Farewell to Chicago

In the Gothic chapel of the Rockefeller-founded University of Chicago one night last week, Robert Hutchins made his farewell address, before swinging off for good to his new job with the Ford Foundation (TIME, Jan. 1). His words were not new to those who knew his record, and he did not mean them to be so; he just wanted to do a little summing-up. Said Hutchins:

"We have been struggling here to create a model university ... A model university at this time is necessarily at war with the public, for the public has little or no idea what a university is, or what it is for ...

"The whole doctrine that we must adjust ourselves to our environment, which I take to be the prevailing doctrine of American education, seems to be radically erroneous. Our mission here on earth is to change our environment, not to adjust ourselves to it. If we have to choose between Sancho Panza and Don Quixote, let us by all means choose Don Quixote . . .

"One of the most interesting questions about the higher learning in America is this: Why is it that the boy or girl who on June 15 receives his degree, eager, enthusiastic, outspoken, idealistic, reflective, and independent, is on the following Sept. 15, or even June 16, except at Chicago,* dull, uninspiring, shifty, pliable and attired in a double-breasted, blue serge suit? The answer must lie in the relative weakness of the higher education, compared with the forces that make everybody think and act like everybody else. Those forces beat upon the individual from birth . . . and constitute the [school's] greatest obstacle . . .

"I hope that you will follow the example of your university. I still think, as I have thought for many years, that the motto of the university should be that line from Walt Whitman:

"Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World."

Afterwards, there was a brief reception, orange punch, handshakes. By 11 p.m. it was all over. Said a coed: "The glory has departed."

* Hutchins humor.

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