“Accordingly, while it is not expected of every age that it be capable of producing good art, it is demanded of the literary establishment of every age that it at least keep the memory and the standards of good art always before itself, well polished and clearly labeled. A literary establishment that cannot do this …
Self-Study
“This difference in student ability is one of the reasons why our government school debacle is not a whole lot worse than it already is. Even though most schools do not teach phonics anymore, some students are bright enough to teach themselves phonics — but of course these are the kids who could teach themselves …
Willful Mediocrity
“The dishonor was not the in the confusion, but in the ritualistic character of that confusion; not in the appalling cultural, scientific, and historical ignorance, but in the refusal to mend that ignorance; not in the incompetence, but in the exaltation of that incompetence; not in the mediocrity of execution, but in the meanness of …
Equal Efforts
“Whenever we use the language of praise and blame, in this lumpy and uneven world that praise and blame is invariably distributed in uneven amounts. And for an egalitarian, such unevenness is always ‘unjust,’ or ‘unfair.’ Because it is unfair and because modern educators are driven by a leveling desire, believing that each student has …
The Chattering Classes
[Speaking of Carlyle] “The danger, as he saw it, was in the distraction: ordinary men and women turned to ‘art,’ and the worship of art, only when they had nothing more important to do or to think about. And idle humans – bored humans – were not whole humans. They were shells, chattering away to …
MLD
“And as this generation of children has grown up in an environment of institutionalized excuses, it is supremely ill-equipped for maturity. Not surprisingly, many adults are now insisting on bringing their baggage — in the form of notes from their doctor — along with them. We now have Adult Attention Deficit Syndrome. And why not? …
Argument Weak, Shout Here
“They [literary critics] had become an interest group battling for a share of influence, seeking to preserve their sense of self-importance by bullying an increasingly disgusted public into extending their mandate for another decade or two. The more they were called to account, the louder did they howl; the more they were asked to explain …
Teaching Disadilities
“If it is our schools which are ‘teaching disabled,’ the symptoms of this lack would still be visible primarily in the students and not necessarily in the schools or teachers. When a doctor is incompetent, it is the patient who dies” (The Paideia of God, p. 17).
Entertained By Decadence
“After that all was chaos, and it was no longer possible to discover just which critics were making the most definitive statements about which Voluptuous Grotesqueries. The incessant gibberish had become one long rumble in the night, and Major Critics bobbed like corks in a sea of splendid horror.” [Bryan F. Griffin, Panic Among the …
One More Clown
“In our postmodern culture, the polytheism inherent in the diverse culture can certainly accommodate one more clown in the circus ring. What they cannot accommodate is a true alternative, which is starting to take shape. Christians have not presented a true cultural alternative until recently, when they began to provide their own children with an …