But, Adler suggests, we can't teach ethics that way, or the close reading of literature. We also can't teach laboratory procedures, diagnostic techniques and surgery, or dance. Instructional technology is improving so rapidly that it is possible to use all of Adler's teaching methods electronically. Indeed, in less than a generation it will be unusual for any course not to include some material that is accessed using electronic networks. Personal contact almost certainly will be possible through the mediation of electronic technology, just as it is possible today through the medium of print.
Personal exchange is a sine qua non of learning . . .
What I think we do not yet know is what ineffable educational benefits are lost when people are not in each other's physical presence. The agile institution whose faculty members are navigators and tutors will continue to make a critical contribution to advanced education to the extent that it can be the place in which the abstract can be grounded in place and practice. Some will originate instruction for broad general transmission. We shall need new ways to fund institutions. Many of them will be brokers for various instructional programs delivered electronically but may not confer many of the degrees their students earn.