There is no point-and-click formula for accumulating a body of knowledge needed to make sense of isolated facts.

It is past time to retire the sliming of elite knowledge and education from public discourse.

Do we want mediocre schools or the best education for our children? If we need an operation, do we want an ordinary surgeon or the best, most elite surgeon available?

America was never imagined as a democracy of dumbness. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written by an elite group of leaders, and although their dream was limited to white men, it held the seeds of a future in which anyone might aspire to the highest — let us say it out loud, elite — level of achievement.

Susan Jacoby is the author of "The Age of American Unreason."