Alfred Whitney Griswold
Overview
 
Alfred Whitney Griswold (October 27, 1906 – April 19, 1963) was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and educator, and President of Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, New Haven, CT, USA.
Born in Morristown, New Jersey
Morristown, New Jersey
Morristown is a town in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town population was 18,411. It is the county seat of Morris County. Morristown became characterized as "the military capital of the American Revolution" because of its strategic role in the...

, he attended Hotchkiss School
Hotchkiss School
The Hotchkiss School is an independent, coeducational American college preparatory boarding school located in Lakeville, Connecticut. Founded in 1891, the school enrolls students in grades 9 through 12 and a small number of postgraduates...

 before obtaining his B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 from Yale University in 1929. Griswold was a descendant, on his mother's side, of Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney was an American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South...

, and of six colonial governors of Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

 on his father's side.

Griswold, along with a handful of students and faculty members, founded the Yale Political Union
Yale Political Union
The Yale Political Union , a debate society now the largest student organization at Yale University, was founded in 1934 by Professor Alfred Whitney Griswold , to enliven the university's political culture of the time. It was modelled on the Cambridge Union Society and Oxford Union...

.
Quotations

A Socrates in every classroom.

On his standards for the faculty of Yale University, as quoted in TIME magazine (11 June 1951).

Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth, we have spoken it.

Address at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (9 June 1957)

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

Essays on Education quoted in The New York Times (24 February 1959)

Liberal learning is both a safeguard against false ideas of freedom and a source of true ones.

Quoted by John F. Kennedy in a speech at Yale University (11 June 1962)

 
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