Universities educate [students] to be members of a "docile, most skilled, working class."

[OHMomof2]

@katliamom

Plenty people on this forum deride majors (usually the humanities) that don’t “train” for a specific skilled jobs (usually in STEM.) Universities are simply responding to the market demands.

True. I don’t think she is saying that isn’t so, only saying it shouldn’t be that way:

Our vast educational culture is “unlike anything else in the world” and “emerged from the glorious sense of the possible, and explored and enhanced the possible through the spread of learning. If it seems to be failing now, this is true because we have forgotten what it is for,” she said.

With so much emphasis on a utilitarian education today, Robinson said, “Emerson might be surprised to find us in such a state after generations of great freedom.”

Perhaps this sort of broad education that makes a “citizen” of the sort she means is not practical for many today.

“While the citizen can entertain aspirations for the society as a whole and take pride in its achievements, the taxpayer, as presently imagined, simply does not want to pay taxes,”

^ I think she’s referring to the professions that serve society and don’t necessarily pay well here. Teaching, social work, politics?

(I also find her phrasing a little…flowery…for my taste. But she’s a writer I guess.)