Education: The Last Dike

With the growing demand for higher education and the resulting need for more teachers, the liberal-arts graduate school should beware of two tempting solutions: the lowering of standards and haphazard expansion. Last week, in his first report as dean of the Graduate Faculties of Columbia University, Historian Jacques Barzun warned: "As the highest institution of learning, the graduate school suddenly finds that it may soon become the last dike in the flood. Elsewhere, the diluting of quality may do limited or temporary harm. Not at the top. Somewhere the idea of scholarship must...