496
PARTISAN REVIEW
From Fraternities to World-Class Education
In
Plato's Cave. By Alvin Kernan. Yale University Press.
$30.00.
Is
THERE ANYTHING
about the sorry state of our universities we don't
know? What could Alvin Kernan possibly add to our catalogue of com–
plaints? Not much, to be sure. All professors have their anecdotes and
accounts of disaster, of high standards gone astray, of precious knowl–
edge lost. And they recognize the foolishness of nostalgia and sentimen–
tality. College administrators supposedly are more hard-nosed, yet are
legend for their fiascoes and failures, their blathering and blundering.
What then is this burnt-out English professor-who went to Williams
College on the G.I. Bill of Rights, and then received his graduate edu–
cation at Yale University-and sometime administrator able to add to
the story of the decline and fall of the American university?
The tale is in the telling, in Kernan's erudite way of examining his
charmed life in line with that of his academic career, in his subjective
experiences that, simultaneously, convey as much about the changes in
our elite institutions as about himself.
In
the process, he demonstrates
rather subtly how it has become possible for the U.S. to be swimming
in affluence, and in concern for its children-from its infants to its
post-graduates-while cheating them of their heritage. Yes, we still
claim that in our country everything is possible, that the future looms
large and promising.
When we look at the statistics, we focus on our achievements by
recounting that between
1960
and
1997,
college enrollment has gone
from
3.5
million to
12.5
million, women's share has jumped from
37
percent to
55.5
percent, federal aid to students has increased from
300
million to
12
billion dollars a year, college faculty has swelled from
235,000
to
900,000,
and all high school graduates-of whatever color
or race-who aspire to some sort of higher education can get it. And so
on. But why then, amidst all of this abundance, do we have so many
illiterate and uneducated young people?
From the wreckage of Nagasaki, Kernan arrived at Williams College.
There, he immersed himself in Anglo-Saxon literature, learned about
fraternity and college rites, and, like
F.
Scott Fitzgerald, discovered that
family, money, looks, athletic ability, and personality were all determi–
nants of success. To the young Kernan, the faculty seemed incredibly
successful and sophisticated. Though rarely critical or adventurous
thinkers, they made the classics come alive, and did not seem unhappy
