Correspondence

I must know: In the essay (“The One Hundred Pages Strategy,” Christmas, 2024) on reading one hundred pages per day—a goal I am working toward—Matthew Walther mentions a park in Marquette, Michigan. I end up in that lakeside town a few weeks out of the year. Which park is it? And why should I read Aurelia there?

Sean Goodwin
Marquette, Michigan

The author replies:

The place to which I was referring is Presque Isle Park. It is perhaps the most attractive public park in the United States. As its name suggests, it is really more like a small island in Lake Superior, or, as I like to think of it, the North Michigan Ocean. I do not know the park’s history intimately, nor do I think I would wish to do so. Long ago it was a forest owned by the federal government. A local magnate, one of those forgotten tycoons whose names adorn all the public libraries and elementary schools in the Midwest, somehow wheedled the authorities into deeding the land to the city of Marquette. Later he seems to have arranged for the planting of its somewhat kitschy Lombardy Poplars.

But those are not the trees one remembers. There is something distinctly stratonic about the native flora. In the fall the maple leaves burn and die and fall in clusters like militia. One can only guess that they are protecting the deer. The great drive that runs through the park is open to automobiles, but they are also easily frightened by the local cycling ultras, to say nothing of the pedestrians (greybeards, Marxists, clergymen of various sects). There are also special Walking Hours for those who can keep track of the Byzantine schedule, which varies by day and season. The park is said to close at eleven [small caps]P.M.[end small caps], but of course everyone sleeps there. To reach the lighthouse you must navigate the mildly hazardous stone breakwall, which is very beautiful. I suppose I decided that God certainly existed one afternoon while watching the furious grey waves attempt to swallow it.

The amenities, such as they are—swings, slides, merry-go-rounds, grills—are fairly minimal. The finest pavilion is made of stone. The swimming is best at Black Rocks nearer the end of the drive, but it is too crowded; you must leave the path and drop down on the other side of the birches to some dark smooth place where there is enough room for two bathers. The water will be very cold, of course. I have never fished there, but there are always anglers about. There are strange things to be found in the center of the wood. If you want an extensive view of the place, there is a large platform. You will also want to see the grave of old Charlie Kawbawgam, the last great chief of the local Chippewas. Best of all, no dogs are allowed there except in cars, though I suppose that the exceptions for “service” animals are now widely abused, as they are everywhere. Before you go to the park you must stop at White’s on Third Street and get a bottle of something. It is a very good place to smoke, though this might technically be prohibited.

I wish I could discuss in detail the reasons why I associate Presque Isle with reading Gérard de Nerval, but in this case “I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.”

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I’ve had occasion to return to a web piece (“Note to University Administrators: Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” April 2024) by Stanley Fish because of a lecture I’m writing. I’m surprised by how much I dislike it. Fish wants to argue that universities are not in the business of solving society’s problems but in the business of education. I agree! But once we look at how he parses higher education, it turns out to be tired boilerplate about disciplinary knowledge and skills. Absolutely not!

Frankly, his vision is no different from the one provided by Louis Menand of Harvard, who decided to dress down the amazing Roosevelt Montás in the New Yorker for suggesting that a liberal education should (horror of horrors!) strive to make students more free. I hate to beat a dead horse here, but the last time I checked the model of disciplinary expert has not been so great for the humanities. So why is the old guard doubling down on it? When no one is taking history or philosophy classes, why pursue that expertise? This narrow vision of higher ed is as much of a problem as its target, the political activist model. Both of them miss the point of liberal learning. Newman is rolling over in his grave, like his master Aristotle.

And let’s look at Fish’s view of speech. Of course he’s right that disruptive speech needn’t be tolerated. But then things get very weird: Only the properly vetted voices count! Only the experts decide what speech is good! The mandarins decide! I am at pains to think of a worse view of how to think about speech on campus. Certainly it would silence nearly all conservatives, or anyone who dared to talk back to their supposed superiors. Good grief. So now we get an even clearer idea of what his vision of education is: Trust the experts, who police all norms of speech and expression. The properly vetted experts know best; follow their lead, and maybe they will decide your voice matters.

What’s the better alternative? It’s not hard: It’s the more traditional account of liberal education as the one that befits a free being human and citizen. It strives to produce not overbearing and unchecked experts but people who love wisdom and truth. Free speech and free inquiry need to be defended in service of those highest ends. A genuine liberal education will help train young people how to think and speak well according to established norms of civil and public discourse. These norms often transcend disciplinary bounds. It’s easy to overreact to what we’ve seen erupt on our campuses. But if we want to chart a better course in higher ed, we ought to rethink what the university is for and what higher education is. You have to get the fundamentals right, and Fish doesn’t. We should not need a crisis on campus to discuss these issues, near and dear to my heart and always on my mind. Anyway, since this note was written to my kind, the university administrator, I thought I’d respond. Better late than never.

Jennifer Frey
Dean of the Honors College
University of Tulsa

The author replies:

I think that the bottom-line difference between Dean Frey and me is that we have different and opposing views on the relationship between academic values and democratic values. Frey believes, as many do, that the two are closely related and even intertwined. I believe that they are distinct and intersect only occasionally and in a sense accidentally. My position rests on a definition of academic freedom that places the emphasis and weight on the word “academic,” which, to my mind, severely limits the scope of the claimed freedom. Academic freedom is the freedom to do the academic job without interference from or monitoring by external constituencies: donors, legislators, governors, churches, and parents. Notice that the list in the previous sentence does not include department chairs, deans, provosts, chancellors, and presidents; each of these is embedded inside the academic context and participates in the fashioning and enforcing of the standards appropriate to the enterprise.

What are those standards? Well, the first, and it is somewhat tautological, is that work done in the classroom and laboratory and in professional writings should be academic in spirit and execution. The academic spirit is the spirit of inquiry into a disputed issue in the humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, and mathematical/computer sciences. The questions—if you’re doing academic work and not some other kind—are just what is this thing or concept or theory; what are its moving parts; what place does it have in the tradition it attempts to alter; what relationship does it have to current and previous efforts to determine the truth of the matter? The task, in other words, is analytic and descriptive and to some extent evaluative (does this new account hold together; does it advance the conversation; is this novel innovative or just the rehearsing of familiar forms and tropes?).

If that is the task, instructors are limited in the kinds of things they can say and the concerns they can introduce. It is always possible to ask of any text or project or poem, does it advance the cause of gender equality or contribute to the building of a more inclusive society or expand the amount of freedom in the world or strike a blow against the forces of darkness? But the moment an instructor goes down any of those paths, he or she is no longer an academic but has become a political or moral agent. Being an academic means not being free to say a whole host of things lest you venture into territories and kinds of action unrelated to either your competence or responsibility.

The keeper of academic norms is not deciding what speech is good, as Frey claims, but deciding what kind of speech belongs to this practice and not to some other. So of course free speech is curtailed—as is the speech of your students, who must learn what academic inquiry is and isn’t and abide by the boundaries—but that’s okay because free speech is not the point; getting an academic handle on the object of your attention is. Your job, and here I do agree with Louis Menand, is not to make your students more free (whatever that would mean) but to make them more knowledgeable. That might seem too humble a job description for Frey. She wants to be noble. I just want to be professional.