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.
I'll always be grateful for 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.' It brought me many, many, readers.
A book is one of the most patient of all man's inventions. Centuries mean nothing to a well-made book. It awaits its destined reader, come when he may, with eager hand and seeing eye. Then occurs one of the great examples of union, that of a man with a book, pleasurable, sometimes fruitful, potentially world-changing, simple; and in a library...witho ut cost to the reader.
It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it.
It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the ligitimate goals of his life.
No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.
Few things are better in the world than a room full of librarians. I consider them literary heroes. The keepers and defenders of the written word.
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