So began a brilliant (as always) column by Thomas Sowell. It was written around the fact that Larry Summers was forced out of the presidency of Harvard University by the mediocre-mad culture leverlers and desroyers of excellence, fueled by their ignited PeeCee gas.
It is not boasting for me to say that I had two great university experiences. The first was in the 1940's when I barely fulfilled the requirements for graduation from Emory. The last was in getting a graduate degree from the University of North Florida, with only ONE "B" in one course..the rest all "A".
Shows the difference between age 20 and age 55.
Priorities.
At Emory, I flourished in Dr. Tom English's literature and Dr. Will Howe's visiting seminars on romance prose. I excelled in Dr. Dickie Boyd's Greek courses, and Dr. Cullen Gosnell's political science. "Goose" and I were both flaming liberals in thos days. And it was considered "weird" to be a member of the International Policy Council, as I was. There were 11 others.
I was wedded to my philosophy regimen under Dr. Leroy Loemker. His wife played in the ORIGINAL Atlanta Symphony, and this pleased me. I was very close to Dr. Charlie Lester, a genius chemist from whom I took no courses, and his brother, Jim, from whom I got two "A's" in Geology.
My very favorite person at Emory was Dean Elliott Heber Rece. He always treated me like a man, and guided me with great love and tolerance to my diploma and my cap and gown.
I named my first son after Dean Rece.
But, though I did not flunk (fail) any courses, I had a lot of D-for-Dereliction grades. I knew the essentials of the subjects, but the professors wanted me to attend class !
At Harvard--and other great universities today--no one gets a "D" unless he commits something like what we used to call High Botchery! It is a recorded fact that ninety (90) per cent of the seniors at Harvard now graduate cum laude!
That was reserved for a very , very, select few in my university days. Some Phi Beta Kappa members failed to get the "with Honors" nod.
And the fact that Dr. Summers was opposed to grade inflation, and that he fought it every day he was at Harvard, did him in.
His assertion that, maybe, women were not, as a group, well suited to the hard sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) was not happily accepted as a lapsus lingua, by the Harvard feminista--but that is not the basis of Dr. Larry's exit.
Of allthose professors I mingled with at Emory and North Florida, some were left wingers, some were libertarians, some were Christians and some were agnostic. Nobody cared. They were all free.
But, as I joined them as an adjunct for four years, I found that even with the new wave of Dr Spock-like educational theory spewing from Gainesville and Athens, students still had to work and perform to get a degree.
Now, with teacher's unions claiming TENURE for elementary school teachers, and no punitive sanctions for either libel or plagiarism either by school boards or in academia, we who love erudition witness a slippery slope.
Dr. Larry Summers exits Harvard. Al Quaeda matriculates at Yale.
Get out of the shadow of that Ivy Covered Ivory Tower, Young'uns !!
It's Falling.
Here's a link to Dr. Sowell: http://www.tsowell.com/
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