I went to college, on and off, between 1964 and 1977, no doubt the period Conservatives lament the most. My last college class was 35 years ago. Unlike my high school years, that seemed primarily designed to help me conform, to become a good little worker and a placid citizen; I immediately was struck by how I was being taught by my professors how to think, not just what I needed to know to get along in the working world. It was not just in those classes that related to my professional development, but in my general studies courses and my electives, even in my extracurricular activities. On campus and off. I worked, and lived, in a community of scholars.

There was a lot going on at USF; performances, lectures, exhibits, clubs, panels and round tables, films, recitals, all planned by the Administration at public expense. I soaked it all up like a sponge. I heard P.A.M. Dirac speak on his discovery of the positron, I watched Timothy Leary and G. Gordon Liddy debate, I danced to Junior Walker and the All-Stars. "There was music in the cafes at night, and revolution in the air." And the students were constantly in a state of intellectual ferment and debate, the coffee shop was our agora, with physics students arguing with art majors about psychology or anthropology. People cared about those things. It was a lot lke the Zone, although even in the tumultuous atmosphere of the time, politics was rarely the topic. There were more important things to talk about. And we had no varsity sports or elitist fraternity nonsense to distract us. A substantial portion of the male underclassmen were Vietnam veterans, too. That made a big difference.

Although I went to a small state-supported school, I got a terrific education, one for which I will forever be grateful. It made me a better person, a better human being. Not just a more productive worker. It made me a free man, because with knowledge comes, if not wisdom, then understanding. And with understanding, you have choices. After all, what good is freedom if you have no choices?

If I had to distill everything I learned during that time, other than the technical details of math, technology and science, into one simple, compact concept, it would be this: I learned that the world, life, my community, even my own mind and society and my place in it, were evolving and changing through time. History was process, not principle, the clash of opposites, the forging of alliances and the arising and resolution of conflict. Synthesis. Time follows the path of least resistance, but there are also obstacles in the flow, eddies in the stream. Economic and political forces evolve across history, and I lived in an age where a large number of simple, humble working people, for the first time, had both the means and the understanding to not be helpless and hostage to them. And I knew it because my wise and dedicated teachers drilled that way of looking at the world into me. I learned my tribal superstitions were not the immutable laws of physics. The world looked different depending on where, when, how and who looked at it, like the parable of the blind men and the elephant. I was a lucky man to know that, and I knew that too.

There was no conspiracy of evildoers out to destroy the world, and certainly no corps of noble heroes determined to stop them. People were just trying to live their lives, some good, some bad, most somewhere in between. The world was not out to get me, but neither was there an army of the virtuous I could join, (in spite of the adolescent idealism of the time), but we could play a role in our own future, or as the slogan of the day shouted, "Seize the Time!". But I also learned that sometimes you have to pick sides.

Everything happens for a reason, but nothing happens for a purpose. And as I mentioned, I got plenty of opportunities to put into practice what I was learning. During the years I was a student, I also at various times served in my country's armed forces, lived and worked all over this country, (as well as overseas), made lifelong friends, mastered a blue collar trade while I prepared myself for a white collar profession, took the sea for a lover and lived for a year with a woman ten years younger than I was. I got a great education, and I got plenty of OJT in the real world to complement it.

The world changed a great deal in my third decade. It went from a society that had separate rest rooms and water fountains for colored people, where prayers in the schools were mandatory and where you were forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance until it became a meaningless string of syllables; to one where young people could challenge the President of the United States and demand him to stop a stupid, pointless war they had to fight. I realize there are forces of reaction today that are nostalgic about that world, but I for one can report that with all our problems today, there has indeed been progress. Pay attention, you nattering nabobs of negativism! You can never go back. Deal with it.

Its tough for young people today, times are hard and they are pressured to go into debt to learn a pointless profession they may loathe, and which they have no guarantee of ever even practicing. The university today is designed to teach you what you need to know, or what others think you need to know, not how to think and learn for yourself. But I don't think it can deliver on any one of those promises. Maybe its all someone's fault. Then again, maybe its just how things have worked out.

I cringe at the boasts of modern for-profit schools who brag you can study "on-line, at home, at your own pace, in your own time". I can't think of a more sterile or hostile environment in which to educate free men, or a worse place to communicate the accumulated wisdom of the species. The university is one of Western Man's major contributions to world civilization. It should never become merely a trade school for technocrats or a charm school for the children of merchants.