James K. Feibleman

The Genius versus the American University

The dual purpose of the university is to communicate existing knowledge and to add to it. It is the argument of this chapter that in the United States we are doing the first but, except in certain rare cases, not the second. Much that is taught in our universities was not produced in them. America has its geniuses, but an astonishing number of them did not come out of the universities. To illustrate these statements, let us consider the humanities and the sciences separately.