ABSTRACT

A problem facing higher education everywhere is the relationship between liberal and professional or “pure” and “applied” learning. Universities shun vocationalism, but they cannot refuse all ties to the world of practice. In fact, the purpose of the medieval university was to train the members of the three core professions of the day: clergy, lawyers, and doctors. The German university, by contrast, tried to jettison all practical or polytechnical application, insisting on the purity of Wissenschaft, pursued in solitude and freedom. Any attempt to answer to the practical needs of society or the marketplace would inevitably compromise and corrupt the university’s high scholarly mission.1 Thus the German university responded to the growing business community’s quest for higher education with doubt and hostility.