To Learn and Mark

Let him who fails to learn and mark
Three thousand years still stay,
Void of experience, in the dark,
And live from day to day.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Rendsch Nameh: The Book of Ill Humours, Poem XV, Stanza 4” in West-Eastern Divan, in Twelve Books. Translated by Edward Dowden. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1914. p. 74-75.

Great Ideas: Experience, Custom & Convention, Wisdom, Time

I have not read a lot of Goethe, though he continually sits amongst my “To Read” pile. I saw a different translation of this passage making its way across Substack Notes, which prompted me to do some digging. It struck me as too convenient of a quote and I’m naturally skeptical of quotes circulating the internet without sources. In this case, the quote turned out to be genuine, though I couldn’t find the exact translation. This led me to a research-rabbit trail, learning some things about Goethe that I did not know. I read a big chunk of West-Eastern Divan as well, though this is the section that still captivated me.

The Unfairness of It All

Ransom was sitting with his fingers locked so tightly that his knuckles were white. The unfairness of it all was wounding him like barbed wire. Unfair . . . unfair. How could Maleldil expect him to fight against this, to fight with every weapon taken from him, forbidden to lie and yet brought to places where truth seemed fatal? It was unfair!

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, New York: HarperCollins, 2012. p. 127.

Great ideas: Justice, Rhetoric, Logic, Truth

Even though I finished this one recently, I’m reading it again because the book club I’m in selected it for June. I had not noticed previously how well Lewis sets up the final confrontation between Ransom and the Unman from as early as the first chapter of the book. There is a constant focus on Ransom’s strengths from the outset, which turn out to be of no avail to him in the end. Lewis’s skill as a fiction writer is really underappreciated, I think. Though Till We Have Faces did make ’s recent list of the best novels, so there’s always hope for a proper reassessment.

The Canonization of Scientists

If the truth be known, scientists are neither more nor less vain than other people. It is rather that their vanity is the more striking as it appears side by side with their well-known objectivity. The layman is scandalized, but the scandal is not so much the fault of the scientist as it is the layman’s canonization of scientists, which the latter never asked for.

Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins. New York: Picador, 1999. p. 13.

Great Ideas: Virtues & Vices, Science, Hypothesis, Same & Other

It has been a few years since I last read Love in the Ruins, but it still proving just as hilarious. I’m going through it as a Summer Slow Read with some other Percy readers and I find this a refreshing practice every year. One of the things about Percy which always strikes me is just how prescient he seems. If Love in the Ruins is speculative fiction, it is one of those which seems to anticipate what is to come with almost prophetic force. The many reflections on science and scientists in the novel were true when Percy wrote them, but they have accelerated and grown far beyond what he describes.

The Thousand External Circumstances

A national literature, in the widest signification of the words, embraces every mental effort made by the inhabitants of a country, through the medium of the press. Every book written by a citizen of a country belongs to its national literature. But the term has also a more peculiar and appropriate definition: for when we say that the literature of a country is national, we mean that it bears upon it the stamp of national character. We refer to those distinguishing features which literature receives from the spirit of a nation, from its scenery and climate, its historic recollections, its government, its various institutions, from all those national peculiarities which are the result of no positive institutions; and, in a word, from the thousand external circumstances which either directly or indirectly exert an influence upon the literature of a nation, and give it a marked and individual character, distinct from that of the literature of other nations.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea, in The Prose Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Outre-Mer, Hyperion, Kavanagh, The Poets and Poetry of Europe, Essays, Etc. London: Chatto and Windus Publishers, 1874. p. 202.

Great Ideas: Citizenship, Poetry, One & Money, Soul

Finding a good copy of Outre-Mer is incredibly difficult. Part of the problems lies with Longfellow; he edited the published edition more than once, removing chapters or putting them back in without explanations or clarifications of “editions.” Add to that the poor sales of the first edition, and the wide reprinting of Longfellow’s works when his popularity was at its zenith, and it becomes a detective’s job just trying to find the best edition of the book. The chapter I’ve quoted here is fascinating, and it is different from the essay he would write previously, “The Literary Spirit of Our Country” (the latter from 1824 and the former from 1835). I would love to work on something deeper here, exploring how Longfellow’s views changed over time. But that will have to wait a while.

God’s Grandchild

“Philosophy,” he said, “to him who heeds it,
Noteth, not only in one place alone,
After what manner Nature takes her course

From Intellect Divine, and from its art;
And if thy Physics carefully thou notest,
After not many pages shalt thou find,

That this your art as far as possible
Follows, as the disciple doth the master;
So that your art is, as it were, God’s grandchild.”

Dante Aligheri, Inferno in The Divine Comedy. Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Complete Writings of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Vol. 9. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914. Canto 11, lines 97-105 [p. 75].

Great Ideas: Philosophy, Nature, Physics, God

I concluded my final course for Thales College’s CCEP Program last week and discussed Dante’s Inferno with the students.1 I’ve started using Columbia’s Digital Dante for these online discussions because I can easily look at Mandelbaum’s translation alongside Longfellow’s. I understand that it is worthwhile to read more modern translations of Dante, but Longfellow’s has a special place in my memory. And this reflection stood out to me on my most recent pass through. He may not be where people start reading The Divine Comedy anymore, but I still recommend giving it a try at some point.

The Last Unicorn. Directed by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, featuring Alan Arkin, Jeff Bridges, Mia Farrow, Tammy Grimes, Robert Klein, Angela Lansbury, Christopher Lee, Keenan Wynn, Paul Frees, and René Auberjonois. Jensen Farley Pictures, 1982.

I could write pages and pages regarding how much I love Peter S. Beagle’s novel, The Last Unicorn (1968). But for this post, I want to actually encourage you to give the 1982 film adaptation a try. I will add at the front that my son hated this movie, but I will have to address his shortsighted views of adaptation another time.

I’ve spent the last few months encouraging folks on to read Beagle’s excellent book, and I’ve had some success, I think.

