Dull Dogs

“The idea is to treat all the pupils as though they were equally intelligent. The standard of achievement is set to fit the average, which is fair-to-middling low. The result is a mediocrity which frets and frustrates the more able while it flatters the incompetent. This mediocrity is making Americans increasingly a set of dull …

21 Questions for a Prospective Wife

Given the nature of the case, these are not necessarily questions that someone might ever get to ask. A young man is coming to a father because he knows his own intentions, and he is inviting questions. He should be surprised if the young lady’s father had no questions. He is asking to be asked; …

A Crisis That Does Not Need a New Federal Agency for It

“So this is a doomsday book with a twist: an apocalyptic scenario that can best be avoided not by more government but by less—by government returning to the citizenry the primal responsibilities it’s taken from them in the modern era” (Mark Steyn, America Alone, p. xxix).

Eros and Monogamy: A Puritan Marriage

“This antithesis, if once understood, explains many things in the history of sentiment, and many differences, noticeable to the present day, between the Protestant and the Catholic parts of Europe. It explains why the conversion of courtly love into romantic monogamous love was so largely the work of English, and even of Puritan, poets” (C.S. …

A First Step Toward the Novel

“Daniel Defoe, a working class Puritan, was something of an early gonzo-journalist. Hearing about a man who had just been rescued from a desert island, Defoe decided to make up an account that might appeal to the tabloid readers of his day. The result was Robinson Crusoe (1719). This tale, one of the best adventure …