The Virtues of Uncertainty

The search for an adequate definition of the role of higher education is being carried on today with fresh intensity. Committees and conferences, individual educators, and critics of our schools have produced a plethora of new formulations and of conference resolutions. Having myself given assent to some of these formulations at several conferences, I can testify that common acceptance of a resolution rarely signifies that unanimity of opinion has been achieved or even that the meaning of the resolution can be clearly elucidated. Let us say the conferees have come to the conclusion that the role of higher education is to transmit a heritage of culture and knowledge, to seek a factual (from a scientific viewpoint) and a spiritual (from the viewpoint of values) understanding of our present world and to prepare men and women for the most fruitful kind of lives both as individuals and

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