But I have to give the animated film it’s due as a part of this effort. There is a lot to commend in this adaptation of The Last Unicorn, so I will only address a few of the main reasons here.

First, this is a movie that will help you love the book. I will admit that I have a biased, nostalgic love for this movie. This is more than a Reminiscence Bump, so bear with me briefly. As a child, I consumed a lot of media. I imagine I was a fairly standard consumer in the 80s and 90s, with a radio, a personal computer (running Windows 3.1), and a TV/VHS combo in my bedroom. I read quite a bit, compared to me friends, but I still took in most things through the television screen. I don’t know when I first watched The Last Unicorn, but it was early in my life. But, and this is the important part, this movie engendered a love in me that opened me to the novel. I started with the film and found that a story I loved could be even better. Many people watch novel adaptations and come away frustrated; by working in the opposite direction, I found this movie drew me into the book, causing me to note things explored in the written word that weren’t present in the film (though admittedly, the differences are surprisingly small). I firmly maintain that watching this film will make you a better reader of the book. And there aren’t many movies which can accomplish this.

Second, the quality of the film makes it stand out from its contemporaries. Granted, 1982 was a lean year for animated films, and most of them were merely television expansions (I’m looking at you Mighty Mouse in the Great Space Chase and Bugs Bunny’s 1001 Rabbit Tales). There was, of course, Don Bluth’s adaptation of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.M.H., but it is such a heavy departure from the source material that it is essentially a different story. Of the 1982 releases, only Bluth’s film competes with The Last Unicorn in terms of quality animation, storytelling, and voice-casting. Add to those that it is more faithful to the book, and I think it is the clear winner.

Rankin and Bass Studios are at their peak here, with elements that are clearly their own but also bringing in aspects of Beagle’s imagination with give the film a distinct look compared with their other productions. And who could forget the voice casting? Jeff Bridges as Prince Lír is somehow chronologically jarring and also perfect for the young, impetuous man of virtue. Christopher Lee completely nails King Haggard, bringing his grizzled wickedness to life in a haunting performance. And while Beagle would disagree, I think Alan Arkin as Schmendrick is perfect. His voice acting captures the oddity about Schmendrick, destined to be a great wizard but cursed to be a buffoon. It is a perfect combination, exemplifying the unique moment that was fantasy films in the early 80s.

Third, the film bears all the hallmarks of Beagle’s wit and imagination, even amidst the changes from the source material. This is largely thanks to the fact that Beagle wrote the script himself. You could pull up the script and the novel side-by-side, and you would find an unusual amount of similarity. Normally, when films are made out of novels, the dialogue particularly suffers from on screen needs (i.e. actor chemistry, time constraints, idiot directors). Here, whole sections come from straight from the book, which is a good thing. On more than one occasion, I’ve walked into a classroom and started reading from Beagle’s novel aloud.1 The scene that I most often return to in such moments is in chapter XIII, where Schmendrick, Molly, and Lír engage in a sort so desperate argument about power. The scene from the book goes like this:

“Do something,” a hoarse voice said to Schmendrick, as Molly had said it long ago. Prince Lír stood behind him, his face bloody and his eyes mad. He looked like King Haggard. “Do something,” he said. “You have power. You changed her into a unicorn—do something now to save her. I will kill you if you don’t.” He showed the magician his hands.

“I cannot,” Schmendrick answered him quietly. “Not all the magic in the world can help her now. If she will not fight him, she must go into the sea with the others. Neither magic nor murder will help her.” [. . . ]

“Then what is magic for?” Prince Lír demanded wildly. “What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?” He gripped the magician’s shoulder hard, to keep from falling.

Schmendrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, “That’s what heroes are for.” (p. 273-274).

It is a powerful scene which is etched in my memory. But when I first read it in the book, I was a bit surprised. For in the movie, it is Molly Grue who asks the essential question: “What use is wizardry?” I’ve never heard Beagle explain this change, so I cannot speak from certainty, yet I’d like to venture a speculation. Regardless of his reasons, what it accomplishes is profound. Instead of a moment of almost mockery, in the film Schemdnrick’s response is to Lír despite Molly asking the question. As such, it becomes a request, a pleading, and far more hopeful. You can watch the scene below to get a sense of what I mean:

Not everyone loves this film (which is probably true of the book as well). Still, I think it is a worthwhile 93 minutes. It is something that will leave you thinking, and it will serve as invitation to something else. You don’t have to just take my word for it though.

May means Star Wars. And The Mandalorian and Grogu did not disappoint, regardless of what the critics may say.

On Reading & Researching

I enjoyed finishing Book 3 of The Faerie Queene as the school year wound down. We did not make it to Romeo and Juliet, as I had hoped. But it was worth it to leave the students considering Britomart and all the challenges that rise up to challenge our loves. Of the books in Spenser’s masterpiece, I do think this one might be the most appropriate for teenagers.

I’m still working through Chesterton and the Philosophers, though I’ve had to set it aside briefly to read Longfellow’s Outre-Mer. I find it frustrating that there are not enough easily accessible, quality editions of Longfellow’s prose works. The Library of America volume has most of the best poetry and a handful of good prose, but I would like to see LOA put out enough volumes to cover all his works, including his lesser read narrative writing.

I’m also working through The Sun Also Rises again for a book club, as well as Perelandra for a different book club. I’ve got plenty of good things to read to kick off the Summer. I anticipate joining the Walker Percy slow read for the Summer, which will likely be Love in the Ruins. Few books have made me laugh as much as this one, so I’m looking forward to an excuse to go back through it.

On Researching & Speaking & Publishing

Just a few days after my last digest, The University Bookman published my review of ’s Classical Catechism. This was a challenging book to review but ended up being one of the most enjoyable reviews I’ve written over the years. I think this is an important book for classical educators, largely because it is one of the few books to truly hit a universal note in offering thoughts on modern pedagogies. Below is a little preview.

I’ll be participating in an online conference this week, presenting on Longfellow and Hemingway as travel writers. I think there is much more to be explored here, and it’s given me a renewed interest on a few authors I’ve got in the back of my mind. I don’t know what kind of project this could turn out to be, but least a couple of essays (or even a book) could come out of it.

