When Rumplestiltskin graduated from high school he was very wise in the ways of the world, and he knew what he wanted. Since Harvard was supposed to be a center of worldly wisdom, he came to Cambridge bent upon improving his mind.

It took him four short years to discover that Harvard, wise as it was, had no idea what his mind was like, and so was utterly incapable of improving it. It took him a lifetime to discover that he was equally ignorant of himself, and was equally incapable of directing destiny.

Out of this vast mass of ignorance about people arose the arrogance which led Rumplestiltskin to all his sorrow. For both he and the University entertained theories about who he was and what he might become. And so they both imagined him as somebody he was not, and then tried to reconstruct him in the new image.

The object of all these efforts was the acquisition of a liberal education--an undefined product which has replaced God as a name for what we want but have not got. The pamphlet said that he was being trained to apply general knowledge in particular situations, and President Pusey told him that he was being trained to read books and defend the community of learning against the attacks of antiintellectuals. Unfortunately, nobody told him how or why these things could or should be done. Perhaps that was why, four years later, Rumplestiltskin graduated as puzzled and lost as when he had arrived, still trying to improve his mind in order to define and live the good life. Perhaps too that was why, a few years later, he decided that he was permanently lost, and jumped out of a hotel window in Biarritz in order to define himself.

When asked about Rumplestiltskin, the Dean said, "He graduated before the new General Education Program, and thus was never exposed to Harvard's broadening influence."

The Superintendent's Story

Another summary came from his House superintendent, a friend, "He was a queer guy. He got all mixed up with all these homosexuals and atheists. He got himself all screwed up thinking too much. I mean he never had a date because he was always too worried about something. Sometimes I'd give him advice or tell him he ought to go to church, but he never listened. I guess they taught him to be independent. He couldn't listen. I guess he always had the idea that he had something to say that was too important to listen. He kept saying he was gonna think things through, but the more he thought, the worse it got."

But the superintendent's comment is less helpful than the Dean's. The Dean's notion that a college could make a man more than he is born was perhaps foolish, but it is a part of an endless effort. First there were parents, then there was God, and now there are educators, all trying to refashion men.

Perhaps the Dean was trying to say that there is a pattern of life which is contagious, a way of thinking and feeling which will occasionally rub off if there is sufficient enforced exposure, and that in some mysterious way people will be the better for acquiring this habit. At least this seems to be the theory behind both the maze of often contradictory demands made upon Harvard undergraduates, and the claims made by administrators.

The nature of that pattern, ambiguous though it is, is perhaps best seen by looking at what Harvard demands of its students, for Harvard's only working definition to "a liberal education" is found in the requirements which are imposed upon its students.

Harvard's first demand upon Rumplestiltskin was excellence in whatever he did. He was supposed to do everything well, and always to try to do it better.

But the Harvard version of excellence was a bit peculiar. It was competitive. Nothing was excellent if it could be excelled. The measure of excellence was never Rumplestiltskin, but rather a metaphysical absolute variously identified as "Veritas", (in academic work), "professional competence" (in extracurricular activities), and "intelligence" (in social situations).

Perhaps one of his difficulties was that he soon discovered that he was not among the very few among any generation who are granted the ability to become "the very best", and that he was, therefore, never quite an courant with today's vision of truth.

It was only natural that he should meet this failure with the technique Harvard taught him--rationalization. It was the work of a few minutes to convince himself that so long as excellence remained unattainable, it was also ultimately undesirable.

Peculiar Sort of Excellence