were simply sent letters that their performance had been unsatisfactory and they were not allowed to return to school by the anti-Semitic Dean of the Dental School—John Buhler, . None of the Jewish had ever gotten a poor grade or been talked to about inadequate performance by any of the professors and the Dean would never give a reason that they had been flunked out. See {629670} for the courageous words of the apology.

Note the use of the word “alien” to describe the American owners of newspapers, radio and TV stations. Oliver was a right wing, racist, paranoid, fanatic and extremist. His quotations are interesting because he often said in public what many right wing extremists believed but only said in private. Joseph McCarthy was a senator who suffered from alcoholism and claimed that there were communists throughout the government and the military. However, while he claimed there were all these communists, he was never able to identify them. After a few years of his antics, he was censured by the Senate and he died shortly thereafter. Oliver and a few other extremists believe that McCarthy was silenced by a national communist conspiracy. However, McCarthy was never silent on anything.

One of his major initiatives was to reform the Italian university curriculum to have more scientific offerings. Italy historically has been a great scientific culture ranging from Galileo to Enrico Fermi, but in recent times the universities have not had strong scientific curricula.

Congress was at the time considering the possibility of a National University. Dr. Eliot was one of the national leaders to kill the idea using oratory like this. Not the extreme sarcasm of the last sentence. At the time Congress was notorious for its conditioning appointments on almost any variable except merit.

The English law was, for many years, not taught in English Universities.

Dwight D. Eisenhower had become President of Columbia University. At one of his first meetings with the Faculty Senate, Eisenhower in response to a question stated that the University could not countenance such a policy. At this point, Professor Highit, the Dean of the Faculty Senate, interrupted Eisenhower with this legendary quotation. At Columbia as well as many other of the best private universities, it is the faculty Senate that is the highest educational policy making organ. See {634253} for one of the origins of this. Eisenhower and the University were both great but they were a bad fit. Some historians believe that it was the bad experience at Columbia that brought Eisenhower into Presidential politics. If he had been successful at Columbia, he might have stayed there for his career.

What made the situation worse at the time that the same big banks who got government bailouts to prevent failure and received the 0.75 percent rate, turned around and lent the money to the students not only charging them 9 times what they paid for the money, but also getting a government guarantee that the loans would be repaid and/or government prohibition of students going bankrupt and discharging their debt like any other American in financial difficulty. So the banks made huge profits and yet took no risk—a strange notion in capitalism.

Shortly after, he backed off the notion of having a bloodbath removing protesting students.