The Internet, Conversational Communities, and the Future of Planning

Nelson R. Kellogg, Ph.D. Associate Prof., Interdisciplinary Studies Hutchins School of Liberal Studies Sonoma State University

Summary

This paper finds that "conversation" will soon become the killer application of the internet. With the emergence of more local community networks will come whole electronic villages. Planners must, according to the author, take advantage of this technology and change the way they practice.

here was a time in American history historians and historians of science, but even when the idea prevailed that every sec­ mentioning this debate would have little prac­ T tor of society could solve its problems tical importance except that there is an impor­ by implementation of something like the sci­ tant lesson embedded in this history of these entific method. This idea did not come out of professions. There was a time when every­ the pure science disciplines, like astronomy, one in the Western world DID know what an biology, chemistry or physics. Rather, it came engineer was, and probably even knew a few out of the engineering professions, the particu­ of them by name. The grand period of engi­ lar American system of manufacturing, and the neering, roughly from the mid-nineteenth cen­ Industrial Revolution itself. tury through the first few decades of this cen­ tury, saw some of the most magnificent under­ Popular culture often finds it difficult to makes takings that changed the physical world, in a distinctions among the terms science, engineer­ scale and scope unlike anything seen, and so ing, and technology, and that is no great won­ impressive to appear almost magical. der. In corporate, government, and even uni­ versity research facilities the positions occu­ This was the time when monumental (in every pied by degreed scientists are often inter­ sense of the word) public and commercial en­ changeable with colleagues with degrees in terprises riveted the world's attention, and related engineering fields, and the general pub­ drew encomiums from authors, journalists, and lic has even greater difficulty assessing en­ politicians that were truly epic, even religious, deavors concerned with applications of known in tone. Buildings defied gravity and dashed principles and excursions into the unknown. the hubris we were supposed to have learned At a philosophical level, this question of dis­ from the Tower of Babel. Dams really could tinction remains. And, in general, things tech­ be constructed to hold back the mightiest of nical generally get thrown in a box that the lay­ rivers. The western hemisphere could be cut person calls "science." in half by a canal, linking entire oceans. A transoceanic cable could allow contact across This can be an interesting matter for cultural the Atlantic in a fraction of a second. Rail- 177 roads crossed America, Europe, and Asia, promise could be struck between the city and linking (in transport) the world with a speed the wilderness. That compromise, known as and efficiency impossible by any other means. the pastoral ideal, was not assured to be a In 1904 New York City, the greatest commer­ stable entity as by some law of nature, but was cial city in the world, opened its Interborough premised upon a constant vigilance by a Rapid Transit system, the subway, to the pub­ nation's ENTIRE population to keep industri­ lic. That act forever changed New York and alization and the resulting urban blight at bay, its environs, but beyond that the very exist­ while at the same time assuring economic vi­ ence of this subterranean system drew millions ability in the Industrial Revolution. of riders who thrilled at the very act of hur­ tling through the earth. This philosophical debate became all too real as America entered the last decades of the Those who led these enterprises were nineteenth century. What was once an aca­ olympian figures in popular culture. These demic discussion of society's futures, by the chief engineers, these heroic engineers, as his­ 1890s, had become a chorus of shrill voices torians would later categorize them, were seen demanding immediate action. And so, at the as wizards who remade the world for the ben­ tum of the century, we entered one of the most efit ofhumanity. fascinating periods of American political, cul­ tural, and social history, which we call the Pro­ Given the times and contexts, it would be sur­ gressive Era. Historians have wrestled mightily prising if these stunning reconfigurations of the with this period. At first blush it seems highly physical world, or, as an anthropologist might enigmatic. Nearly every sort of initiative arises say, "these facts on the ground," did not in­ during these first few decades ofthe twentieth spire entire populations to think that absolutely century: major political reform; women's suf­ nothing was impossible, so long as there were frage; religious movements turned toward so­ sufficient will, resources, imagination, and cial movements; child labor laws; prohibition; great technical leaders who would not quail in Jane Addam's Hull House; sanitation stan­ the face of the greatest challenges. And if these dards; government activism in industrial effi­ heroic engineers were indeed wizards, their art ciency; natural resources management; immi­ was not occult, but it was based upon reason gration reform; and even the American eugen­ and knowledge. Most important, it repre­ ics movement! sented the most exquisite facility in futurism, or as we may call it: planning. When viewed through