The humanities in liberal arts colleges: another instance of collegiate exceptionalism?

摘要

Because liberal arts colleges are "incertain respects more diverse than anyother type of higher education institu-tion," and because their nature, histo-ry, generally shared characteristics, eventheir very number, are so often a matterof contention, I have learned over theyears the wisdom, when attempting tosay something about them, of begin-ning with a preliminary exercise in in-tellectual throat-clearing. Hence I offerthese rather basic introductory stipula-tions.