Today, universities are educating one-dimensional professionals. Concerning John Stuart Mill’s advice, universities don’t get it:
Men are men before they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manufacturers; and if you make them capable and sensible men, they will make themselves capable and sensitive lawyers or physicians. What professional men should carry away with them from an University, is not professional knowledge, but that which should direct the use of their professional knowledge, and bring the light of general culture to illuminate the technicalities of a general pursuit. (Page 4 in: Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St. Andrews. Feb 1st 1867, by John Stuart Mill, Rector of the University. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer. 1867. 32pp.)
For a brief biography of John Stuart Mill, click here.
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