the lens of contempo­ rary socio-political events (perhaps the big­ When the Industrial Revolution began tore­ gest flaw in trying to understand the veal its more insidious effects upon human Progressives) it is difficult to find a common beings, both among the workers and the popu­ thread among all this commotion that could, in lation at large, there was a great hue and cry 1910, be embraced within the platform of one to do something, anything, before it was too party. By today's lights, many of these move­ late. Even at the time of Jefferson's adminis­ ments would seem antithetical to each other. tration, Manchester, England was seen as the Some would be characterized as today' s left most miserable shadow-side ofthe factory era. wing agenda, while others look more like fas­ Squallor, disease, crime, broken families, and cism. A few scholars have concluded that, environmental pollution were blatantly appar­ indeed, there is no binding thread except for ent to all who visited this hothead of the in­ the qualities of motion, action and reaction, cipient industrial age, and the great politician­ and reform as a newly-discovered, universal philosophers of the day wondered if any com- cause. 178 There is something binding these various and, in the physical sciences and engineering. at times, centrifugal activisms. That "some­ Herbert Hoover, our first President profes­ thing" is the grand and strenuous visions and sionally trained as an engineer (and our only accomplishments of the heroic engineers. engineer-President until Carter) moved aggres­ From the most breathtaking of civil engineer­ sively to make the federal government a player ing feats to the productive power of the as­ in science, engineering, and industrialization at sembly-line, the industrial age was creating large. Needless to say, this was also the time facts and artifacts both unimaginable and un­ when urban planning, by teams of proper gov­ deniable to entire cultures. One of the early ernment experts, rose to prominence. The first signatures of the symbolic power of the engi­ National Conference on City Planning was neering mentality was the conviction that hu­ held in 1909. man beings could be similarly engineered, that it was not materiel only whose processes could Problems with the Revolution be maximized. When we look today at Frederick W. Taylor's "Principles of Scien­ The 1960s witnessed major blows against the tific Management," we are at once impressed, establishment ofthe experts. Urban Planning, and also chilled by the efficiency methods for and its more aggressive stepchild, urban re­ regulating labor that were so revolutionary, newal, saw challenges both philosophical and and, so indifferent to the object of manage­ physical. Every sort of social interest and un­ ment: human beings. Taylor's disciple, Frank rest found focus in the political rhetoric of the Gilbreth, expanded on these ideas with minute "slum," "ghetto," or the later overarching ru­ "time and motion" studies of manual labor that, bric, the "inner city." indeed, make the worker literally no more than a cog in the machinery of production. While presidential candidates stood behind mi­ crophones decrying the plight of urban cen­ But let us not make the mistake of seeing these ters, cities burned. The response was an in­ innovators as extremists in their own time. The tensification of the application of expert symbols of industry, factory, production, and knowledge not far removed from the vision of the shadow of the grand engineering projects Frederick W. Taylor and the engineered or­ infected the entire culture. It was, after all, der for efficiency on the factory floor. The Frank Gilbreth and his wife Lillian who wrote "Projects" as these solutions are cumulatively "Cheaper by the Dozen," a book extolling the known, are often far more dehumanizing and efficiencies of a large household. In fact, these poisonous than the disordered array of sub­ were the years that brought forth such school standard housing they replaced. subjects as "home economics." Popular maga­ zines were filled with articles for maximizing In 1971 Robert Goodman, planner and pro­ efficiency in the home, in the school, and ev­ fessor of architecture at MIT, published a tren­ erywhere else. chant, revolutionary manifesto called "After the Planners." In this monograph Goodman It is also during this time when the process of recounts personal experience, as a planner/ public government was largely reconstructed social-advocate in Boston, the harrowing ex­ as a technocratic exercise, best understood perience of trying to promote the interest of and run by teams of experts. This was the citizens in redevelopment projects, and he uses time when the National Bureau of Standards this launching point to describe just how pow­ (now, the National Institute for Standards and erful is the combination of entrenched design Technology) was inaugurated and grew to be by expert panels, and the built facts on the the world's largest federal research laboratory ground. It is written in the social revolution- 179 ary language of the day, and in his last chapter selectivity of decisions), and "performance" Goodman advocates "guerilla architecture" as (the result of scores and the expression of pro­ one means to break the cycle of oppressive cess). Halprin considered this method to be planning without regard to the wishes of the useful to the layperson, and even had a class citizens. of grade school children use it for a local plan­ ning exercise. He also emphasized, and this There