Skip to content

Acquire Quote by Derek Bok

“The most obvious purpose of college education is to help students acquire information and knowledge by acquainting them with facts, theories, generalizations, principles, and the like. This purpose scarcely requires justification.” quote by Derek Bok — Download Open image

“The most obvious purpose of college education is to help students acquire information and knowledge by acquainting them with facts, theories, generalizations, principles, and the like. This purpose scarcely requires justification.”

About This Quote

Source Book: The Shape of the American Higher Education System, 2003

College primarily exists to transmit established knowledge and critical frameworks to students.

In simple terms: College teaches facts and ideas.

Key Takeaway

Value structured learning.

Themes

education knowledge purpose

Mood

analytical neutral

Type

academic informative

When to use this quote

teaching
studying
research
policy making

Key Concepts

pedagogy curriculum design learning theory

Questions to Reflect On

Should education balance knowledge with skills?
How to foster curiosity beyond facts?

A Different Perspective

Overemphasis on facts may neglect critical thinking and creativity.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 4.5 out of 5 (6 ratings)

More by Derek Bok

Doctoral training is devoted almost entirely to learning to do research, even though most Ph.Ds who enter academic life spend far more time teaching…

Image

I think it's sort of an outrage that companies should have to hire firms to teach the college graduates they employ how to write.

Image

As countries embrace mass higher education, the cost of maintaining universities increases dramatically relative to an elite system.

Image

“surveys show that over 90 percent of professors believe that their teaching is above average,”

Image

For some students, especially in the sciences, the knowledge gained in college may be directly relevant to graduate study. For almost all students, a…

Image

There is far too much law for those who can afford it and far too little for those who cannot.

Image

An educated man must have a "curiosity in exploring the unfamiliar and unexpected, an open-mindedness in entertaining opposing points of view, tolerance for the…

Image

Once you start worrying about a national football championship, then you begin to worry about getting the quality of athlete, and the numbers needed,…

Image

I think any self-respecting educational institution ought to judge its policies by its best estimate of what their long-term consequences for their students and…

Image

I think the minority students that we admit to Harvard are every bit as meritorious as the white students that we admit.

Image

There's a great deal of difference between thinking reflectively about moral issues and achieving higher standards of ethical behavior.

Image

Critics of American colleges typically attribute the failings of undergraduate education to a tendency on the part of professors to neglect their teaching to…

Image

Explore all 51 Derek Bok quotes

More Acquire quotes

Most people seek after what they do not possess and are enslaved by the very things they want to acquire.

Image

If the State does not acquire supremacy over [vast private] enterprises, it becomes their puppet, and they become the real State.

Bertrand Russell

Image

Humility is an elusive virtue. The more we pursue it - and the more we seem to acquire it - the more we take…

Image

Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group then to…

Image

This was Shakespeare's form ; Who walk'd in every path of human life, Felt every passion ; and to all mankind Doth now, will…

Image

Wasn't Saddam destroyed? Wasn't Gaddafi liquidated? Didn't Milosevic go to the Hague? All true. But Stalin survived. Kim Jong-un isn't doing too badly, either…

Image

The best way for women to acquire knowledge is from conversation with a father, a brother, or a friend, in the way of family…

Anna Letitia Barbauld

Image

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you would do anything, believe anything in order to acquire it?

Image

Ballet is pure and demands that you serve something larger than yourself, whether it be beauty or art, or a combination of both. It…

Image

You can't know it all. No matter how smart you are, no matter how comprehensive your education, no matter how wide ranging your experience,…

Image

A better distribution of incomes would increase that efficiency by diverting a great fund of wealth from the useless to the useful members of…

Walter Lippmann

Image

I know well, Monsieur, how much you have to endure in your present duty, and I ask Our Lord to strengthen you in your…

Vincent de Paul

Image

Browse all 1,020 Acquire quotes