There are countries in the world where students traditionally play a constant, or at least recurrent, role in national politics. This is, generally speaking, not the case in Europe. Part of the tradition of European universities is a disdaining aloofness from the surrounding society and its "petty politics." This tradition did not exclude endless and passionate theoretical debates on the "perfect state," with recurrent Platonic dreams of an intellectual aristocracy governing the lower race, but if did not encourage a student to "dirty his hands" with real politics. If some students betrayed their caste by getting involved in outside politics, they soon dropped out of sight of their colleagues, and, more likely than not, out of their, courses as well.