I was a brain in high school, a rube at Yale. In high school I was the star of the English department, but at Yale found I didn’t know how to write a paper. I had a helpful teacher, learned fast, and went from 60 to 90 in three semesters flat, eyes wide opened the entire way.
In two freshman classes, history and philosophy, both large lecture courses, my section leaders were senior professors, neither of them seeming to be bored teaching freshmen. In history we learned about, and used, primary sources, a revelation. As for philosophy, I’d certainly never had a course, nor read any, though I did have a taste for Dostoevsky and Camus. We wrote weekly papers on our reading. I vividly remember sitting in Sterling Library reading room, struggling with a pamphlet by a 13th century monk (Benedict, Bertram, Bartholomew?). It was an unforgiving blank wall. It had geometric diagrams but may as well have been Arabic. The deadline nearing, I was in a panic, closer to failure than I’d ever been. But suddenly – out of the blue – an epiphany. I understood! I remember the feeling to this day. The real import, I came to see later, was realizing that I was able to read and understand a text out of my comfort zone.
Brand Blanchard, esteemed senior professor, was my section leader in Philosophy 10. Bernard Knox, John Smith, Vince Scully, Martin Price, and others shone brilliantly. There were many signal features to freshman year, but I’d say that, apart from three or four lasting friendships, what stands out for me is the academic adventure: the sense of coming alive all across the board.
That I was still a rube, however, is triply illustrated by what I have written elsewhere as Rube’s Cube.