This is thinking in public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about

front-line theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Moler, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,

Kentucky.

What would the world look like from the campus of Harvard College? What would the world look like

from a tenure of over a half century on the faculty of Harvard University?

That kind of question frames a conversation that we worth having and it just so happens.

That's the conversation we get to have today.

R. B. C Mansfield is the William R. Cannon Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University. He studies

there and teaches political philosophy. He is written on figures such as Edmund Burke and

Machiavelli. He has written a number of works and has received awards including a National Humanities Medal from the

President of the United States.

As Professor Mansfield says, he has hardly left Harvard since his arrival in 1949,

and next year will mark his 50th anniversary on the faculty of that institution.

Professor Mansfield, welcome to Thinking in Public.

Thanks, it's a pleasure to be here.

Well, I have looked forward to this conversation, and in particular, to a conversation about the state, or perhaps even we might say the soul of education in America.

You have been in a very privileged position, indeed, as you you say you've hardly left Harvard since 1949.

I can't imagine a figure who is better positioned to tell us what's really going on in American education in general

and for instance very specifically at Harvard University at the institutions

at the most elite level of education in America.

Thank you very much.

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