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DOUBL~
troubles
go to thc moon and rcturn safely to earth. Yet he cannot
solve his own problcms of human relationships here on
earth.
WHY?
You think you know? Thc greatest minds through the
centuries have not understood. And the reason for that
fact will probably astonish you.
The Function of the University
Take a quick look at our institutions of higher
learning.
Let
me
g•ve you a few intriguing thoughts from the
mind of Dr. Clark Kerr, former President of the
University of California. He is the outstanding theore–
tician and proponcnt of a certain view of the university
of today and the future.
Universities in thc United States, he says, have not
yet developcd fuliy thcir uniquc theory of purpose and
function. The first great lransformation' in the American
university, he says, occurrcd during the Jast quarter of
the 19th century, with the injection of German intel–
lectualism and thc land grant movcment.
Jt
is now
undergoing its second great transformation. Since World
War II, the university is being called on to channel new
intellectual currents - to serve expanding needs of
government and industry.
We are becoming conscious of the question of human
survival, due to the population explosion and the ever–
iocreasing production of weapons of mass destruction.
Simultaneously we are facing a campus-enrollment
explosion. As knowledge production increases, so does
the diffusion of knowledge. Before World War 11, the
coUege-educated student was the exception. Most stopped
off with high school graduation. At the tum of the
century only
4.01%
of men aged 18 through
21
were
enrolled in colleges. That is less than one in twenty.
In California today, four out of every five hígh school
graduates seek to continue in college.
Dr. Kerr sces the function of the university as
KNOWUOGE PRODUCTION.
Knowledge, he says, is