Mark Edmundson’s reflection on “hungry hearts” in today’s New York Times (April 2) appears generous and egalitarian, considering the range of economic classes he welcomes to the university.  He forgives them all their subject/ verb disagreements, because they come to his classes eager to learn.

And I agree that a college education is not merely an economic investment, one that conforms to the intellectual dimensions of one’s eventual career.  Although that’s easier for the college professor to say than for the student who borrows every dime to listen to academic-speak for four years.

What I can not agree with is the assumption that the hunger to learn is unconditional, that a hungry heart wants to learn everything.  No amount of hunger gets me past a plate of Brussels sprouts.

For example, I remember gagging on Nietzsche, whom Edmundson mentions as a favorite of Lionel Trilling in this essay. The man could write, there was no doubt, but his message of nihilism made a committed Christian cringe and wonder what arrogance inspired such contempt for deity. I remember a few authors who did not translate well to my life: Wharton, DosPassos, the philosopher Leibniz. I read them, because they were on the curriculum, but nothing in me hungered for them.

On the other hand I learned to like poetry in college. I loved polemical and satirical writing: Ibsen, Carlyle and Mark Twain. And I remember a brief fascination with political philosophy. The rest of my plate I cleaned up out of obligation. I, too, had borrowed my way through college.

So I was not the quintessential “hungry learner” that Edmundson values, and many of my students, mostly future English teachers, are not hungry for everything I dish out. But thankfully, there are always enough engaging texts to fill out a syllabus, and I always ask whether the books I assign will engage the appetite.

The assumption that education is only for the “hungry” is dangerous.  It assumes that the curriculum will always remain the same, and the students will always want what we serve on their plates.  But even the Bible does not always translate well in the King James version, and you don’t have to speak Elizabethan to be devoted to the poetry of the prophets. You don’t have to like the brooding and privileged Hamlet and you may not get the humor of Jane Austen. There is lots more to be intrigued or amused by.

Education is not the meal we serve, it is the meal we choose.