The Republican attacks on higher education - notably Harvard - and the questioning of the enrollment of foreign students is another nail in the coffin of American prestige and greatness, a gift to China and Europe. The function of Universities is to do research and make their students think. They are the cutting edge for ideas and new thinking. They attract the best minds working at the edges of man's knowledge. They are the seed beds of new knowledge and progress. That their autonomy is even under attack is a potential disaster for our society. The reasons for this hostility come from a a long history of American dislike and distrust of education or any form of intellectualism. As a Chinese academic doing research in Washington put it to me, "In the American school the 'jock' is king, in China the 'nerd' is king." The attitude of society to education is totally different: "我的父亲是我的老师，我的老师是我的父亲" (my father is my teacher, my teacher is my father). The deep-rooted respect shown for teachers by the Asian cultures is difficult for Westerners to understand. For most Americans education is just a means to an end and the unspoken attitude to the profession is "If you can't, teach."