University of Virginia Library

Duke President Hits
Critics Of Education

Terry Sanford, president of Duke
University and former Governor of North
Carolina, lashed out Friday against those
in society who turn "their confused
resentment" against higher education.

"Led by some of our highest
government officials," Mr. Sanford said,
"they have labeled 'campus unrest' as a
bigger problem than any of its causes,
thus diverting not only attention but
constructive effort away from the root
problems."

"We must not allow the institutions of
higher education to accept this slander without
response," he advised the closing session of the
American Council on Education meeting. "We
must get off the defensive," he added, "and we
must assume the offensive now."

Expresses Optimism

Mr. Sanford expressed optimism about the
future, in contrast to the feelings of some of
his colleagues here, whose colleges are beset
with financial and political difficulties. The
speaker's feeling was based on what he detected
as a greater sophistication among both college
administrators and students.

The problem, he said, was the assault from
without and to illustrate this he drew an
unflattering parallel between Vice President
Agnew and Shakespeare's Richard II, whose
country was waging an expensive foreign war
while dissent grew at home.

Without naming Mr. Agnew, Mr. Sanford
spoke of Richard's tendency to "seize on a
minor event and balloon it up with the hot air
of his rhetoric, until he is satisfied that it looks,
or at least sounds, important" and to call his
critics fools and traitors.

Similarly today, he continued, restlessness
has emerged from the need for social reform,
and the Government has reacted abrasively to
warning and criticism, much of which has come
from the college campuses.

Mr. Sanford defended this role of higher
education. He said, "Universities collectively
are the alarm clock that goes off in the early
morning of a new historical era, allowing our
society time enough to get dressed and eat
breakfast before it goes forward to cope with
its own transformations."

But, he continued, "instead of taking
advantage of that early warning, society — or at
least some of its leaders — would rather lie in
bed at high noon pretending that morning has
not yet come, and ranting against the alarm
clock for not allowing it more time to sleep."

Upholds Freedom

Society can ill afford the "discrediting of
the entire academic community," the Duke
president argued, because society must depend
on the "humanitarian and intellectual
resources" of the universities to lay the
groundwork for social change. This concept was
questioned here yesterday by Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, counselor to President
Nixon. Urging college officials to take
the offensive, Mr. Sanford said:

"Unlike some other institutions of American
life, we are reluctant to counter-attack, or to
call on political or other allies to avenge our
injuries. And yet, unless our colleges and
universities remain solvent and viable, as well as
free, we should all fear for the future of
American society."