is a gaping question that remains after is most important, that this method was a PRO­ reading Goodman, however. How does one CESS, not a simple reductive method for democratize planning in a world ofmulitplying quickly hitting on one, inevitable and static, technical concerns? For Goodman, the solution for planning. This method is heuris­ method he and others used in the mid-1960s tic. In short, it is a dance. was a lot of hard footwork. There was the walking through neighborhoods and knocking The problems of dissemination and appropria­ on doors, and the neighborhood mass meet­ tion still remain. How would one (or many) ings. Goodman's job (acting as both planner get ANY method for involving great numbers and social advocate and activist) was achingly of American citizens to take part in thinking difficult, and so would any planner trying to about their desires for future built environments follow in those footsteps. He or she had to out to the populace? Planning, by definition, try to connect with all the inhabitants, under­ means thinking about the future, and that is an stand and find themes in the concerns of those exercise requiring intelligence, technical skill, people, use all the technical skill of the pro­ imagination, and most of all vision. This kind fessional planner to both schematize these felt of thinking is most difficult, and it is one rea­ needs and make the outcomes comprehensible son why professional planning, despite its an­ to the layperson, and continue this complex tidemocratic potentials, has been indispensible and exhausting dialogue with bureaucrats and to our culture, and always will be. technocrats operating under the old mentality of outside experts, all the while working with Indeed, it is much more natural (and popular) for no hope of actually having more humane solu­ people only to notice their physical environment tions accepted. Even the strongest and most when it exhibits radical and rapid change, rather altruistic soul would soon whither under such than to respond to any inherent qualities that have a crushing mental, psychic, and physical de­ existed for some time. As a result, the most likely mand. kind of interplay between the act ofprofessional planning and the public is reactionary on the part Two years before Goodman's book, west of the public. Laypersons are much more likely coast planner Lawrence Halprin published to respond negatively, with what they don't want "The RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the (change) than they are to participate in forward­ Human Environment." Halprin's technique for looking envisioning. This is understandable, given planning combined data acquisition and dis­ our history of imposed fiat by technical experts play on a very human scale. In fact, his dia­ and the annonymity oftwentieth century citizen­ grams look very much like choreography (the ship. This reactionay, incoate fight-or-flight re­ work of his wife, noted San Francisco chore­ sponse is easy grist for town hall meetings, but it ographer Ann Halprin is used in developing will no longer do for our society or others. the method), or the grahpical musical scores of the Bauhaus experimentalists. The acro­ Real Visions and the Future of Planning nym, RSVP, stands for "resources," scores" (process leading to performance), "valuaction" As we near the turn of the millenium an essen­ (analyzes the results of action and possible tial mentality has emerged. It goes under many 180 titles, not all identical in scope. Sustainable facturing inventories, word processing, and futures, global scoiety, and the postmodern desktop publishing. But the market for the world are a few of the operant names. We home was lacking a truly needed application, live in a time of epochal transitions. What is except for taking work home from the office. certain is change. As the information economy The advertisements now seem beyond quaint, continues to permeate (and in areas supplant) and rather ridiculous. I should buy a home production economies of the second and third PC to store recipes and balance my check­ worlds, the physical locality of producers and book? Even the computing intensive applica­ markets becomes first blurred and then irrel­ tions like video games never stood a chance evant. Yet we all are still left with the very when faced with the much cheaper and more real questions of where and how we will live. impressive single use gaming machines con­ We all no longer have the luxury of consider­ nected to the family television. ing local solutions in vacuo. Instead, the im­ peratives of our physical environment come Then, in the late 1980s, something began to as both unparalleled opportunity and threat. happen. The PC became a communications For those who see the world as something to device. E-mail had been around since the be frozen in time, with intractable social and Internet emerged as a servant of the Defense environmental problems, that is, for those with and University research alliance in 1969. By a fortress-mentality, the coming years ap­ the mid-1980s the advent of the local area proach with dread. For those who have faith network (LAN) emerged as a message-trans­ that we, as a species are open to creative in­ fer tool without precedent in corporations and spiration, our futures are palettes and canvases various institutions throughout the U.S. We for elaborating new visions. often hold dear the idea of the garage tinkerer creating an invention that would only be rec­ One of keys for enabling the positive visions ognized for