David Frum remarked on C-Span this morning that college-educated people tend to vote Democratic nowadays. This certainly contributed to Obama’s victory, especially with younger voters and first-time voters. There seems no way around the fact that the left-wing direction of higher education, and of education in general, in recent decades has helped facilitate this state of affairs.

The idea that young people would sail through college, turn a deaf ear to the liberal fads reigning on their campuses, grab their sheepskins, and head for the good jobs and upwardly mobile lifestyle that would make them natural Republicans has turned out to be false prophecy — however soothing to conservative complacency it was for a time. In one way or another, many young people have absorbed the general modern liberal outlook.

Most probably never even encountered an alternative. This is what we must endeavor to supply, by whatever means necessary. We must show that the liberal arts expose us to the great artists and thinkers of the past so that we can understand the dimensions of human nature and develop the capacity to resist the tyranny of the times. Our ability to maintain ourselves as free men and women depends on this.