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E-PrinceLast week, columnist Brandon McGinley told us that Princeton should do more to prepare its students for marriage and family life. It seems to me that this task far exceeds the ability of Princeton, or any university — I think it ...(back to the article)
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you don;t know any of this stuff because youre a philosophy major. they dont know real-life stuff as a matter of their education.
but im sure you could tell me what plato thought justice meant, and how to define what knowledge is and is not, right?
This is probably my favorite line of any article all year: "The politician, the disgraced ex-politician, and the university professor would probably get us to 95 percent."
While the University probably wouldn't get around to this until after renovating the Forbes Annex (in about another 100 years), this is a novel idea. Good article!
Filing a tax return is a mundane fact of life: hardly a subject of intellectual inquiry. Unless you are investigating the structural problems inherent in tax forms or the difficulties they pose to the greater public, there is really no space for such a common-sense course at Princeton. The comparison to writing seminars is laughable, as writing forms the basis of most academic inquiry and is at the heart of a liberal education. There is a reason Princeton does not have classes on how to find a job or an apartment--these are life skills that we should be able to handle on our own. Had you suggested that Princeton investigate having a workshop-type program, similar to the resumé nights offered by Career Services, that may be more reasonable; in any case, it is a better comparison. Princeton is a research university, not a life-skills school.
I thinkkk this was sarcastic? sure hope so.
I think the point is that though the university doesn't teach us how to file a tax return, that's something it is capable of doing. Teaching us how to coexist in a foreva bond with someone else is another matter. THAT is stuff we better figure out ourselves.
How about a cooking class? Or maybe automotive repair basics?
I believe that Princeton actually offers optional classes towards the end of the academic year, for seniors, on some important life skills, like cooking and balancing a checkbook. That's what I've heard, anyway.
Why don't we realize the coerciveness of taxation, ESPECIALLY the income tax, and discuss it as theft of property? Why don't we realize that the mess we call health "insurance" has been created by the government? Why don't we realize that welfare hurts the very people it claims to help? Why don't we realize that warfare and empire-expansion are espoused by both major political parties? Why don't we realize that the Federal Reserve, with its credit expansion policy, is responsible for the bubble-bust economy?
Why? Because our economics professors are bought and paid for by the Fed; because our public schools have been nationalized so that the State tells us to trust our overlords in D.C.; because the Government has conditioned us not to ask questions and to let them nanny us from cradle to grave.
Open a book. Hazlitt, Rothbard, Mises, Bastiat, Hayek, are good authors to look up.
@ flaot your boat - Barely anybody knows this stuff. He's just being honest and trying to do something about it. And fyi, Philosophy majors are awesome.
I once was driving a bunch of Princeton undergrads back from DC one night when we got a flat tire in Baltimore. Not one of them knew what was going on or what to do. Some schools have welding, construction, basic mechanics, and wiring as part of the social scene (e.g. Caltech, Harvey Mudd, MIT). I still have no idea how to do my taxes, though.