Next Book: American Higher Education--A Documentary History by Richard Hofstadter

I liked Anti-Intellectualism in American Life so much that I figured I should read some more Hofstadter, so I will. I'm going to plunge into his two-volume American Higher Education--A Documentary History. I have only flipped through the pages so far, but it appears to be a lot of very short, largely self-contained chapters.  This will be interesting.

EDIT:  Oh, I see.  It's an edited collection of primary documents.  So far I'm reading documents from Harvard in the 1600's.  The ideal of higher education promoting virtue is definitely in there. Hofstadter takes pains to point out that the Puritans did want an educated clergy but they didn't only want an educated clergy.  They wanted well-read leaders in society, intellectually-grounded professionals.