----- Original Message ----- Joseph Catron asks:
> Isn't the practical effect of existing university education
> to goad students into self-learning: finding, comparing,
> analyzing, and mastering relevant materials independently?
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When I went to school I considered the given subject/curriculum/textbooks as starting points, not as a complete menu. So, for example, if I had a class whose reading text was based on Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism," in addition to reading the text, I would also read Frye's book. Apparently, I was the only one who did. In grad school, though I had completed my foreign language requirements, I also learned Latin and Greek, because it seemed to me crucial if I wanted to be a scholar of the Renaissance. Etc., etc.
I was deeply curious about the categories that were handed to me as eternal and the jargon that was pushed as real, so I never stopped looking. I don't think this is very common. It would be good to understand why.
Joanna