John W. Gardner, a Los Angeles native, fought hard throughout his life to convince people that a quality education meant encouraging excellence in whatever students wished to pursue. “An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will neither have good plumbing or good philosophy. Neither its pipes or its theories will hold water.”
BTTT