Liberal learning is that which underlies, that which gives purpose and direction to practical skills. It tries to distinguish between the more and the less important, between the grand and the trivial, and to concern...

But it seems to me inevitable that any person who gives thoughtful and imaginative attention to literature must be awakened in his sensibilities, enlarged in his sympathies, sharpened in his critical faculties.

The truth is that our enjoyments and our evaluations, like our trades, are learned; intensive knowledge, as well as extensive, is acquired. We learn how to value possessions as well as how to make them;...

We want not only life but an intense awareness of being alive. The large tendency of our mechanical and standardized civilization is to blunt that awareness by surrounding us with ideas and forms that require...

What, to many, passes for thought, is usually a compound of prejudice, desire, and whim.

Make a better mousetrap and the world will know it; it can measure and applaud your skill. Make a better man and the world will say he did it himself.

Our professional competence and pride should rest not alone in our possession of knowledge but as well in our ability to communicate it. Of course we shall carry on our research, and of course we...

Do you think that romantic love is natural; that the life of trade is honorable; that freedom of worship is desirable? Very likely you think none of those things; you have uncritically absorbed them, and...