[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on The Closing of the American Mind, Part III
To neglect an individual's education today is to condemn him or her to mediocrity tomorrow. So it is with nations. Education is the cornerstone of a free society, the bedrock upon which a strong, healthy state is built and sustained. The demands of the modern era are being pushed at ever increasing speeds by extraordinary advances in technology. Those societies which anticipate these advances and best prepare their children for the future are likely to reap the most benefit from them. Those which do not, will not.
If there are no perfect democracies, there are successful ones, and useful lessons may be drawn from their experiences--including those in the field of education. The purpose of this paper is to point to specific practices in the administration of higher education in the United States and other Western democracies that may have applicability across national boundaries.
A characteristic of modern democracies is the freedom citizens have to select from a wide variety of goods and services. Quality improves when competition is vigorous. The same principle of choice holds true with institutions of higher learning; increasingly, it is being applied to primary and secondary schools as well.
The Closing of the American Mind is a diagnosis of the intellectual ills of our day, and, if it is not a prescription, it contains at least some suggestions for a cure. The book is most sound, I will argue, in its description of current pathologies. It is partly sound, partly unsound in its account of their origin. It is least sound in its prescription for their healing.
Bloom begins by examining the students in our prestige universities, and he finds them deficient in moral formation, in reading of serious books, in musical tastes, and above all in eros. They have no love in their souls, no longing for anything high or great.....
