Barbarian inside the gates

Sam Norton '12 wrote that "the primary purpose of the college experience is to serve society, find a practical career and establish financial security." Let's begin here: Most of the time we take it for granted, if only implicitly, that serving society and looking after one's own financial security are two different things because very often they are mutually exclusive. I'm not aware of many millionaire police officers.

On which side does Norton come down? That's clear: "Ideally, a majority of the student body would consider job prospects to be of paramount importance in determining their course of study." His column is openly focused on urging Princeton students into the very same sort of high-paying jobs that so spectacularly imploded just a month ago. Norton suggests that the University select for pupils who have already specialized into their intended fields so that we can recruit more "ambitious" students. (As if Her Notorious Highness - that freshman who told us all on facebook.com, "We are the anti-Christs to save the world from the mercy of God" - wasn't bad enough already.) We don't need "ambitious" students. Let them go to Wharton. Princeton wants the curious ones.

"There are a lot more new discoveries to be made," Norton wrote, "in researching the human genome than analyzing the ‘Iliad.' " Where to begin.

Let me be concise, if only to spare those readers who had to put up with my repeated harping on this topic last year: Princeton is a liberal arts university. It is the purpose of a liberal arts education to cultivate human excellence, which means encouraging students to pursue knowledge for its own sake, consider the purpose of human life, etc., etc. It is emphatically not the purpose of Princeton University to teach its students how to make gobs of money. Those who want to major in Midas Studies should enroll at Harvard Business School.

Norton is on stronger footing when he encourages us to study the human genome. I fully support analyzing the human genome, and I have written before that engineers are very useful people. Furthermore, chemistry, physics and biology are all liberal arts when pursued in a certain way - namely in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake - and should be understood by all those who do want to spend time analyzing the "Iliad." But when he starts to say that we ought to go all European and begin our majors in high school, Norton runs off his rails.

The problem with the European model is that it has killed genuine liberal arts study. Under this model, one can learn quantum mechanics or read Homer in Greek, but not both. Both are positively good. The advantage of the American system is that students can range widely among all academic fields before eventually specializing in our last two years. This is far more the life of the mind than early specialization.

And what I don't think Norton quite appreciates is that the "Iliad" must be rediscovered anew by every student. It is not sufficient for the "Iliad" to simply exist on some dusty shelf in Firestone Library. It needs to be appreciated. It needs to be read. One man or woman can discover electricity, and we all benefit. I do not have to personally understand how my laptop works to enjoy word-processing or the internet. But the "Iliad" profits me nothing if I have not read it.

Norton wrote, "If we desire to push our intellectual boundaries, we can read, study and discuss on our own time. Where Princeton differs from independent learning is that it prepares us to succeed in the workforce." This is flatly incorrect. Princeton is different because it allows us to push our intellectual boundaries by providing us with laboratories in which to study the natural sciences, millions of books to read and enjoy, leading professors and clever students with whom to converse and from whom to learn. As I wrote on this page last year, useful knowledge - the knowledge of engineers, doctors and financial wizards - is essential to improving our temporal circumstances. It has given us air conditioning, compound interest and surgical anesthesia. But all these things improve our circumstances: they do not improve our selves. And they are avowedly not the aim of Princeton University.

Princeton represents for most of us the last time in our lives when we will have such opportunities and such luxury to learn. This University is dedicated to giving its students a liberal arts education, enriching our minds and encouraging our curiosity - and I really have to ask, if that is not why "we bother," then why are we here at all?

Brendan Carroll is a sophomore from New York, N.Y. He can be reached at btcarrol@princeton.edu.