"I think that very good students always find out what they need t know," Vendler adds. "They oddly find themselves migrating into Bible classes or Latin classes."

No common cultural Legacy

Although professors say they do not want to mandate specific bodies of knowledge, they fear that students no longer have a solid grounding of common cultural legacies.

Appiah worries that when he alludes to the Bible during lecture, students look at him blankly.

"I think that it's good to have a sense of the Old Testament, not because I'm a religious person, but because I'm...worried when I make a reference to something I take to be common knowledge aboutjob's patience or Daniel in the lion's den andfind I'm talking to someone who doesn't know whatI'm talking about," Appiah says.

Some professor say students should come tocollege already knowing the basic tenets toWestern thought.

"The university is too late, entirely toolate," Vendler says. "Any ideal university will bewelcoming at its entrance people whose memorieshad already been superbly trained."

But professor admit that most high schools donot give students such a grounding.

When Pipes was conducting interviews for hisfreshman seminar on Russian intellectual history afew years ago, he grilled 100 students applyingfor 10 or 12 places.

"I didn't ask them anything about theirknowledge of Russia," pipes says. "I did askeveryone what classics of Western literature theyhad read."

A few had read Crime and Punishment but"they read it more as a thriller," Pipes says.Some of those who had taken French had readMadame Bovary. But none of them had readDickens, Tolstoys, Salinger or Kafka, Pipes says.

"I was very upset by that," Pipes says. "Theseare a self-selected group of freshman who have aninterest in intellectual history. What can you dowhen they don't know these things?"

A policy of Inclusion

Although professors say they regret students'lack of familiarity with many classical texts,they say that in college, students should beintroduced to different perspectives.Incorporating contemporary views into coursesyllabi, for example, can only enrich thetraditional canon, they say.

"There has been no loss of respect for what youcall the traditional Western canon, nor any sensethat we should degrade it in any way," saysProfessor of Education Richard Light.