The wonderful thing about the blogosphere is that it never lets you forget how futile it is to attempt anything like a rational argument in these United States. “Across the board condemnation is not justified. The good must be weighed with the bad.” Somehow I missed these clauses in the 10 Commandments or the US Constitution.

FINIS

If Noah Webster “said nice things about the Bible” and believed it to be the true word of God then that would make him a Biblicist, wouldn’t it?

So he was a Biblicist who unfortunately supported the French Revolution. So did Jefferson, and he was an infidel. Across the board condemnation is not justified. The good must be weighed with the bad.

Billy Bob

What? Please elaborate.

Billy Bob

As for Noah Webster, the rush to defend him says two rather bad things about the character of American conservatives: 1) low critical standards and 2) a tendency to reduce all questions to what side someone is on. Thus, Noah Webster says nice things about the Bible, so he must be…..what? I once gave a lecture on RL Dabney to a group of Southern Calvinists who claimed to revere the great man. When I tried to show the difference between Dabney and the Puritans, they were either uncomfortable or angry and did not like it when I pointed out that Dabney turned down an excellent job in the Northeast because he did not want to live with those people. Decent people are so rare theses days, I tend to take people as I find them, one at a time, not worrying too much about where they come from or what they believe. I know Protestants whose company I prefer to most Catholics, immoralists I regard more highly than Jansenist Catholics, and even a few good Yankees, who have their own strange virtues. Ask me to respect John Adams, I have no problem, but what a waste of time to take up the cudgels for Noah Webster (I prefer Daniel) or for some Biblebelt college that spoons out bad manners along with the obscurantist pabulum that starves the students’ minds.

1. Could you give this rube, reader of Chronicles an example of a culture that concentrated more on “today” or placed more hope in the future than the educational consultants of America from 1900 to the present ?

“Webster, the Puritans, John Walker, the Rome of Quintilians or the Britain of Matthew Arnold, and so on and so forth belong to the past, which had its own problems and cannot offer solutions to the present-day issues of education in the United States.”

2. In the spirit of offering some solutions, would you mind to mention a few writers of the future we can look to in expectation of solving our current crisis ? Or, since it may be difficult for mere mortals to see into the future as only gods or inspired prophets can, would you mind to name some of the consultants who solved the educational problems America had three (or even thirty) years ago ?

“Reform in the American education system should start with its backbone, which are the elementary and high schools.”

3. Even If you were persuaded that the backbone of education in it’s most elemental form was really the family and not government schools, what reforms would you implement in America’s elementary and high schools tomorrow ? Would the solutions be the same for New Yok City as for Hooks, Texas ? Thanks rr

Evaluating schools, that is, the curriculum, the teaching methods, the teaching staff, etc. can not be time wasted. It depends on what you are looking for and the goal you have set yourself. Such a job does not mean compiling statistics only. It has to do more about offering solutions based on observations. If the author’s job was just evaluation of schools, did he, at least, propose some way out of the situation in the education system? If yes, which I very much doubt, then, doing the job of an “educational consultant” is not time wasted.

Comments on today’s American education system should not turn into a contest of erudition between those who post their “opinions” on this website. Webster, the Puritans, John Walker, the Rome of Quintilians or the Britain of Matthew Arnold, and so on and so forth belong to the past, which had its own problems and cannot offer solutions to the present-day issues of education in the United States. Concentrate more on today than on the past. This website is not a site where one can tell others how much he knows while failing to offer ideas that can help resolve the problems of today.

It is my humble opinion that the American education system should draw on other countries’ experiences. Why are the students from Europe better than their American counterparts? Or why do the students from Eastern Europe, though under communism until recently, outdo the American students?

Reform in the American education system should start with its backbone, which are the elementary and high schools.

“Can you get a good “classical education” anywhere anymore?”

Sure, from individual teachers but not colleges or Universities — or at least any that I know. Dr. Patrick, Dr. Fleming, Dr. Wilson, Dr. Polin, Dr. Livingston, and probably many others are doing good work either in the twilight or total darkness of their lives.
I try to tell my kids to get the government license first, and then try and find somebody who really knows how to drive. Hope that helps. Cheers rr

The market place has created a few self consciously “conservative” institutions – Hillsdale, Grove City, Claremont (ha ha to that being truly conservative, I know) +/- Pepperdine. And it has created “conservative” departments within certain schools – economics at the University of Chicago. But I think the colleges and universities that have best maintained some semblance of conservatism are some overtly Christian schools. The shame is that so few Christian parents send there kids to them. But the education at a lot of those schools might be more narrowly focused than Dr. Fleming advocates.

Can you get a good “classical education” anywhere anymore?

Webster said, “In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed…No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”

What about that should a conservative disagree with?

Billy Bob