My relationship with Sam Huntington, however, was uncomplicated. I admired him through and through. He was brilliant—a prodigy who graduated from Yale at 18, a pathbreaking scholar and a devoted and generous teacher.

He was remarkably broad. His first book practically invented the field of civil-military relations; his last was on demographics and culture. He was also broad-minded. While many academics of his age and political persuasion—temperamentally conservative— were seared by the campus chaos of the 1960s, Huntington saw the student radicals as part of a recurring tradition of American puritans, righteously enraged that American institutions didn't live up to the country's founding principles. He closed one of his books, another classic, by noting of such critics, "[They] say that America is a lie because its reality falls so far short of its ideals. They are wrong. America is not a lie; it is a disappointment. But it can be a disappointment only because it is also a hope."

I learned from the books but also from the man. I never saw Sam Huntington do anything deceitful or malicious, never saw him sacrifice his principles for power or access or expedience. He lived by the Anglo-Protestant principles he cherished: hard work, honesty, fair play, courage, loyalty and patriotism.

In Robert Bolt's play about Sir Thomas More, "A Man for All Seasons," the young Richard Rich wonders whether it is worthwhile to be a teacher. "If I was [a fine teacher], who would know it?" More answers, "You; your pupils; your friends; God. Not a bad public, that." Not bad at all.

© 2009