"Memo to Irving Babbitt" by John Abbot Clark

Babbitt, for those uninitiated, was one of the great culture and literary critics before and after the Great War. His criticisms of American universities, schools, arts, music, and spending priorities have not diminished in wisdom since he died almost eighty years ago.

An excerpt from Clark's Memo:

'You staunchly opposed, with calm, critical incisiveness, the fallacies of so-called Progressive Education. Today, it has become quite fashionable to go around muttering that our elementary and secondary schools are prepared to do just about anything for our children except provide them with a basic education—a solid grounding in English, mathematics, history, science, and foreign languages. You courageously fought Dr. Eliot’s elective system, and chided college presidents—many of whom even in your day were quite obviously afflicted with edifice complexes—for being far more interested in making their institutions bigger rather than better, and in raising money rather than standards. We, at long last and in large numbers, have begun to worry about our huge state-supported universities, which are fast becoming educational bazaars by day and country clubs by night.'