Robert Maynard Hutchins

Quotes

• “My view of university training is to unsettle the minds of young men, to widen their horizons, to inflame their intellects. It is not a hardening, or settling process. Education is not to teach men facts, theories, or laws; it is not to reform them, or amuse them, or to make them expert technicians in any field; it is to teach them to think, to think straight if possible; but to think always for themselves.”
• “A university is a community of scholars. It is not a kindergarten; it is not a club; it is not a reform school; it is not a political party; it is not an agency of propaganda. A university is a community of scholars.The greatest university is that in which the largest proportion of these scholars are most competent in their chosen fields.A college teaches, a university both teaches and learns.”
• “Well, it seems to me it might be better if the colleges had race horses. The jockeys could wear the school colors and they could ride the races, and the horses wouldn't have to pass the entrance examinations.”
• “Many colleges of liberal arts and the researches of many scholars in the humanities and the social studies are important only to those whose livelihood depends upon them.”
• “The degree now has little significance in terms of education. It is the recognition accorded a person who has passed through an eight-year elementary school, a four-year high school, and a four-year college. These institutions are regarded as fixed and immutable, to be eternally crowned by the bachelor’s degree. What goes on in them is not important. The degree does not stand for education; it stands for a certain number of years in educational institutions, and this is not the same thing.”
• “It is doubtful, too, whether we can achieve free minds by concentrating our efforts on making our pupils economically independent. We want free minds which will seek the goods in their order. Those who seek primarily their private economic interests may become enslaved to them and try to enslave the rest of us as well.”

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