Ebook: Youth, University and Democracy

Written a troubled half-century after the publication of Max Weber's Science as a Profession, at a time when the University, already having been jeopardized by youthful Communist and Fascist regimes, is being challenged by youth in democracies, the present essay describes the University as a classic institution for the advancement of learning in freedom. It shows how universities, developing along with constitutionalism, have protected the freedom of the individual against authoritarian popes, kings, and popular demagogues, and urges that they continue their libertarian mission in modern democracies. That mission implies maximal benefits for the community - including youth. For only free universities can serve truth, and only advancement toward the truth can satisfy the perennial quest of a traditionally confused, sad, and brave youth for clarity and bring about the kind of public good youthful idealism has always longed for.
While I fear that the University, a reflection of classic liberalism, is on the way out as constitutional government is being replaced by unlimited, social democracy, and while I deplore present deviations in universities from the ideal University, I would also warn of unwarranted denunciations of institutions which for centuries have proved useful to the progress of learning and the pursuit of happiness.
- Gottfried Dietze