On Study of the West at Stanford

In an April 18 speech at Stanford University, Secretary of Education William J. Bennett called the Stanford faculty's recent vote to replace its undergraduate course on Western culture with one called "Cultures, Ideas, and Values'' "an unfortunate capitulation to a campaign of pressure politics and intimidation.''

Following is an excerpt from the Secretary's speech, titled "Why the West.''

Why must we study, nurture, and defend the West? I'll give you four reasons. First, because it is ours. It is the culture in which we live and in which most of us will continue to live, whether our grandparents are African or Asian, Hungarian or Mexican, Muslim or Shinto. Our institutions and ideals--our schools and universities and their great, still honored traditions, our churches and synagogues, our government and laws, even our notions of friendship and family--have all acquired their shape and significance through the course of Western history, largely though not exclusively...