The implications of an idea are its associations. These include other ideas as well as actions. The implications of the idea of a university as a community of scholars and students have been built up over 900 years. This chapter describes the way this happened in Europe, culminating in the idea of a research university represented by the University of Berlin. This was then transported to the United States. In this new context, specific strengths and weaknesses emerged that were peculiar to the American situation. The political attacks have exploited these weaknesses. The present problem is to preserve the strengths, turn back the attacks, and repair the weaknesses.