its social significance years later. to be made manifest, and indeed the key with­ But this story, of the emergence of the desk­ out which no other keys can work, is commu­ top computer as the first "many-to-many" nication. That is, communication in the deep­ communications instrument in history grew out est and richest sense, not just a proliferation of people, many people, first using this appli­ of noise for those with access to the most pow­ cation in the workplace. Even a visionary like erful presses and transmitters. And now, just Steve Jobs, often credited with a few others at the time it is most crucial, we have in our for putting these devices on our desks, did not hands such an instrument. It is in early devel­ predict that it is CONVERSATION that opment, to be sure, and its ultimate evolution would soon become, as a recent Newsweek is beyond anyone's grasp at the present, but put it, "the killer [application]" of the Internet even now the society-changing potential of revolution. computer-mediated communication (CMC) cannot be underestimated. Many readers may already see where this es­ say is going, and do not need any lecturing on Just about a decade ago, companies like IBM the meaning of"many-to-many" communica­ and Apple were trying to sell the idea of a home tion, on the mixed-media information sharing computer to a wide public. The personal com­ and archiving available with networked com­ puter had already established a strong and ir­ puters, or on the relative virtues of"real-time" reversible beachead in business. The personal versus asynchronous CMC conversations. computer was indespensible for empowering Many will also be aware that nearly every kind a broad workforce with such dedicated ap­ of information can now be had, at ever-de­ plications as spreadsheets, just-in-time manu- creasing prices and witth ever-simpler oper- 181 ating techniques, through computers utilizing CA). The most impressive aspect about this the graphical-user interface of the World Wide effort is that Mr. Kimes has made it a charter Web, the platform of choice for CMC. For condition that he will focus on outreach to those who still think of the computer as an many groups, including seniors and minorities. upscale technology requiring high tech skills, The training is bilingual. The fees range from you need to know that the entire drive of the twelve dollars per session to gratis, depend­ industry right now is to make these devices at ing upon the learner's ability to pay. least as transparent and unthreatening to use as the telephone. Web-communications de­ Okay, suppose we have a model for democ­ vices can now be had for a few hundred dol­ ratizing CMC technology. There is yet another lars, about the same price as an economy­ barrier (read, phobia). What would one talk model television. And for those who still con­ about? Suppose I enter a forum, or chat sider such devices to be beyond the reach of room, what might I say? Most people have the masses, well over ninety percent of house­ never spoken (or transmitted) in public, and holds in the United States have at least one that can be intimidating. Right now, it is true, television. Virtually anyone who wants a tele­ there are certain personality types which tend vision has one. And with a robust, emerging to dominate such public discussion spaces as business in updating and recycling computers chat rooms, and they are often adolescent and and selling them at bargain basement prices, male. This often does not make for very in­ they will only become more available. teresting discussions, except for other adoles­ cent males. But this situation is changing, and Right now household market penetration of will most rapidly evolve to enlightening and personal computers stands at forty percent in enviting discussions as we see the emergence this country. Rather than being amazed that of more and more "local community networks," the prevalence is so high, I prefer to ask the or, as I sometimes refer to them, "electronic question "why only forty percent?" Where is villages." everyone else? For one thing, I admit that the device can still be intimidating to many people. What happens to a town, community or en­ After all, a networked computer is NOT like clave when, rather than just holing-up in their a television. It is an interactive device. True, anonymous living spaces after work, people one can spend one's time simply "surfing the engage in conversation. The pace and struc­ Web," as the phrase goes, clicking open one ture of modern life has all but made that gift, site after another to find amusement and di­ taken for granted in preindustrial cultures, im­ version in new images popping up on the possible. Our communities often become screen, but often this turns less rewarding over monetary investment holding zones, rather than time. Many computers are still loaded with the conversational fabric of life. We commute gizmos and options that are not entirely intui­ to work, often leaving before light in our insu­ tive in their value to someone who has never lated steel transports and returning after sun­ used them, and there must be a felt need and down to be swallowed by our electric garage reward for bothering to acquaint oneself with door. And THAT is called the good life, if this new medium. you are among the more economically fortu­ nate. In pursuit of democratizing this technology and empowering the many, an acquaintance of mine By far the single most communal thing we do has received grant funding to inaugurate a non­ is educate