A Visit to the Library
I went to my home-town of Athens, Georgia today. I’ve been going there a lot lately on business and to visit with my daughter who is a student at the University of Georgia. I am an alumni myself, having graduated from the hallowed halls of learning some decades ago. But more than that, I am from Athens Georgia. I was born there, I grew up there, only leaving in the young adulthood of my twenties.
Growing up in a university town left an indelible mark on me: a love of learning and the understanding that learning is an ongoing, lifelong process. I read voraciously. I love to do research. I try to be at least somewhat conversant in literature, poetry, art, music, philosophy, science, theology and history. A university is meant to expose one to a universe of ideas.
The modern world, driven as it is by economic forces, tends to evaluate everything in raw utilitarian terms. Put simply, what is the cost in units (earnings, expenses)? When I was obtaining my history undergrad I was asked numerous times just what was I going to do with my degree. I didn’t answer, because anyone asking the question wouldn’t understand. A university isn’t meant to teach a specific trade. A university is meant to teach critical thinking, a faculty that is, perhaps of the greatest value one can glean from any education. Am I a historian? Perhaps I am, part time. But what I learned was how to research…
