I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best -- it's all they'll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money -- provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don't need it.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes elite educational institutions for being exclusive and not truly contributing to broader education.
Peter De Vries critiques Ivy League schools for their exclusivity and the way they select students, implying that they cater only to those who are already privileged and do not address the education needs of the wider population. He compares their education not to a generous offering but to a restrictive banking service, accessible only to those who can demonstrate their independence from its support.
In practice
Sharing this quote at a graduation speech to inspire critical thinking about education systems.
We must love one another, yes, yes, that's all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other. It may be the very recognition of all men as our brothers that accounts for the sibling rivalry, and even enmity, we have toward so many of them.
There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you.
The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.
Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff - it is a palliative rather than a remedy.
The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
True literacy is becoming an arcane art, and the nation is steadily "dumbing down."
To be sure, nothing is more important to the integrity of the universities . . . than a rigorously enforced divorce from war-oriented research and all connected enterprises.
There is always a place I can take someone's curiosity and land where they end up enlightened when we're done. That's my challenge as an educator. No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don't ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.
The studious silence of the library ... Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness.
In talking with scholars, I observe that they lost on ruder companions those years of boyhood which alone could give imaginative literature a religious and infinite quality in their esteem.
Concentration is a part of life. It is not the consequence of a method of education.
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