ABSTRACT
The most familiar image of the university is the ivory tower, symbol of the sanctuary within which the scholar, Gelehrte, quietly pursues his bookish calling. The truly great scholars are men of enormous stature within the world of the university. Every member of the academic world carries within himself some image of a professor who is, for him, the embodiment of the ideal of scholarship. The activity of scholarship has its historical roots in at least three older activities, from which it derives its characteristic norms and style. The activity of scholarship is in the first instance a religious and literary activity, directed toward a given corpus of texts, either divine/secular, around which a literature of commentary has accumulated. The ideal of scholarship has spawned a curious pedagogical offspring in the undergraduate curriculum. The university will be a self-governing company of scholars, joined by a number of apprentice-scholars whose studies are guided by the senior professors under whom they work.