The conference is called Modernist Crossroads and is offered free to anyone interested. You can check out the schedule and register here. It will be a fun time, with a nice mixture of academic and laymen offerings, I think.

On Traveling & Laboring

May has been a month of only local trips. We celebrated graduation at Trinitas in the middle of the month. This also mean celebrating other graduates in our circle. We mixed in a wedding of a former student (turned co-worker) and the new Star Wars film, meaning we’ve had plenty to keep us busy. I’ve also begun thinking about my future at FSU, which has included reviewing syllabi and considering reading lists. I’m sure I’ll have more to share on that in the coming months.

I’m particularly happy to see so much promotion for the upcoming launch of ’s . I’m working with Josh on this project, helping to design and lead the Great Books certificate offering. The program as a whole is exciting, and I think all of the certificates being offered present great opportunities for anyone wanting to expand their education. The Great Books program has already been making people upset online, with squabbles over the list making themselves known. However, I don’t mind for two simple reasons: the list is not meant to be exhaustive but rather representative, and there are a limited number of hours for something like this. I’ll post a bird’s eye view of the reading list below:

I’m sure everyone can find some aspect they would do it differently. Let me know in the comments! Or sign up for a course to really show me what you think!

On Listening

There were a lot of cool videos that were made during COVIDtide. This was one of the byproducts of so many people finding leisure forced upon them. This video of Kurt Smith and his daughter performing “Mad World” was one of the best ones.

Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace;
And glut thy self with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more then what is false and vain,
And meerly mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d,
And last of all, thy greedy self consum’d,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When every thing that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever shine
About the supreme Throne
Of him, t’whose happy-making sight alone,
When once our heav’nly-guided soul shall clime,
Then all this Earthy grosnes quit,
Attir’d with Stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time.1

That is one of John Milton’s earlier poems, “On Time.” From there, I drew the title of this presentation, “Fly envious Time.” I doubt the young Milton had any such notion that this poem would find use in this kind of setting, but such is the way of things we leave to posterity. Before pressing on, it is perhaps worth noting a few things up front. First, I must apologize for the poor summary of this workshop in the ACCS guidebook. Originally, I had pitched this idea as a practicum, where I would do little speaking, if any, and others would offer their views. ACCS, instead, asked me to turn it into a breakout session, but the wording of the original proposal remained. Mea culpa. Second, the practical aspect of this talk might come across as unusual. In the time we have allotted, my ability to give practicable advice on how you run your classroom, without knowing much about your context, is incredibly limited. And dare I say, such an approach isn’t really Classical in its form. So, I would like to move quickly through this rather obligatory introduction portion, and move to a sample lesson. Upon entering, you should have received a copy of the short story entitled “The Pedestrian.” Hold on to it; we will get to it soon.

There have been lots of talks this week about the meaning of “classical,” as well as some presentations on how to grade or build assessments that make the teacher’s job a little easier. These are helpful things to consider, and if you missed one of those talks, you should definitely listen to them as soon as ACCS puts them up in the Member Resource Center. I don’t intend this talk to contradict any of those fine presentations, but I do want to come at the discussion of classical assessments from a slightly different angle. I think you’ll find lots of overlap with what others have said this week, so I hope this will offer a kind of consolation if I am not practical enough.

You’ll notice the use of the word leisure in my title, which is something of a buzzword these days in our small CCE circles. And it isn’t hard to meet someone who has read Josef Pieper’s Leisure: the Basis of Culture and believes it to hold the key to something important for teachers, though it is not always clear what that important something might be. It is also common to meet those who have only heard of Pieper’s work, and long for leisure in their own classroom. What I want to suggest to you today is one way in which I believe leisure might be accomplished in a humanities classroom. I hasten to add that I think this is applicable to all classrooms and all grades. But, my suggestions today are based on my engagement with the books I teach as well as attempts I’ve made in the classroom. I’d be happy to discuss with the Geometry teacher or the Grammar PE instructor on ways to adapt this sort of thing, if they’re so inclined. I only ask that you remember that my anecdotes are worth very little compared to the 6,000 years of recorded history that we attempt to give to our students every school year in a humanities classroom, but that realization is part of what led me here.

Let’s get our terminology straight before getting too deep. And it is probably best to start with leisure. The word comes from the Greek, σχολε, which became the Latin scola, and in English becomes school.2 And contrary to what that English word conjures up for us, the Greek concept is more akin to the English word leisure. I won’t press the etymology much further, because that would rob you of the joy in reading Pieper, whether for the first time or for a re-read. So, if you want to know more, grab a copy of Leisure from the Eighth Day Books table before you leave. The easiest way to show you what the Greek word suggests is to look at Aristotle, who always makes for wonderful examples. He says in the Nicomachean Ethics: “And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.”3 The Greek here is instructive: δοκεῖ τε ἡ εὐδαιμονία ἐν τῇ σχολῇ εἶναι· ἀσχολούμεθα γὰρ ἵνα σχολάζωμεν.4 We are “un-leisurely” in order that we might have leisure. This Greek concept does make an appearance in the Old Testament as well. In Psalm 46:11 we read: “Cease striving and know that I am God.”5 That phrase, cease striving, is the Greek σχολάσατε. And the noun form of this word became ὁ σχολαστής for Plutarch, meaning one who lives at ease or a man of leisure.6 Plutarch uses it to describe Marcus Brutus, saying he was “given to books and study.”7 So put images of a 1970s leisure suit aside, forget any notion of leisure as a solid day of binge-watching your favorite show. Leisure stems from work, and it is itself a work oriented to books and study. This is what I suggest should shape your classroom. I’m sure you have students who cherish grades more than the eloquence of a fine Shakespearean sonnet. Or perhaps you have parents who don’t care what the story of Calculus might mean for their children, they just want them to succeed on the SAT.

