Words Worth Noting - October 10, 2021

He contrasts the cynical modern student with the mediaeval counterpart struggling to reach Padua by mule “with earnest, brown eyes hungered with the desire to know. And in his hand a vellum-bound copy of Thomas Aquinas written in long hand… the Padua student wanted to know: not for a qualification, not because he wanted to be a pharmaceutical expert with a municipal licence, but because he thought the things in Thomas Aquinas and such to be things of tremendous import.”

“The Apology of a Professor” in Stephen Leacock Social Criticism: The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice and Other Essays (Leacock adds “They were not; but he thought so.”)