Believing that “the complex and exciting organism which is a university is one of the noblest creations of the mind of man,” the President of Harvard develops his conviction in a series of pertinent and thoughtful essays. “True learning cannot go on in a vacuum,” he comments; “it is in constant interplay with society and at its center requires fundamental spiritual commitment or it is nothing.” Nathan Pusey explores the sensitive relationship between material and imaginative progress and emphasizes the need for values beyond the purely functional.

These essays have been thoughtfully selected from among the addresses delivered by President Pusey between 1953 and 1963. They include such subjects as “Freedom, Loyalty and the American University”; “Secularism and the Joy of Belief”; “Utility and the American University”; and “Science in the University.” In the course of the volume, Pusey touches on many of the fundamental problems that beset higher education in this country, but his interest is not restricted to “problems.” The essence of his purpose is to “persuade any of the unpersuaded and reinforce the conviction of the convinced concerning the worth of the university in today's world” and in developing his case he has achieved a remarkable concentration of lucidity and force.

World War II brought an end to many aspects of American college life, and the exciting years that followed were marked by activity and growth, and sometimes by dissension and disorder. Nevertheless, this postwar quarter century can be considered, according to one of those deeply involved, “the most creative period in the history of higher education in the United States.”

Nathan M. Pusey is well qualified to speak of this period since, as President of Lawrence College from 1944 to 1953 and of Harvard University from 1953 to 1971, he participated in many of the decisions that transformed American universities. In this book he deals with such crucial changes in university education as its increasing availability to a far greater percentage of an enlarged population; the broadening of undergraduate curricula; and the burgeoning of graduate degree programs and research activity. He also shows how universities supplanted colleges as trendsetting institutions and how as the United States had to assume increased international responsibilities, some of them became the world's strongest agents for intellectual advance. Throughout, his book is enriched and enlivened by his own participation and belief in the institutions he describes.

As American colleges and universities again examine their traditions and their future, Charles William Eliot's address is of special interest. His views on the aims of education, the obligations of the university, the role of the faculty, and the responsibilities of the administration make pertinent reading for those involved in the present academic situation, while his feelings about undergraduate manners and morals and about the education of women exemplify the striking changes of the past hundred years.

As Nathan Pusey notes, “Mr. Eliot speaks of university work in a way we can understand, and the sound of his inspiring phrases, although intended for another generation, comes down to us with a brightness and clarity which can be an inspiration to our time. If the true worth of a speech is to be measured by its constructive effect, President Eliot's inaugural is surely one of the very great addresses in the literature of American higher education.”