Now to be clear, I’m not denigrating those things. Parents see test scores as keys to their child’s happiness in the future; students see practicality in the classroom as the only measurable benefit. And good Christian people adhere to such views. But they are, I think, aiming in the wrong direction. They are typically either desirous of leisure so as to be leisurely, wanting the end reward without the effort up front, or they understand leisure to mean vacating or emptying. As I tell my students often, remember your Aristotle: we are un-leisurely in order to have leisure, we strive to know God that we might cease striving by knowing Him. This notion of leisure is aimed at the pursuit of truth, of knowledge, of virtue. James Schall puts this into a nice context in his On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs, another book I cannot recommend enough. He explains, “To waste our time with our friends means that we do not have some sort of tight agenda, that we are not always looking at our watches or worrying about our lives . . . We need time-out-of-time, the time that passes without our noticing.”8 Schall compares this kind of “wasting time” to prayer, a comparison that I think we all ought to linger upon and one that resonates strongly with Psalm 46. For your classroom ought to be of the same kind, if leisure is your desire. Remove the clocks from the sight of your students. Ask them to put their watches in pencil pouches or lockers. It will no doubt be difficult, but your students need to see what you do in the classroom as akin to visiting with old friends, of wasting time in the most glorious and holy sense of the idea. Milton challenges Time in his poem, to run out its race, to glut itself on what is false and vain. Our classrooms must be places where time works differently, where the rat race of human existence is put aside, and teachers and students and visitors get lost in conversations with the long-dead and the eternal. If you want to know how to acquire leisure in your classroom, it will have to begin with a repudiation of the clock.

“But,” you are likely saying to yourself, “I have a curriculum map I must finish. My academic dean will kill me if I only get to Homer in the Ancient era or Austen in the Modern.” Fair enough. How can you make it through a course, hitting all the right notes, getting in at least the minimum number of assessments, and still have leisure? It’s a good question. I’ll start answering it by telling you a secret: I don’t take work home. This past year, I had 3 Composition courses to prep and 1 humanities seminar. That totaled about 40 students, writing essays, speeches, thesis papers, and course assessments, on a fairly regular schedule. And outside of some occasional senior thesis editing, I did not bring work home all year. This was not always true of my life as a teacher, but by my fourth year in the classroom, this had become standard for me. As Hemingway once said, “There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring.”9 I spent enough late nights grading student essays, looking for those oasis points in a dry desert of mediocrity, and it cost me plenty. But I realized that if I did not know how to live leisurely outside of my classroom, it was not something I could give my students in my classroom. If I wanted those under my tutelage to leave school in possession of what Milton describes as sincerely good, perfectly divine, with Truth and Peace and Love, then I had to break time’s hold on me outside of class, which might, just might, enable me to help students do the same.

This has given me a threefold approach to the classroom, which I have employed in a variety of humanities settings, but which I think are applicable to every course, math, science, art, and music included. I will briefly lay these out, and then attempt to demonstrate what I mean in our remaining time. First, I dispensed with the idea that the goal of a classroom was to expose students to as much as possible. It is not faithful nor reasonable to think that a seventeen-year-old will retain and comprehend half of the historical, literary, or theological aspects of the Medieval period, simply because I try to cram it in. The tyranny of time is often accompanied by the fear of missing out. FOMO did not begin with social media but has been the plague of teachers and students for millennia. I give students, in my humanities class, the best of what I am able. We read all of Homer, but we jump around in Josephus. We read most of Blaise Pascal, but only the most pertinent sections of Francis Bacon. This frees me to linger, to work hard at understanding specific things, that I might move leisurely through the chronology of human history. It does mean that I must know where I want to take my students; it means I must be un-leisurely to have leisure. But it has been liberating. And so the first principle of my classroom is to cover fewer books with an aim to deeper understanding.

Second, I adopted a method of instruction which puts the emphasis of reading in the classroom. We read the bulk of our materials together, as a group. This accomplishes a lot but let me explain a couple of primary points worth noting. It models how to read for the students, while encouraging them to be bold in front of others, to be unafraid of making mistakes. It gives us a shared vocabulary, so that our common language can make real discussion possible. And it shows the students what I value, far more than charts or timelines or quizzes can ever make plain to them. Students leave my class understanding the value that I place on reading, because we do it together, often. Again, this means thinking through the text on the front end in order to move leisurely in class, but that is how leisure is attained. So the second principle of my classroom is to read our primary texts aloud in class.

Third, I lecture rarely, opting instead for discussions, which is what makes this a bit hard for me. It is not unusual to read a passage with students, only for me to turn around and ask them to explain it to me. “Help me understand what Augustine is saying,” I tell them. And I have done this with third graders studying Rome, fourth graders studying Roland, eighth graders studying Beowulf and twelfth graders studying Booker T. Washington. I teach by asking questions, by engaging the dialectical process of refining the pursuit of truth by seeking to understand. I am not deceiving my students when I ask for their help, for I truly gain a better picture of Augustine and Aquinas and Abelard when I ask questions of my students and when they ask questions of me. I could summarize Aquinas’s Four Ways or Livy’s Roman history, but what would that yield? Content crammed in craniums. For texts to have any chance of forming our students, you must let the texts do their work, just like old friends providing counsel around a roaring fire. And yep, you guessed it, that requires more of me up front. So the third principle which guides my classroom is to devote most of the time not reading a text to discussions, centered on the Socratic method of questioning.

So let’s try this, shall we? I’m going to read this story to you. And then, I’m going to ask you some questions.

