"Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them...."
John Adams and colleagues, The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, ratified in June 1780.
"I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness."
Thomas Jefferson (in 1780s) quoted in Meacham's Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, p. 469.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Thomas Jefferson
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own governours must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
James Madison (1832) in Gaillard Hunt's The Writings of James Madison, ed., 9:103.
"A nation's present
well-being and future destiny are no longer constrained only by its 'givens' (its geography, its population, its natural resources).
Knowledge has become the prime mover; science and technology represent
the new driving force. Economic prosperity, energy supplies,
manufacturing capacity, personal health, public safety, military
security, and environmental quality --all these and more will depend on
knowledge."
Frank Rhodes, Creation of the Future: The Role of the American University. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 229.
"Knowledge
is our most important business. The success of almost all our other
business depends on it, but its value is not only economic. The
pursuit, production, dissemination, application, and preservation of
knowledge are the central activities of a civilization."
"Knowledge
is a form of capital that is always unevenly distributed, and people
who have more knowledge, or greater access to knowledge, enjoy
advantages over people who have less."
Louis Menand, The Market Place of Ideas: reform and Resistance in the American University. (New York, NY: Norton, 2010), 13.
Source:
Michael M. Crow & William B. Dabars. Designing the New American University (Baltimore, MD: Joghs Hopkins University Press, 2015). ISBN 978-1-4214-1723-3
