“It was in that course I think that he developed a number of the themes some of his colleagues on the faculty didn’t like. He used to distinguish between a college education and a university education, one being the training of good citizens and the other being unvarnished truths no matter where it lead you. These two parts of education could take place within the same classroom. I always thought he had different ones of us in the class in mind as he talked about that, because there were clearly some folks more abstractly and philosophically inclined and others who were much more practically inclined, who wanted to make sure they understand what Aristotle said rather that what is was Aristotle meant.
I think that was also the class where whenever we were totally puzzled about something he gleefully said, “Gentlemen isn’t education just one big upset stomach?”
Our nickname for him was “Sparky.” It may have been the way his eyes sparkled when he got on to a subject.
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