When W. E. B. Du Bois spoke in 1903 about embracing the «greater
ideals of the American Republic» and the «spirit
of the Declaration
of Independence «11 he was only doing in the language
of his
day what Gordon and Cruse in our own time do when they espouse
democracy and pluralism as fundamental to the American republic.
That the
days were numbered when such elite educational
ideals might hope to set the standard is suggested by the strikingly different tone
of the even more influential 1947 report
of The President's Commission on Higher Education for
Democracy.