our young, but even that is strug­ profit training center (Andy Kimes, director gling to keep from unravelling altogether. Not of Open Arms Computer Training in Petaluma, only do we commute (to our real neighbors, 182 our workmates), but we move so frequently with the homeless? (Yes, even the homeless for the sake of our careers that it is often "not are beginning to gain access to public conver­ worth the bother" to get to know our neigh­ sation through public computer terminals.) bors. Extended families living in reasonable How do we build constructive and thoughtful proximity is a romantic pipe dream. How can conversation, and record those thoughts so we invite people into meaningful discussions that we don't have to revisit every suggestion about things that matter, like the shape and many times over? How do we invite those direction of public life - and this of course who come from so many backgrounds, who means the design and activities of our physi­ are often certain they have nothing to say to cal spaces-ifthere isn't a public life to care those unlike themselves, so that they find re­ about? spect and comfort in being heard, or just in listening until they are ready to speak? It doesn't need to be this way. And efforts to encourage community life and spirit are find­ All ofthese qualities are possible, and areal­ ing voice in innumerable locations as thought­ ready being cultivated, in local community net­ ful individuals realize that their primary work works. Schoolchildren are already publishing in life need not be to simply maintain an eco­ their thoughts and creative projects to their nomic survival holding pattern. Ideally we districts and towns. People are already find­ ought to be working toward "conversational ing book clubs and discussion groups, with communities," where there is real commitment their neighbors, that would have been impos­ to quality oflife in the locales where we live, sible to initiate if the only solution were, first, and certainly the best expression of such con­ scheduled face-to-face meetings. Local gov­ versational communities lies in communicating ernments and agencies are already bringing far face-to-face, and working side-by-side. How more residents to the tables of meaningful par­ do we get there? Our working hours domi­ ticipation, and in the process opening up the nate our lives, and there are so many demands public sphere and increasing the confidence in on our time we consider ourselves lucky to and appreciation for those public institutions have a few hours a week without demands. and officials among the populations they serve. Besides, I have no idea what sort of work and interests others in my neighborhood would Yes, it is true, that these very same technolo­ prefer. Again, I am certain that many readers gies can allow us to communicate with con­ see where this line of reasoning is going. versationalists in distant lands whom we will likely never meet in person, and that is re­ What if there were a way for people to share markable. But more than anything else, this ideas FIRST, so that they had compelling rea­ new age ofmany-to-many communications will sons to also meet in person? Have a mass allow us to rebuild our COMMUNITIES, and meeting you say? That, unfortunately, draws to resurrect the most cherished aspects that a disproportionate population who are already determine quality of life. How do we go about not in a communitarian mindset, but rather who doing this? In my experience creating vibrant are angry and frustrated and most interested local community websites is best done locally, in being heard, rather than in having a con­ as a community project. But the content that structive conversation. Furthermore, how do goes into the different presentational and dis­ we possibly coordinate the individual sched­ cussion areas is best done group by group, ules of two wage-earner families with single­ agency by agency. parent families; of commuting professionals with swing-shift hourly workers; of the And this brings us at last to the future of pro­ priviledged with the poor; of the householder fessional planning. It would be arrogant of 183 me to presume to answer this question with tion, that today's students are apathetic, that the authority of a professional planner, for that when they do pursue a college education it is is not my line of work. I am an educator, and because they are scared into it, and that their so the reader must take my visions for what goals are for economic advancement only. they are, the words of an outsider who has And that is the picture we receive of the good been priviledged to speak to those who work students. The others, dropouts and "slack­ in another, noble, calling. I see the future of ers," don't care to play the game of competi­ planning as being even more challenging, and tion for a good career. To the extent that stu­ more rewarding, than it currently is. In point dents DO live by these assumptions, it is cer­ of fact, I see the future of planning very much tainly not because they represent an entirely as I view my own calling. new genetic strain in the species. They are the same people as are we. What they need I teach college students. I consider my posi­ is vision, just as their parents do. tion to be very nearly ideal. I teach in the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies, an inter­ Without vision we wither; we become our disciplinary degree-granting program at worst selves. One of the operating principles Sonoma State University. This revolutionary of liberal