“If only the specialist is to be allowed access to these books, on the ground that it is impossible to understand them without "scholarship," … then we shall be compelled to shut out the majority of mankind from some of the finest creations of the human mind. This is aristocracy with a vengeance.”

— Robert Maynard Hutchins

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

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Robert Maynard Hutchins 38

philosopher and university president 1899–1977

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Context: Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.
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This hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use H-bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture H-bombs as soon as war broke out, for, if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious.