Harvard government professor Harvey C. Mansfield--who has famously resolved the grade inflation conundrum by giving his students two grades, an inflated one for their transcript and a real one for their private consideration--has written a searingly smart piece on American higher education's transformation into a self-esteem-building industry. Focussing on Harvard's position as America's leading university, Mansfield details how Harvard's easy A's, overspecialized course offerings, overblown letters of recommendation, overall lack of accountability, overdone displays of sensitivity, and overly self-serving professors combine to create an environment where students are at once constantly coddled and utterly neglected, fiercely proud and deeply unsure of themselves, drivingly ambitious and deeply suspicious of work, eager to do good but unable to reconcile that urge with the acquisition of knowledge and skills.

Some choice quotes:

Harvard is afraid to look ambition in the face. To Harvard, ambition and the responsibility that accompanies it look elitist and selfish. ("Elitist" is the fancy, political version of "selfish.") Harvard gives its students to understand that the only alternative to selfishness is selflessness. Morality is held to be sheer altruism; it is service to the needy and the oppressed. A typical Harvard student spends many, many hours in volunteer work on behalf of those less fortunate. But what he or she plans for his own life --Ýa career --Ýseems to have no moral standing. To prepare for a career is nothing but to make a selection under the regime of choice. It is careerism --Ýa form of elitism and selfishness --Ýthat seems unattractive even to those contemplating it.

Selfless morality is fragile and suspicious: Who believes a person who claims to be unconcerned with himself? Yet mere selfishness is beneath one's pride. Harvard is caught between these two extremes; it has lost sight of its virtue. It cannot come to terms with the high ambition that everyone outside Harvard sees to be its most prominent feature.

The notion of self-esteem rampant in American education today is a debased version of pride. It is pride that shies away from any standard of good education, fearing that to apply a standard will hurt someone's pride. But true pride requires a standard above itself in which to take pride. True pride is neither selfish nor selfless, but both. It is not afraid of a test --Ýand would rather lose than flinch.