For some appropriate context, a quick check of the attitudes of the past concerning society in North America versus Europe is helpful, and it doesn't require yo

For some appropriate context, a quick check of the attitudes of the past concerning society in North America versus Europe is helpful, and it doesn't require you to go read Democracy in America. Here's a passage from Benjamin Franklin's "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America" (which is itself very short on its own—only five or six pages—but here's a few slices): > The Truth is, that tho' there are in that Country few People so miserable as the Poor of Europe, there are also very few that in Europe would be called rich: it is rather a general happy Mediocrity that prevails[...] It is true that Letters and mathematical Knowledge are in Esteem there, but they are at the same time more common than is apprehended; there being already existing nine Colleges or Universities, viz. four in New-England, and one in each of the Provinces of New-York, New-Jersey, Pensilvania, Maryland and Virginia, all furnish'd with learned Professors; besides a number of smaller Academies: These educate many of their Youth in the Languages and those Sciences that qualify Men for the Professions of Divinity, Law or Physick. Strangers indeed are by no means excluded from exercising those Professions[...] Much less is it adviseable for a Person to go thither who has no other Quality to recommend him but his Birth. In Europe it has indeed its Value, but it is a Commodity that cannot be carried to a worse Market than to that of America, where People do not enquire concerning a Stranger, What IS he? but What can he DO? I re-read this recently, and was strongly reminded of it with the recent submission here of a blog post about the "New American University" at ASU. <https://nadia.xyz/asu https://nadia.xyz/asu>