ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how the particular academic cultural life encompassing both a puritan ethic, which holds that self-discipline, austerity, and hard work are the keystones of success, and a social ethic, which turns upon the belief that charm, a conforming personality, or skill in interaction is essential for those who would effectively advance the work of the world, is perpetuated. The inquiry touches three basic themes: the underscoring of certain traits in commending academic recruits, and work conditions of the professoriate that accent these qualities. The last theme is the nature of the value system of men of learning in two countries whose educational institutions have direct and indirect historical and contemporary links with American universities. Although the social ethic and the puritan ethic bear upon discrete facets of behavior, some writers see both as necessary complements for professional success. A good deal of academic culture in France is shared by scientists, humanists, and social scientists.
