The Core Blog

The Core presents some excerpts from Bertocci's work:

"When I went to the College of Liberal arts of Boston University I accepted its tradition on faith, that is, my friend Chapman's faith and my faith in my friend. I somehow got the feeling that the spirit at Boston University was in tune with the mission, the working class, even the immigrant. The discovery of a tradition is like interpretation in a complex poem. The meanings and values discovered on the deepest levels depend to a larger extent than generally acknowledged on the character and gifts of the interpreter.” (153)

“Boston University is connected, even today, in my imagination, peculiarly with the American city, and the economic, social, and spiritual ferment of the ‘working’ and ‘lower middle classes’ with their large admixture of the ‘newer Americans.’ I like to think of it as taking their educable children ‘where they are’ and, without debasing it, translating for them into forms and processes more directly useful to them the essential spirit of liberal education. This is the most difficult of enterprises; it requires mediation without yielding on essentials. Administration and faculty must learn how to make the most of limited means under the pressure of ever-increasing demands. They must preserve the integrity of scholarship while adapting it to a amore work-a-day atmosphere, to be hospitable to every form of usefulness, to every activity that makes for the student’s balanced growth while maintaining the emphasis on the things of the mind. Scholarship of high quality must combine with skill in teaching and sympathy for the student. One has to teach hard. This is the special task not only of Boston University, but of any city university with a large number of commuting students. One runs the risk of the ‘educational factory,’ but certain risks go with democracy itself, and likewise democracy in education. Such an educational enterprise, on the whole successful, is one of the encouraging proofs of the practicability of the American conception of democracy.” (154)

“A philosophy of education means a philosophy of man!” (156)

“The sense of responsibility and freedom of the intellect even in what mattered most to me, religion – on these two themes my college life was founded” (156)