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C00002 00002	Inspirational lecture to Stanford Students
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Inspirational lecture to Stanford Students

	Officials of universities have to be politicians, because they
have many constituencies to live with.  It is therefore customary
for them to emphasize the parallel interests of these constituencies
and to ignore the differences.  We shall try to tell some truths
about Stanford (and other major universities) that the officials
will ignore and perhaps not even think about.

1. There are differences in interest between the faculty and the
students, especially at a major research university like Stanford.
It would be best for the students, at least for the present generation
of students, if the faculty were to completely devote themselves to
teaching.  We won't do it, because most of us came to Stanford
and were selected by Stanford, because of our contributions to
research and our interests in making further contributions.
The balance of effort between teaching and research is made by
each faculty member.  Of course, success in research improves
teaching, but the improvement would be greater if the effort
were put directly into teaching.

2. It is in the interest of the country that there be research
universities that combine research, graduate teaching and undergraduate
teaching.

3. There are colleges that concentrate entirely on teaching.  Why
then should an undergraduate attend Stanford where the efforts of
the faculty are divided?  One reason is that on the average the
faculty at Stanford are smarter and more energetic than those at
colleges.  This is because the smartest and most energetic people
like making contributions to knowledge.  As a result many innovations
in education itself are made at research universities and only
slowly spread to the colleges.  Many students benefit from contact
with the most outstanding professors.  Since both colleges and
research universities attract students, it seems likely that no
one pattern best suits all students.

However, the Stanford student must accept the fact that teaching
him is only one of the professors' interests.

4. Expecting to be inspired by the faculty is a very chancey business.
We have not been selected for our inspirational qualities, and indeed
no-one knows how to select for that.  However, if a student wants
to learn a subject taught here, he is very likely to find that the
professors know it very well and are anxious to impart that knowledge.
You can learn physics from our physicists, mathematics from our
mathematicians and computer science from our computer scientists.
If you want to know about English literature you can also know
that.  While the professors are usually enthusiastic about their
subjects, the effort they will make to impart this enthusiasm to
you is quite variable.  Moreover, even when they try, the results
are uncertain.

You had better provide your own motivation.  If you have it, you
can probably learn what you want even when the professors don't
do an optimal job.  After all, the principal means of communication
of knowledge is through books and journals.  That's how the professors
get almost all of their knowledge, and the student can also get it
by reading.

Many of the professors are people who as students were almost
indifferent to the quality of teaching, because they learned
mostly by self-selected reading.  This is part of the reason
why we have difficulty understanding students who have to be
sold knowledge.