The Idea of an Essay, Volume 4

Analysis & Response 95 and the audience throughout the article serves to create a sense of camaraderie, indicating that he and the audience are both seeking the same goal as Americans. Building on this image of civic concern, Ross begins weaving the threads of his pathos. By focusing on the benefits higher education can provide to America and its citizens, Ross creates a powerful appeal to his audience’s sense of civic duty. Ross exploits contemporary domestic concerns to solicit a positive emotional response by asserting that higher educational attainment would lead to various societal benefits such as reduced crime and poverty (7, 8, 15). By referring to universities in glowing terms such as “the foundation of our democratic society” and calling education, among other things, “the great equalizer” and “the pathway to opportunity,” he recruits the positive reaction evoked by these expressions to support his cause (4, 15). Also, he repeatedly exploits concern over America’s narrowing lead in the world marketplace by equating better education with the ability to compete in the global scene and implying that other nations are beginning to overtake America because they are investing more in education while America is investing less (4, 7, 13). This focus on global competition becomes the source of Ross’s major rebuttal to those who think America already produces too many college graduates, when he states the special talent endowed by higher education “will provide the competitive edge of the future” (7). Through these factors, Ross associates investing in higher education with multiple grails of contemporary American thought to create the core of his pathos. By equating his goal with progress towards higher standards of life, lower crime rates, less unemployment, greater economic security, stronger communities, better health, and political participation, Ross equates the current trend away from higher education with the reverse, effectively placing his opposition at direct odds with the American dream. He draws on every hope, dream, aspiration, and fear of the typical contemporary American mind and ties them together in a complex, strongly worded, and seemingly reasonable rope of emotional appeal which he uses to connect his argument to his audience. By the time he is finished, the audience is practically forced to agree with him, or risk the label of “unpatriotic.”