Ray Bradbury The Pedestrian

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I have other suggestions, of course. I do assessments in a particular way. I engage parents using specific language. I send home only certain kinds of homework. But since I don’t know your context, I won’t pepper you with what very well be useless tips. Instead, I want to leave you with this thought: regardless of what subject you teach, I am convinced that you will find leisure and rest by reading good things in your classroom with your students. But don’t take my word for it. Russell Kirk, someone whom you should all become familiar with if you are not already, talked about a lack of reading as an enemy of the Permanent Things which give life meaning. He says,

Literature can corrupt; and it is possible, too, to be corrupted by an ignorance of humane letters, much of our normative knowledge necessarily being derived from our reading. The person who reads bad books instead of good may be subtly corrupted; the person who reads nothing at all may be adrift in life, unless he lives in a community still powerfully influenced by what Gustave Thibon calls ‘moral habits’ and by oral tradition. And absolute abstinence from printed matter has become rare. If a small boy does not read Treasure Island (1883), odds are that he will read Mad Ghoul Comics.10

Kirk’s point is that Literature (with a capital L) unites us in our pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful. It is the source, particularly for Christians, of the normative, virtuous, moral direction our lives take as we grow further up and further in to the righteous life. If you take nothing else away from today, take this: read good books with your people. It is, I’m convinced, the surest way to a life of leisure. Thank you. I’m happy to take any questions.

The First Morning of Summer

Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer.

Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine, New York: William Morrow, 2006, p. 17.

Great Ideas: Experience, Time, Man, Custom & Convention

I have read this book three times from cover to cover, but I will pick it up every May and start flipping through sections. I stood in my front yard one time, reading it aloud amongst the dandelions while my children rolled their eyes. Bradbury has become a kind of invocation for me heading into the Summer months, and this opening line recurs to me whenever the wind starts to come in off the Gulf, bringing with it the scent of the sea and the call towards enjoyment.

Waking Understands Sleep

We have learned of evil, though not as the Evil One wished us to learn. We have learned better than that, and know it more, for it is waking that understands sleep and not sleep that understands waking. There is an ignorance of evil that comes from being young: there is a darker ignorance that comes from doing it, as men by sleeping lose the knowledge of sleep.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, New York: HarperCollins, 2012. p. 179.

Great Ideas: Good & Evil, Soul, Immortality, Sin

I do so enjoy teaching and discussing this book. It can be a slog for some readers, because Lewis devotes so much space to the dialectic process that Ransom, the Unman, and the Green Lady experience. But it is one of the most satisfying endings to a work of Science Fiction that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. And the King’s words to Ransom strike so many deep notes, that I constantly return to this section to mull it over once more in my mind.

Worthy of Meticulous Effort

When Katherine peeled back the wrapping paper and realized what she was holding, she attempted to speak, visibly caught her breath, and blushed. Her eyes filled, and she tried to smile through awkwardly quivering lips. The realization that someone had paid such attention to her face—her face—that someone had drawn her with such tenderness, had deemed her worthy of such meticulous effort and artistry, reduced her to meaningful silence. She and Theo gazed at the portrait as she gathered enough composure to speak.

‘I don’t even know what to say. It’s umm . . .’ She hesitated, fearful of flattering herself. ‘He did a beautiful job.’

‘Well, the artist simply drew what he saw, and what he saw—who he saw—is a work of art.’

Allen Levi, Theo of Golden, New York: Atria, 2025. p. 209.

Great Ideas: Beauty, Art, Judgment, Love, Sense, Man

Theo of Golden has been making the rounds of late, and after many endorsements, I managed to read it. It took a while for me to find a groove with it, which may have been my own fault. But by the end, I had come to quite appreciate the story of the old Portuguese man handing out hand-drawn portraits to a bunch of small-town southerners. I think this scene captures well the ethos of the portrait giving that motivates the story. And I’m very intrigued to hear that Mr. Levi is working on a second novel.

An Important Difference

‘There will be room for academic essays in our journal,’ Simon goes on, ‘and this is surely important. Yet there is a difference between insightful commentary about culture and the actual creation of culture. For both, we will need to create a community of people drawn from many walks of life, from here, there, and everywhere. It will be difficult and dangerous.’

Michael D. O’Brien, The Island of the World, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007. p. 253.

Great Ideas: Art, Beauty, Courage, Custom & Convention

I have been slowly working through this book. It is huge, to begin with, but it is also heavy in content. You go a chapter or two and then you feel like you’ve been hit in the stomach. It has, thus far, proven a worthwhile read, so I’m going to keep plugging along. The section on creating an alternative culture fascinated me, primarily because it was an attempt to highlight the truth in a world where the truth was systematically suppressed by the government. The problem looks different in a world of social media, I think, but it remains none-the-less.

Weeds and Roses

Amongst the roses grow some wicked weeds;
For this was not to love, but lust inclined;
For love does always bring forth bounteous deeds,
And in each gentle heart desire of honor breeds.

Edmund Spenser, The Warrior Princess: Book 3 of The Faerie Queene, ed. Roay Maynard, Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2018. 3.1.49.6-9 [p. 22].

Great Ideas: Love, Virtue & Vice, Poetry, Sin

There are few things more appropriate to reading with teenagers than Spenser’s Faerie Queene. While C. S. Lewis’s famous advice to read it at age 12 might be a bit much today, 17 seems perfect. Too many classes only read Book 1, the story of Redcross or Holiness, but Books 2 and 3 hit home even more so for the teenage life, I think. Britomart’s story in particular hits on so many of the things these almost-adults are looking towards in terms of what comes next in life.

David I. Smith and Susan M. Felch, eds. Teaching and Christian Imagination. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016. 256 pp.1

To say that this book has two authors is misleading. It is, in fact, a join effort bringing together the writing talents of four authors besides to the two on the cover (viii). This interesting approach to writing mirrors much of the method behind the book. In this volume, David I. Smith, the director of the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning at Calvin University, follows up his successful collection, Teaching and Christian Practices (2011), which sought to provide a glimpse into the classroom of ten college professors. That book was hands-on and practical. Smith’s second outing, Teaching and Christian Imagination, still seeks to be practical, but does so through a less structured manner. It offers “a more loosely linked collection of reflections, close readings, and examples of practice,” aiming for a dialogue with the reader as opposed to a monologue the reader ingests (9).

