It is the Zeitgeist which impels our students to a profound reverence for acquisitiveness. Not that the universities fail to assist in this. The universities, too, have been swimming with the tide. It is not merely religion from consideration of which undergraduates are distracted by such unacademic antics. All thought about ultimates suffers together.
Philosophy is disparaged.
Even science itself has come to appear to the student eye not so much a method of arriving at truth as a means to an end, which end is the larger production of things and the mightier accumulation of cash. Science can be exploited, and is therefore to be respected. That is the simple and ugly explanation of a large part of student loss of faith in God and spiritual culture. There is something cancerous in higher education as we have it in America. Perhaps the tissue has become diseased from too rapid growth and too rich food.