January 10, 2025

Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail…In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

Alfred Whitney Griswold (1906-1963), American educator, president of Yale, Essays on Education (no date), Seldes p.169

Does the word “liberal” bother you? Why? Do you know it pre-dates any political party or political philosophy of the same name. Do you know it comes from the Latin word for freedom? Do you have a problem with that?

It is a source of great sorrow that so many universities—the principal purveyors of liberal education, a liberating education—have taken to barring some who spout illiberal ideas. Let them speak and reveal themselves for whom they are.