Universities as ‘Therapeutic Communities’

At the end of the Second World War, the typical American university and college began to shift, only half consciously, from intellectual activity to psychiatric activity. Behemoth State University invited all comers—the veterans, the confused children of affluence, presently the “culturally disadvantaged” minority. Instead of disciplining their minds, which they distinctly didn’t desire, the university began to minister to their feelings. But its ministry has been devoid of moral imagination and grossly permissive rather than integrating.

Such an institution no longer pays much attention to the works of the mind. I offer you some observations by a graduate student on a big campus in Ohio—which institution, says my correspondent, provides “a near-cretin cultural milieu.” To such institutions go most of our students seeking education.

RK

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Russell Kirk

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At the end of the Second World War, the typical American university and college began to shift, only half consciously, from intellectual activity to psychiatric activity. Behemoth State University invited all comers—the veterans, the confused children of affluence, presently the “culturally disadvantaged” minority. Instead of disciplining their minds, which they distinctly didn’t desire, the university began to minister to their feelings. But its ministry has been devoid of moral imagination and grossly permissive rather than integrating.

Such an institution no longer pays much attention to the works of the mind. I offer you some observations by a graduate student on a big campus in Ohio—which institution, says my correspondent, provides “a near-cretin cultural milieu.” To such institutions go most of our students seeking education.