Education is good for individuals, institutions, and civil society. Education is a public as well as a family responsibility, which both public and private institutions must meet. This obligation has moral, social, cultural, and financial dimensions. Research matters as well as teaching. We must extend the philosophical and intellectual legacy that encourages us to search for knowledge as energetically, even as relentlessly, as possible.
Education is a source of hope for people and society.
All were eloquent, but President Simmons movingly evoked a picture of education as a source of hope. Education, she said, had been essential for her, the youngest child of a large, black sharecropper's family, who had become the first black president of one of the Seven Sister colleges. Now she stood behind the podium in Rockefeller University to inspire an audience of men and women of all races with her reminder of what a force for good education can be. Please do not mistake my final words. I believe in private institutions, fiscal accountability for all institutions, and the free market, albeit a market with a well-woven security net.