Davos Newbies

One of my most inspiring teachers at university was a Miltonian, so circa 1976 I was deeply into Paradise Lost. But I never considered this:

It could be said that the monarchy is the price England has paid for the existence of Paradise Lost.

Read Philip Pullman’s explanation.

(And in an illustration of the wonders of the Internet, I discover that my teacher sold his magnificent Milton collection – which he happily let us acolytes browse through – for a pretty penny to the University of South Carolina last year. And a scandal in which he was involved.)

Every morning I take two casual carpool passengers into San Francisco on my commute. Part of the etiquette of casual carpooling is that drivers should initiate any conversation, and since I generally don’t want to impose, I keep schtum. This morning, however, one of my passengers commented on a radio discussion about funding of California community colleges. This started an interesting discussion about comparative costs of public universities versus private and the differences between the respective educations.

My passenger kept referring to her “private college” so I asked, “Where did you go to college?” “I went to Harvard College for my undergraduate degree,” came the reply.

My college years are sufficiently distant that I’d long forgotten this euphemism, which I think is particularly common among Harvard graduates, at least of my generation or thereabouts. Since you don’t want to appear elitist – which, the implication is, being a Harvard grad would immediately label you – you refer vaguely to your college or, in this instance, your private college. I suspect Reagan era or later students, schooled during a time when greed was good and naked ambition a valued asset, would be less likely to skirt the subject.

I’m generally happy to tell people I went to Princeton (and latterly Oxford), but then I guess I’m not afraid of being labeled elitist.