Familiarization with the thoughts and creations of great minds, past and present, is a significant function of education. Many students, however, are effectively denied such opportunity for intellectual growth by the identification of education with job-training. Much of the curriculum neglects the past and the foreign. Humanists approach this problem not be reforming humanities curricula per se but by proposing "bridges" between the humanities and vocational interests. There is a great need for individual humanities courses that are not introductions to further work in a particular discipline. The "arguments" for persuading students to study the humanities have changed little in this century; these are categorized as (1) the traditional, (2) the exemplary, and (3) the pragmatic. All are persuasive, but none offers absolute proof of the benefits of such education. The methods of the sciences and social sciences should be applied to furnish that proof. In addition, it should be possible to popularize the content of the humanities without vulgarizing or diluting it. Everyone beyond infancy has skills and knowledge of a humanistic kind. There are hopeful signs of a resurgence of interest in humanities education. Humanists must choose now whether to harness this interest to their own purposes or to decry it as a dilution of their discipline. (Author/KM)