3 Randall Jarrell Quotes on Education

Randall Jarrell quotes on education

4. One of our universities recently made a survey of the reading habits of the American public; it decided that forty-eight percent of all Americans read, during a year, no book at all. I picture to myself that reader - that non-reader, rather; one man out of every two - and I reflect, with shame: 'Our poems are too hard for him.' But so, too, are Treasure Island, Peter Rabbit, pornographic novels - any book whatsoever.

23. The faculty - insofar as they were real Benton faculty, and not just nomadic barbarians - reasoned with the students, 'appreciated their point of view,' used Socratic methods on them, made allowances for them, kept looking into the oven to see if they were done; but there was one allowance they never under any circumstances made - that the students might be right about something, and they wrong.

53. I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can't read any poetry.