ABSTRACT
Fifty years of universities! This just about corresponds to my own lifetime in universities. When I entered the University of Pennsylvania, except for Satur day afternoons in the autumn, the university was a quiet place, apart from the world. The teachers did their teaching as seriously as it was in their nature to do so; they told no jokes in their lectures. Some of them had written books and edited texts; only one of them had written a textbook, one had edited an anthology, none had compiled a book of “readings.” They seemed to me to be a priesthood, rather uneven in their merits but uniform in their bearing; they never referred to anything personal. Some read from old lecture notes-one of them used to have to unroll the dog-eared lower comers of his foolscap manuscript and then haltingly decipher the thumb-worn last lines. Others lectured from cards that had served for years, to judge by the worn and furry edges, which were visible to students like myself who sat in the front of the lecture room. The teachers began on time, ended on time, and left the room without saying a word more to their students, very seldom being detained by questioners. There were about two or three lecturers who were admired by the middling and lower grade of student because they entertained the students by quips or eloquence or by personal references to their own experiences. They were the “characters” of the university.