The book builds and expands upon three metaphors: journeys, gardens, and buildings (7). These images create the structure of the book, while the authors take turns offering thoughts and suggestions in line with each imaginative concept. As such, the authors only delineate voices in the endnotes, including other helpful tidbits about the sections as well (207-235). Part One, “Journeys and Pilgrimages,” provokes contrasts between pilgrims and tourists, galloping and walking, spattering provocative images throughout. Part Two, “Gardens and Wilderness,” invokes landscapes and seasons, offering interesting anecdotes about math here and there. Part Three, “Buildings and Walls,” draws the reader back to the concrete, with a reminder that buildings are meant to stay put, and educators should thus be mindful of what they are building.

Taking the advice from the “Introduction,” I did not start at the beginning of the book. Instead, I meandered through the sections for well over an hour, finding things that caught my interest and reading them with excitement. “Walking in Circles” reminded me of the need for patience in the classroom, especially if a student does not know everything I think they should (55-57). “The Soul of Statistics” jolted me a bit as I wondered how much I considered my students’ past or their need to forgive (110-112). “Building Well” gave me things to reflect upon, in my classroom and in how I teach Gilgamesh and Genesis (197-201). And those are only a few of the highlights from my first time through.

The next time I sat down, I thumbed through the index, looking at Scripture references that caught my eye and authors who I missed on the first read. This brought me to “The Divine Architect,” with some fresh ideas about God as the architect of the classes I teach (150-154), and “A Rhythm of Work and Rest,” which affirmed somethings I already do in the classroom but challenged me to consider different ways of approaching homework and deadlines at the same time (84-86). After the second sitting, I felt as invigorated as the first, and looked with anticipation towards the next time.

Smith and Felch succeed in their stated goals, and the book as a whole has much to offer. It is the kind of book that one gets lost in, forgetting the time of day or that the water is boiling. It is genuinely engaging, and deserves the praise lavished over it on the back cover. One of the strongest elements of the book is its use of other sources, especially God’s Word. None of the authors turn to Scripture as a way of justifying themselves, but rather each one allows Scripture to form their imaginations and metaphors in a way that brings out some wonderful ideas for the Christian educator. The cross-disciplinary background of the authors creates a prose that is delightful and open to a variety of readers. While the aim of the book is directed towards Christian teachers, any Christian might find this a valuable use of their time, even if they only wander a bit.

April has been a wild ride of a month. is 29 weeks pregnant and there are 3 weeks left in the school year. It’s non-stop from here to July, I’d wager.

.

On Reading & Researching

Man, oh man. It has been a month of starting too many things.

I’ve worked this month on my essay for the University of Birmingham. The topic for this course was moral dilemmas (and how it relates to character). This is somewhat unfortunate for me since I subscribe to a very MacIntyrean approach to moral dilemmas. Still the reading on this has been interesting, and it has given me some thoughts about future course materials at the IGC.

I’ve had a copy of Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House for years, given to me by in a book swap. I’ve picked it up many times but never started reading it. But for some reason, I picked it up two weeks ago and found myself standing there reading it for 20 minutes. That sealed it for me, and it was moved to my “Currently Reading” stack. Wolfe is hilarious, and I might enjoy his skewering of the self-important, pretentious art crowd a bit too much. I’m also reading Chesterton and the Philosophers, edited by my friend , which has been a fascinating exploration. I’m working on a review of it, which I hope to have finished in the next few weeks.

Our school has done a community read of Goerge MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin. Our fourth-grade class reads this as part of the curriculum, and the Grammar school drama this year was an adaptation of it. So there has been a lot of interest. Our faculty read it together and we gathered this past Monday for a big community discussion of the book. I was grateful for another reason to give it a third read. One of the final books my 11th and 12th grade students will read this year is Spenser’s Faerie Queene. They seem to be enjoying it, though we’re moving at a much faster pace than I prefer. I’m hoping we’ll be able to cover some of Britomart’s story before the school year ends.

On Publishing

I still have some things awaiting either acceptance or rejection in the publishing queue, with one book review accepted but not yet in print. However, I am pleased to announce that a project I worked on for much the Fall has now been released.

The Cather Standards (which I like to think were actually named to please ) have been released by the National Association of Scholars. I was pleased to serve as a member of the Expert Committee, and I think the final result is something that every school would do well to consider (whether public or private). But don’t take my word for it. Read the full report here.

On Speaking & Traveling

The month began while we were on Spring Break, which was well-enjoyed. We went and saw The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, hit the beach, and enjoyed a lovely Easter Service with the saints at Providence Church (pastored by ). When we move to Tallahassee, we will miss our proximity to the beach and seeing our fellow Providencians each week.

I also attended two conferences this month, though I thankfully did not speak at either one (my plate has been plenty full). Two Fridays ago, I drove from Pensacola to Tampa for the Spring 2026 Philadelphia Society meeting, which was a grand time meeting new people and connecting with old friends. I’ve been to enough meetings now that I rarely have any down moments. And this meeting also had a serious contingent of the Ciceronian Society present, which meant having more fun than was normally allowed.

As the conference ended on Sunday, I drove from Tampa to Charlotte, NC to attend to the University of Birmingham & Jubilee Centre Residential. Add to that the Tuesday drive back to Florida, and the whole trip spanned five days and 1,580 miles. I’m glad to be home for a while, with no travel planned until this Summer (with two trips in July, after the baby comes). I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied in Pensacola in the meantime!

On Listening

I come from a generation that views music videos as a kind of art form. And as my kids get older, I frequently say to them, “let me show you this.” Prince’s “Batdance” is among one of the very weirdest, and fun, music videos out there. But I don’t love the song. I do love “I Would Die 4 U,” but there isn’t a good video of it. It’s been ringing in my ears since the Project Hail Mary trailer, so now you can share in its infectious fun!

Mylius: I’ve been meaning to ask you . . . a year or two ago you mentioned that you didn't see A.I. as a reliable tool for research. What are your thoughts about A.I. in its current state? Leaving aside the question of whether it should be used in any given situation, I'm curious if you think the quality has improved enough to make it a viable research tool, and how academics you know would see it.

