Right now, I am supposedly reading the new yorker, and The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradtion. I may have to stop reading this book though, the author really pissed me off on the subway.
He writes: (Of course it's a he...)
"...'Greek and Latin have become mere symbols and pretexts. They [The advocates of reform] are as contemptuous of Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Racine, Burke, John Stuart Mill, Tennyson, Alexander Hamilton, or Lowell as of Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, or Horace. They will wipe the slate clean of everythign that antedates Darwin's Descent of Man." Shorey was a prophet. Getting rid of Latin and Greek has meant, over time, that the entrie Western intellectual tradition, which of course includes work written in Englsih and other modern languages, has disappeared from the university curriculum. {my note... coming up to my favorite part...} The rapid decline of Western education since the elimination of the classical languages from teh university curriculum confirms Shorey's prediction, made more than 80 years ago." (p. 19)
So, what do I think?
I think he has a weak point. A classical (read traditional) education is fine as long as everyone being educated is exactly the same. I can't, and policy makes shouldn't think that there is some one size fits all curriculum. I know E.D. Hirsch argues for it, and there is definite value in having common cultural knowledge, but I think this book about learning Latin and Greek is taking it too far. He says that the classical curriculum was abandoned because people wanted education to be easier. Pretty much everything is easier than reading Latin. However, not everyone has the ability to learn languages. Just like I can't do math...
He also derides reading contemporary literature as similar to eating junk food.
Anyway, this was slightly scrambled. Time for bed!
1 comment:
I think of math as language! How else could we communicate scientific ideas without the vehicle of math?
I think that language, math, music, and programming (of course) are all connected. That being said, I am not much of a musician.
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