Unsettle.

Now wisdom and goodness are the aim of higher education, how can it be otherwise? Wisdom and goodness are the end of human life. If you dispute this, you are entering upon a metaphysical controversy; for you are disputing about the nature of being and the nature of man. This is as it should be. How can we consider man's destiny unless we ask what he is? How can we talk about preparing men for life unless we ask what the end of life may be? At the base of education, as at the base of every human activity, lies metaphysics.

If we can develop general education so that all advanced study will rest on a common body of knowledge, we may succeed in making our universities true communities and communities of true scholars.

If there are permanent studies which every person who wishes to call himself educated should master, then those studies should be at the center of a general education. They cannot be ignored because they are difficult, or unpleasant, or because they are almost totally missing from our curriculum today. The purpose of higher education is to unsettle the minds of young men, to widen their horizons, to inflame their intellects.

Robert M. Hutchins