That presence, invisible but real, is my best argument for why place matters. Online learning may someday enhance the lives of millions of people who might not otherwise have access to education. This is an unquestionable good, but it is no substitute for the real thing. The distance deprives the learning of part of its intangible essence: history, beauty, continuity, the reassuring fastness of centuries-old bricks. “Distance learning” may be an inevitable part of the future, but the keepers of this great old college must safeguard our ties to the past, our beautiful walls of ghosts.
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Adam A. Sofen ’01, a history and literature concentrator in Pforzheimer House, was an executive editor of The Crimson in 2000.