"Higher education has a loud voice in the media, a strong arm in parliament, and a free hand in the public purse. It is one of the most powerful vested interests in the modern state, and better able than most to give proof of its indispensability. Those who wish to clip the tree of learning, to prune its rotting branches, or merely to question the general value of a growth whose shade seems so lethal to every rival interest are, to those who live from the fruit of the tree, the rudest of rude barbarians."

- Roger Scruton (1985)

Proverb: "Knowledge has bitter roots but sweet fruits."

Alexander the Weightless: "Dey sez I keps barfin' up a rawng tre!"

Aristides the Aristocrat: "Lop off the branches of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, then call what still stands the Tree of Learning; saw down the trunk of knowledge and call what remains the Stump of Self-Approval; dig out the root of philosophy, then call yourself a Radical. Such are ever the lumberingly fruitless, rootless reforms in education."

[Scruton, Roger. "The End of Education" (1985). In his UNTIMELY TRACTS, St. Martin's Press, 1987.]