Sunday’s Quote: Chesterton on education

c/o The Guy with the Glasses

Having authored dozens of books, hundreds of short stories and several thousand essays in his lifetime, Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was “a man of colossal genius” whose intriguing, if not groundbreaking, take on a plethora of topics established this London-born sage of Christian apologetics among modern history’s most extraordinary intellectuals.

Below is a selection of his opinions about education, which evidently ring just as true today as they did a century ago.

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“IT is rare to come across anyone enthusiastic for our system of elementary instruction. It is not common to find anyone who is even free from grave misgivings about it. Nobody seems very keen about education — least of all the educators. I have a huge personal respect for the teachers in the Church and State schools, in regard to their untiring cheerfulness, industry, and courage. But I never met one of them who seemed at all certain that the system was doing any good.”
~ from Chesterton’s piece in The Illustrated London News; August 24, 1912

“IT is the great paradox of the modern world that at the very time when the world decided that people should not be coerced about their form of religion, it also decided that they should be coerced about their form of education.”
~ from Chesterton’s offering in The Illustrated London News; August 8, 1925

“NO MAN who worships education has got the best out of education; no man who sacrifices everything to education is even educated. I need not mention here the many recent examples of this monomania, rapidly turning into mad persecution, such as the ludicrous persecution of the families who live on barges. What is wrong is a neglect of principle; and the principle is that without a gentle contempt for education, no gentleman's education is complete.”
~ from Chesterton’s essay, The Superstition of School

“WE believe that a purely intellectual conspiracy will soon threaten the very existence of civilization, that the scientific and artistic worlds are silently bound in a crusade against the Family and the State. We have formed a special corps of policemen, policemen who are also philosophers. It is our business to watch the beginnings of this conspiracy.”
~ from Chesterton’s novel, The Man Who Was Thursday

Iconic Shot: Wellington College

© Richard Peat

Located on a 400 acre estate in southeast England, not far from Windsor Castle, is Wellington College, a selective co-educational public school in the same G-20 vein as Eton College, Phillips Academy and Harvard-Westlake.

The school is also a national monument to Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), the Duke of Wellington. A Christian and Tory Conservative, the Irish-born commander of the Seventh Coalition defeated Napoléon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The triumph ended the Napoleonic Wars and ushered the era of Pax Britannica during which the British Empire enjoyed uncontested European hegemony while the continent itself enjoyed near-constant peace for 100 years.

On This Day in History

c/o Library of Congress

AD 37 – Nero, fifth Emperor of the Roman Empire, was born in present-day Anzio, Italy. Known for a reign filled with excessiveness and despotism, Nero is also noted for seemingly countless executions, including those of his mother, his stepbrother, and many of the early Christians against whom he placed blame for the Great Fire of Rome. With assassination all but imminent, Nero committed suicide in AD 68, bringing the 54-year rule of Julio-Claudian dynasty to an end.

1791 – Authored and introduced to the 1st United States Congress by James Madison as the limitations on our government in regard to personal liberties, the first 10 Amendments to the United States Constitution (better known as the Bill of Rights, pictured) became law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly, providing the three-fourths needed by the States to make it official.

1939 – Gone with the Wind premiered at Loew’s Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. The film earned 10 Academy Awards (a record that stood for 20 years) and is ranked sixth in the American Film Institute’s list of the Top 100 Best American Films of All Time. It was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 1989.

1966 – Walt Disney died in Burbank, California 10 days after his 65th birthday.

1973 – Facing pressure from members of the Gay Liberation Front and psychiatrist/gay rights activist Ronald Bayer, among others, the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association voted 13-0 to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

The APA, for the record, has been criticized (more than once) for employing an inferior diagnostic process in lieu of a more unempirical structure that elevates the opinions of the prominent few. Author and psychiatrist Dr. William Glasser has referred to the DSM as “phony diagnostic categories,” arguing that “it was developed to help psychiatrists . . . make money.”

2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa was reopened to the public after 11 years and $27,000,000 to fortify it, without fixing its famous slant (3.97 degrees, or 3.9 meters). Engineers expect the nearly 700-year-old freestanding bell tower to remain stable for another 200 years.

2005 – The parliament of Latvia (northeast Europe) amended its national constitution with Article 110, formally eliminating same-sex couples from being entitled to marry and adopt.

Information initially obtained from Wikipedia; confirmed and revised (when necessary) through various sources.

List Fest: Top colleges

c/o The Christian Science Monitor

I didn't enjoy my college experience nearly as much as I would have liked.  A combination of too much work, not enough play and an overall dissatisfaction with certain factors beyond my control, commingled with an apparent inability to focus and power my way through, is why a considerable chunk of my fondest college memories occurred while visiting friends who were away at other schools.