education in the 1970s was that kids program was initiated in 1969, long before I just don't understand the scale and scope of arrived, so I can't take credit for the ideas the world's problems, from population to dis­ that make up its operating principles. The ease to pollution to racism. Certainly, they basic forum for study is not the lecture hall, still need to learn and comprehend these prob­ but the seminar. I had experienced seminars lems if they are to contribute to solutions, but in my own education only at elite graduate it has NOT been my experience that they "just schools. I certainly had my doubts when I don't get it." But it is extremely unworthy of took this job that it was remotely possible to an educator to simply load up his or her stu­ take a dozen or so undergraduates, ask them dents with the worries of the world without to come prepared by reading fairly strenuous also offering both positive visions (that is tomes, and have an intelligent conversation REAL visions), as well as the ways and means about subjects as diverse as the history of eco­ that enable students to themselves become vi­ nomics, epic poetry, and the meaning of the sionaries. I consider the guiding of students Enlightenment. I am happy to report, I was in becoming visionaries themselves to be amazed to find out how well it does work, ifl, among my most important responsibilites as a as the professor, can trust in the process of teacher. students being responsible for their own edu­ cation. And that process, the seminar, is at This is where I see the planning profession its root, the natural working of a deeply moving: from mastering the tools of envision­ commited conversational community. I freely ing for their own work, to also teaching oth­ credit the insights I've described above to my ers, many others, to become empassioned and six years teaching at the Hutchins School. competent visionaries themselves expressing themselves in public conversation. Planners Still, I realize as well that my education and can no longer afford to be simply technical experience have given me knowledge and in­ experts, and I don't presume to impute that to sights that my students haven't encountered, the professional planners. But to an ever and I would be remiss ifl didn't share them greater extent than before, planning must em­ as well, giving them the freedom to accept, brace the role of humanistic intermediary, critique, or reject them. One hears all too of­ along with its traditional roles of bringing to ten, in the public press and casual conversa- bear its manifold areas of expertise. Planners 184 must become conversationalists in the very these new directions are already the facts on broadest sense. They must learn how to en­ the ground! gage the many, to teach them what may be, and to trust that this broad public can speak Biographical Note responsibly and creatively. Planners must not be the only designated visionaries, but they Nelson Kellogg received his doctorate in the must teach others how to envision. history of science from The Johns Hopkins University in 1991, the year he joined the fac­ These new channels of conversation and in­ ulty at Sonoma State University. Since arriv­ formation dissemination (CMC) must be mas­ ing at SSU he has been engaged in developing tered and continually reinvented by the plan­ pioneering new curricula for the showcase lib­ ning profession. Just consider the possibili­ eral arts degree program at SSU, the Hutchins ties we can already see, let alone those that School. Two years ago he launched an expe­ must wait for technical elaboration. It is al­ riential research seminar titled "Anatomy of a ready possible to craft virtual reality "walk Virtual Community," which was sponsored by throughs" for unbuilt physical spaces, and the California State University Chancellor's place them at the disposal of anyone who can Office. Along with a group of students from get to a library of other public venue. Soft­ that class, he formed Group One, the SSU ware companies have already produced and Electronic Villages Project. They helped plan, distributed all sorts of"envisioning" packages organize, and inaugurate a local community whereby even third-graders can try out every­ network in the town of Sebastopol, CA; and thing from designing their own towns, to meth­ Professor Kellogg has since been working ods for distance learning, to conflict resolu­ with the town of Petaluma, CA, in their elec­ tion. tronic network efforts. Dr. Kellogg has held fellowships with the Smithsonian Institution, Up to this point, professional planners often Princeton University, and the Institute ofElec­ have been society's designated visionaries, trical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). beginning with the single "heroic" engineer to the designated panels of experts mastering the Selected Bibliography arcana and technical databases needed to cre­ ate new landscapes and spaces for the use of Billington, David P. The Tower and the us all. If we are to solve our problems, re­ Bridge: the new art of structural engineer­ build our communities, and empower individu­ ing (Princton, 1985). als to create a meaningful and sustainable fu­ ture, we must invite them to the party. There Bledstein, Burton J. The Culture ofProfes­ will probably always be places for the single, sionalism: the middle class and the devel­ heroic intellect, whether the engineeer or sci­ opment of higher education in America entist, philosopher or artist. 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