I wrote this last night, but it bounced. 150 years ago school children were generally elites who memorize Latin and Greek. In the interim, we have been moving more toward changing universities into trade schools. The sort of experience that Bill Lear described about learning about Chomsky was more common in the 60s and 70s than at any time in history. Because of the turmoil in society and because the trade school system had not become so firmly implanted yet, we got to teach courses like ethnic studies, Marx ..... Today, such course appear as absurdities to the general public. Some schools still tolerate them, but fewer and fewer do so. Today, my students work around 15 hours per week to support themselves. They have poor preparation, and they realize what lies ahead for them. Even if they were be able to memorize all the information we feed them, the recruiters that go to Stanford will still not come up to visit my students. My job is comparable to a USDA beef inspector. If I get to make a couple of students excited each semester, I consider that to be a sucess. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