SCH: A fair question. In short, no. I’m more skeptical of A.I. as a helpful research tool today than I was two years ago.

I’m linking a recent Nature study that shows how hallucinations are prevalent in A.I.-backed research. And how it is a disaster. There are also several studies on legal cases getting tossed out because lawyers used A.I.

And I’m including a link that is more anecdotal, but I think it gets to my fundamental complaint:

I might write something up on it, because I do think the evidence is stacking up against A.I. as a research tool. Of course, I don’t think tools are inherently neutral and I think A.I.’s current iterations are built on theft (along with a healthy dose of the rejection of God; see Altman’s recent comments on digitally transferring his brain out of his body). For me, this is fundamentally a deal breaker for regular usage in this realm.

I will add that there are things I think A.I. can be useful for, though I think this will be exclusively in tailored, limited-range A.I.s which function in hyper-specific ways. I’ve come to this conclusion through conversations with programmers who are experiencing success with A.I.s in this precise way; specifically, they experienced failure at using LLMs designed for general use but found them helpful when they were smaller models created specifically to help their companies. So, take that for what it is worth.

I’m sure ’s OC podcast roundtable on the topic is worth a listen, if you didn’t already see it. I’m closer to and in that conversation than I am to .

Mylius: Thanks for the info and the article. I’ve seen plenty of A.I. hallucinations myself, and I can see why people would be fooled by them.

But I’m not thinking of using it for amassing citations of things you haven’t actually read (which nobody should be doing anyway), but rather using it as an advanced search engine for locating materials. For example, you could ask A.I., “List out five scholars currently researching classical education. Cite a book or article for each” or “Find five scholarly articles written in the past five years critiquing theistic evolution.” And then you look up the sources and actually read them. You can also ask the same questions to three different A.I. programs to get a variety of answers, since asking an A.I. program a question one time and then going with that answer is rarely the most helpful.

Using A.I. to locate scholarly articles (which many schools require as a senior thesis source) could be especially helpful for students because finding relevant scholarly articles can be extremely difficult. Students can and should be taught to use sites like Proquest or Google Scholar, but that can be very difficult. You’re hoping you’ve put in the best keywords, and then you scroll through hundreds or thousands of hits. Students usually pick out something semi-related and just throw it in their paper. (Yes, this might be a reason not to require scholarly articles in the first place, but I’ll leave that as a separate issue.) The best case scenario to finding a scholarly article is that they see an article cited in a book or another article they can look up, and then they find a copy to download. Or they can have someone recommend the article to them. At least using A.I. would help them locate something more relevant much more quickly. And then, of course, they’d look it up and actually read it (if it exists).

Would you still see a downside to using A.I. that way?1

SCH: On the whole, no I don’t think this resolves anything for me.

First, while it is true that Google and other major search engines have become a hot mess, this doesn’t seem a reason to switch to A.I. searches. If anything, these companies are pushing users to do that, which is a reason to resist if possible. I know this is something of a hardline position, and I don’t fault people who choose the “easier” route. I will also add that I tell college students all the time that using search engines outside the Library will lead them into error. I know this is harder in a CCE setting, where research Libraries are not as easily accessible. But I do think Google Scholar, The Internet Archive, and Academia.edu are sufficient to get students started in high school.

Second, I think the easier route is an illusion. I repeated your first search in Copilot and ChatGPT, followed by a simpler keyword search in Google and Bing.2 Fundamentally, I didn’t find enough benefits in the A.I. results to see that as superior to a basic search. And while this is only one example, I do think this is an easily repeatable outcome. The perceived benefits are simply not there or are not as pronounced as believed. This corresponds to a lot of the research showing that regular A.I. users overestimate its benefits, even when it can be empirically shown as otherwise. has written about this on his Substack and just wrote about this recently. To be clear, I’m not saying you are a regular user in this regard, merely pointing out that this kind of argument does fit the standard pattern. And I expect to see more and more CCE teachers moving this direction in the coming months (as an aside, I largely think this is because CCE teachers are always behind on trends; I imagine classical schools will finally give in on A.I. right at the moment that colleges and public schools completely ban it. But this could be a cynical take.)

Third, and I think this is the most important point, what is the purpose of research? If part of that task is to learn what kind of questions to ask, what kind of keywords work, and where to look for helpful research, then asking A.I. to do all of that defeats the purpose. I used to tell students all the time, “if you’re not finding good results then you are either asking a bad question or you’re truly a thought pioneer (and it’s never the latter).” I then coached them on how to improve and find helpful sources. What’s more, the web is indeed more open today than it was ten years ago, so accessing legally available PDFs of research articles is far easier today than it ever has been. I think teaching students to do proper research is too easy to accomplish for teacher’s to sublet out to A.I. If time is an issue, or if it is too tedious, then we should question why we’re doing it in the first place (for the record, I think senior thesis is a poor capstone of a classical education and have spent years trying to get administrators to change tactics, to no avail). I believe on the whole that one of the primary drivers of students to use A.I. is the difficulty of the work, but a secondary one is that teachers have not trained the students well enough for that difficulty. Driver #1 occurs more often than #2, but I don’t think #2 gets enough attention.

This reminds me of the “brainstorming” argument for A.I. use, and I will admit it was the first one I encountered that I thought might be okay. But I watched as what it really meant was college students losing the ability to search the Library, parsing out sources, and instead learned to rely on A.I. to do the research for them. Maybe this wouldn’t be the case for kids in a CCE setting, but I’m skeptical. A.I. is designed to give the illusion of shortcuts. Teenagers do not do well with such tools, and quite frankly neither do adults.

I think there are ways A.I. could be useful in research one day, especially as it better integrates into the original search function of Libraries. But thus far the makers of A.I. only want to make it so researchers don’t have to do the actual work (which is the same with the image generators, writing editors, etc.). The tech folks who create A.I. have a poor understanding of human nature and purpose.

2

ChatGPT

Here are five contemporary (or relatively recent) scholars actively shaping research and discussion on classical education, along with a representative book or article for each.