If you've read any of my previous posts that center upon college-themed topics (1, 2), then you know that I have occasionally daydreamed about what it would be like to have graduated from, or at least attended, a university for which I bear a lasting sense of affinity.  I have a great deal of respect for those who made the most of their college years, especially at a school that stands out like those listed below, which is why the following is of such personal interest to me.

As a tribute of sorts to our esteemed institutions of higher learning, Forbes has devised a five-point percentage-based method of ranking the cream of the academic crop.  Overall three of the top eight are found in Massachusetts and over half (13) are located in the northeastern region of the country, although not every Ivy League school is ranked among the top 25.  Have a look:

1) Williams College (pictured) – Williamstown, Massachusetts

2) Princeton University – Princeton, New Jersey

3) United States Military Academy – West Point, New York

4) Amherst College – Amherst, Massachusetts

5) Stanford University – Palo Alto, California

6) Harvard University – Cambridge, Massachusetts

7) Haverford College – Haverford, Pennsylvania

8) University of Chicago – Chicago, Illinois

9) Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Cambridge, Massachusetts

10) United States Air Force Academy – Colorado Springs, Colorado

11) Northwestern University – Evanston, Illinois

12) Claremont McKenna College – Claremont, California

13) California Institute of Technology – Pasadena, California

14) Yale University – New Haven, Connecticut

15) Carleton College – Northfield, Minnesota

16) Swarthmore College – Swarthmore, Pennsylvania

17) United States Naval Academy – Annapolis, Maryland

18) University of Notre Dame – South Bend, Indiana

19) Wellesley College – Wellesley, Massachusetts

20) Colby College – Waterville, Maine

21) Brown University – Providence, Rhode Island

22) Duke University – Durham, North Carolina

23) Pomona College – Claremont, California

24) Vassar College – Poughkeepsie, New York

25) Washington & Lee University – Lexington, Virginia 

The "Silent Night" basketball game

Situated in small town Upland, Indiana, about 75 miles south of Indianapolis, Taylor University is a Christian college with a unique tradition.  Have a look:

On This Day in History: War, and a bit of education

1636 – Headquartered near Boston, the Massachusetts Bay Colony organized three militia regiments to defend against the Pequot Indians.  This organization is recognized today as the founding of the U.S. National Guard.

1769 – Dartmouth College is founded by Protestant minister Eleazar Wheelock on land donated by the British colonial governor of New Hampshire, Sir John Wentworth.

1862 – Outnumbered by 41,500 men, Confederate General Robert Edward Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia put the finishing touches on their convincing victory over Maj. General Ambrose Burnside and his 114,000 Federal soldiers at the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia.  Notable Southern legends commanding alongside General Lee were Lt. General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Lt. General James Longstreet, Maj. General James E.B. Stuart, Maj. General John Bell Hood, Maj. General Ambrose Powell Hill, and Brig. General Jubal Anderson Early.

2001 – The Parliament of India in New Delhi is attacked by the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists groups, just three months after 9/11.  In all 12 people died.  The attack itself led to a standoff between India and Pakistan that was not diffused until both the United States and Russia intervened.

2003 – Commanded by U.S. Army Colonel James Hickey, the 1st Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division capture former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.  He is found near his hometown of Tikrit, literally hiding in a hole.

Sunday's Quote: Ole Miss & The South

Because matters centering upon race have remained prevalent in large metropolitan areas such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Baltimore, Detroit and Los Angeles, I have often wondered why the South is hit with the inclusive liability of all racial issues while practically all others are given a pass.

The considerable majority of arguments, when broken down to their most common denominator, harken back to the days of slavery -- something of which the South was the last in the western hemisphere to partake.  Interestingly those driven to demonize present-day Southerners who reject the weight of an institution that has existed on virtually every corner of the planet for nearly 4,000 years exhibit an unusual amount of artificiality when celebrating a heritage of their own that, to this day, is absolutely rife with all the elements they claim to despise.  But I digress.

Nobody dismisses the malignancy of the past, but it does not define who we are.  So to answer the critics, today's quote is from yet another northerner who was pleasantly surprised to discover what the South is all about:

"...Hiram Eastland, James O. Eastlands nephew said, you know, a lot of people have ideas about Mississippi based on things that happened 50 years.  And all of that stuff, as Hiram put it to me, is in our rear-view mirror.  And I was a visitor, but I was really surprised by the nature of race relations in Mississippi.

"I live just outside of Washington, D.C. and there's a mayoral race going on right now in Washington, and its all about race.  You don't see any of that in Mississippi.  People are friendly.  You see blacks and white socializing together in a way you don't here in Washington at all.  It really, really was stunning to me, actually, to see this.

