The National Review Takes on Harvard
Writing in the National Review, Maximilian Pakaluk (Harvard '05) reviews Harry Lewis' forthcoming Excellence Without A Soul.
His conclusion:
In Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education
, former dean of Harvard College Harry Lewis argues that Harvard — or its college at least — is aimless and adrift, with a scant idea of what to do with its undergraduates. Even if his critique has less irony and edge than one from Socrates would, it nevertheless serves as an informative condemnation of Harvard’s approach to education.
I love that line:
Even if his critique has less irony and edge than one from Socrates would...
This is, of course, a way for a recent college grad to put that $150,000 education to work and let all of us know that he has read Socrates (in fairness, a pretension hardly limited to recent college grads).
Also, even if EWAS is less ambitious than
Remembrance of Things Past...even if Lewis lacks the incisive pen of William Shakespeare...even if EWAS is bound to be less influential than the Bible.....
I suspect that Lewis' book will be reviewed in some ways just as
Harvard Rules was; it will benefit from attracting the attention of people who went to Harvard, but will suffer from the fact that those people are already quite sure that they know exactly what is going on there, no matter how many years they have been away from campus......
