During the "Strike and Day of Action to Defend Education" on Thursday, tens of thousands of students, teachers, professors and administrators marched in California and some 30 other states to protest cuts in education spending. David Patterson, a librarian at Cañada College, a community college in Redwood City, proved typical.

Asked beforehand to explain his participation, he employed the vocabulary of idealism that appeared on every placard and sounded from every bullhorn. "I'm hoping that students . . . feel connected to Montgomery, to Selma . . . to the sit-ins, to Freedom Riders, to the farmworkers' struggle" of the 1960s and '70s, Mr. Patterson wrote on the Socialist Worker Web site. "Now that's an education: To see your fight against oppression connected to a long line of others' fights."

The demonstrations did offer a certain sort of instruction, though not of the kind Mr. Patterson and his fellow protesters had in mind. They demonstrated the entitlement mentality and self-absorption that has come to dominate much of higher education.