"...for people who don't come from the South or don't spend any time in the South, it might come as a big surprise that people do get along as well as they do.  They are not just over - not get along over football, only, but just the way people are friendly.  The communal spirit there is just amazing."
-- from an NPR interview with writer Bill Thomas; September 13, 2010.  The full piece about his trip, "The sounds and the fury -- down home with Ole Miss, beauty queens and literary greatness in Oxford, Mississippi" was featured in The Washington Post the day before.  It's an excellent read.

Those glorious beatings

My mom kept me from playing organized football until my senior year of high school.  As a nurse, she had witnessed too many injuries incurred on the field of play to allow her only child anywhere near helmet and pads.  So it was a shock by all accounts when she finally turned me loose.

Perhaps dear ol' mom assumed the impact of full-contact violence with dozens of other guys -- the majority of whom were larger, stronger, tougher, meaner and more experienced than I -- would rid me of this dastardly football bug that had plagued me since first grade.  In a somewhat ironic twist, it was a non-football related injury to my inner right thigh from the year before that gave me reason enough to quit after six weeks of sustaining one brutal pounding after another.

Sensing that I would regret forgoing my last opportunity to play, especially by relying upon a wound that was stitched up and healed not long after a doctor removed three small pieces of metal from my leg (it's a long story), I returned to the team on my own fruition about a month later to give it one final go.  Dear ol' mom was less than thrilled.

In short, I was awful.  But the team itself is another story.  Widely known for both a stellar running game and a punishing defense that held four opponents scoreless while limiting four others to single-digit tallies, the 1993 Evangelical Christian School Eagles were victorious in 10 of 12 games and finished the season in Gibson County with a tough loss at Milan High School (about 90 minutes from Memphis) in the playoff quarterfinals.

Milan, for the record, made it to the state championship game a couple of weeks later.  They lost to Sweetwater, 10-6.

The chief architect of the Eagles' gridiron success over the past several decades is the recently departed Jim Heinz, who led ECS to four state championships during his tenure {'83, '99, '00, '05}, compiling a 219-88 record in 27 seasons as head coach ('78-'90, '96-'09) and finished fifth all-time in wins for coaches in Shelby County.  In a testament to his leadership and versatility, he also guided the Eagles to three state titles in baseball {'89, '96, '98}.

Coach Heinz served as an assistant during the season that I played.  He was my U.S. government teacher as well.  In short, his impact at Evangelical Christian School cannot be overstated.  Briarcrest probably doesn't deserve him.

By the way, I ended up a letterman along with the rest of the seniors from the '93 squad -- not because of my statistics, because I basically had none, but because I persevered to the end.  Still the overall experience has always felt rather incomplete.  Heck, I'm not even in the team picture.  An underclassman named Jeff, who quit despite his considerable athletic prowess, is shown wearing the #80 jersey that I ultimately inherited.

Although a picture taken of me in full uniform the day after the loss at Milan (in which I did not play) is the only evidence that I was on the team at all, I wore the cardinal and white proudly nevertheless.  Yet no matter how imperfect the experience may have been, at the very least I can say that regret has no place in my trip down memory lane.

Guilty Pleasures: Stanford University

So why is one of the world's most prestigious institutions of higher learning a "guilty pleasure"?  I'll explain.

My mother and I flew from Memphis to visit my father and his side of the family in San Francisco during the spring of 1985.  Seeing Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge (and Park), Lombard Street and the Santa Cruz mountains exceeded any expectations that a nine-year-old could have, but visiting the campus of Stanford University in nearby Palo Alto remains my most vivid memory.

Over the years I have read about the centuries-old colleges of the northeast, and I've come to appreciate schools such as Amherst, Dartmouth, Hamilton, Middlebury and Williams, just as the academic citadels of the Southland -- College of Charleston, Duke, Emory, Vanderbilt, and Washington & Lee -- also stir no small sense of regional fervor in this unabashed Southern boy.  Yet a little something extra has persisted in my psyche from the day I visited the Leland Stanford, Jr. University a quarter-century ago.

Whether or not my obeisance to Stanford remains from a sense that I failed to make the most of my college experience is debatable.  But my post last December about Heisman Trophy voters snubbing a certain running back who just happened to lead the nation in rushing yards (1,871) and touchdowns (28) is directly attributable to having been a deeply closeted SU fan since adolescence.  Heck, I even follow head football coach Jim Harbaugh on Twitter.

I knew early in my high school years that Stanford's 3.7 GPA and 1400 SAT requirements, not to mention their 10% acceptance rate, put this fine institution well beyond my grasp.  Still I use Stanford's hex triplet [#990000] wherever red is seen on this blog.  (The Dartmouth green [#00693e] is also included as a subtle nod.)  It's just my little way of saying, I wish I could've been there.  Indeed it would have been nice to experience something like "Full Moon on the Quad," but I'll remain a devoted regardless, no matter how quixotic it might be.