THE NATURE OF A UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Abstract

My purpose here is to examine certain aspects of higher education. Some of my remarks may apply to our new CEGEPs, or even to high schools, but I am mainly concerned with what goes on in the university, and with things that we have taken for granted but that may militate against our objectives - or what should be our objectives. My hope is to strike a blow for the common man, with respect to that word education: to speak for the average students, the ones who make up the great bulk of our constituents rather than the few who will go on to be themselves professors. My thesis is that we as professors mistake for education the attempt to make over all students in our own image, to train all as if they were going to spend their lives in college or university.