If many great books seem unreadable and unintelligible ... it may be because we have not for a long time learned to read by reading them. Great books… - Robert Maynard Hutchins

In the knowledge of nature," Aristotle writes, the test of principles "is the unimpeachable evidence of the senses as to the fact." He holds that "lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view of the admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in the intimate association with nature and its phenomena grow more and more able to formulate, as the foundation of their theories, principles such as to admit of a wide and coherent development; while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations." Theories should be accredited, Aristotle insists, "only if what they affirm agrees with the facts.

If only the specialist is to be allowed access to these books, on the ground that it is impossible to understand them without "scholarship," ... then we shall be compelled to shut out the majority of mankind from some of the finest creations of the human mind. This is aristocracy with a vengeance.

The products of American high schools are illiterate; and a degree from a famous college or university is no guarantee that the graduate is in any better case. One of the most remarkable features of American society is that the difference between the "uneducated" and the "educated" is so slight.