How to nurture moral activity

We can cultivate the spirit of liberal learning only through the selection and nurture of faculty who regard teaching as a moral activity. But that brings up a caution: The nurture of the intellectual development of others involves a fragile relationship and an awesome responsibility. The role of the faculty is not proselytizing. Moral development ought to be the byproduct rather than the purpose of our teaching.

Yet, without acknowledgment of the moral dimensions of our world, we risk creating informed cynics and critics who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

From a Nov. 15, 1986, address at Harvard University by Frank Rhodes, president of Cornell University and the American Council on Education.