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1. Arlene Holmes-Henderson

• A professor at Durham University focused on classics pedagogy and access to classical education.

• She founded a research center dedicated to how classics are taught and learned.

Representative work:

• “Classics Teaching and Learning Research” (various articles and reports; e.g., work through Durham’s Centre for Classics Education Research)

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2. Susan Wise Bauer

• A major figure in the modern revival of classical education, especially in homeschooling and K–12 curriculum design.

Representative book:

• The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had

  • A widely used guide to the “Great Books” approach and self-directed classical learning.

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3. Christopher Perrin

• Co-founder of Classical Academic Press and a leading theorist of classical Christian education and curriculum design.

Representative book:

• An Introduction to Classical Education: A Guide for Parents

  • Explains the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and its modern application.

---

4. Jessica L. Richardi

• Education researcher examining how classical education is implemented in modern K–12 schooling.

Representative article:

• “Introducing K–12 Classical Education: Modern Take on Ancient Curriculum” (2022)

  • A literature review calling for more empirical research into classical schools and their outcomes.

---

5. Victor Davis Hanson

• A classicist and historian who critiques the decline of classical learning and argues for its renewal.

Representative book:

• Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom (with John Heath)

  • A well-known critique of modern academia’s retreat from classical studies.

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Brief note

The field of “classical education” today spans multiple domains—curriculum design, philosophy of education, classical languages, and K–12 school reform. Modern scholarship is still developing, with researchers increasingly calling for empirical studies of outcomes and methods in classical schools.

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If you want, I can expand this into a longer bibliography (e.g., 10–15 scholars) or focus specifically on classical Christian education, Great Books programs, or empirical education research.

Copilot

Here are five scholars currently researching classical education along with their respective areas of focus:

1. Dr. Julia Hejduk - Focuses on the Liberal Arts and Virgil’s Aeneid. 1

2. Dr. Christopher Schlecht - Explores the concept of Liberal Arts. 1

3. Dr. Albert Cheng - Directs The Classical Education Research Lab at the University of Arkansas, conducting original research on classical education. 1

4. Bhion Achimba - A poet and scholar of global refugee literature, currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Utah. 1

5. Susan Heuck Allen - Visiting Scholar in the Department of Classics at Brown University, specializing in the history of archaeology. 1

Citations:

• “Just Movement: What United Progressive Pedagogues?” by Luke Trouwborst. 1

• “Finding the Walls of Troy: Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik” by Susan Heuck Allen. 2

Google Search

Bing Search

Time Only Goes Forward

“Oh my Lady,” he said, “why do you say such creatures linger only in the ancient worlds?”

“Are you so young?” she answered. “How could they come again? Since our Beloved became a man, how should Reason in any world take on another form? Do you not understand? That is all over. Among times there is a time that turns a corner and everything this side of it is new. Times do not go backward.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, New York: HarperCollins, 2012. p. 54.

Great Ideas: Time, Man, Space, Reasoning

I’ve found the parallel readings of The Divine Comedy and the Ransom Trilogy has proven imaginatively fruitful for me, and for my students (I think). The scenes in the early portion of the book, where Ransom and the Green Lady are discoursing without interference bear striking resemblances to much of the dialogues in Purgatorio and Paradiso (particularly between the Pilgrim and his Guides). This might be more of a basic influence than outright imitation, but I would be hard pressed to believe that there are no connections between the two works.

Your First Adventure

His Lady seeing all, that chanced, from far
Approached in haste to greet his victory,
And said, “Fair knight, born under a happy star,
Who see your vanquished foes before you lie:
Well worthy be you of that Armory,
Wherein ye have great glory won this day,
And proved your strength on a strong enemy,
Your first adventure: many such I pray,
And henceforth ever wish, that like succeed it may.”

Edmund Spenser, Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves: Book I of The Faerie Queene, ed. Roy Maynard. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1999. 1.27.1-9 [p. 29].

Great Ideas: Honor, Love, War & Peace, Prudence

I have been looking for a reason to dive back into The Faerie Queene, and teaching it is one of the best reasons to read something. These last few weeks of school move at a breakneck pace, so I won’t be able to go as deep as I’d like. Regardless, the poem is so worth the reading. And despite the allegorical nature of the poem, my students thus far seem to be having an easier time with it than they did with Dante. I’m not sure if that is because they are reading “the story” or “plot",” which is harder to discern in The Divine Comedy, or if they just find Spenser’s verse easier than Dante’s (or Musa’s translation, anyways). One interesting note about this particular passage: a few of my students saw in this a pagan remnant, as though Redcrosse’s seeking for fame and Una’s praise of him have more in common with the pre-Christian world than the Medieval one. Just wait till they get to the House of Pride . . .

Original Grace

Thus, through no merit of their own good works
are they ranked differently; the difference is
only in God’s gift of original grace.

Dante, The Divine Comedy, Volume 3: Paradise, trans. Mark Musa. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003. 32.73-75.

Great Ideas: Soul, Immortality, Punishment, Eternity

Even when my students struggled with Dante’s theology in Inferno and Purgatorio, they didn’t disagree too deeply. But boy, they had wild oscillations to Paradiso. They would adore some sections (like his definition and defense of “faith”) but then were frustrated by others (such as by his portrayal of the Trinity). I tried to coach them into seeing the mathematical influences on Dante’s Paradiso, though that only helped somewhat. In the end, for many of my students, Dante’s medieval mind is too far removed from them. I do hope they’ll return to the book, as I have over the years. Because I think there is still much they can mine from it.

Freedom as Relationship

As the entrepreneur of its own self, the neoliberal subject has no capacity for relationships with others that might be free of purpose. Nor do entrepreneurs know what purpose-free friendship would even look like. Originally, being free meant being among friends. ‘Freedom’ and ‘friendship’ have the same root in Indo-European languages. Fundamentally, freedom signifies a relationship. A real feeling of freedom occurs only in a fruitful relationship—when being with others brings happiness. But today’s neoliberal regime leads to utter isolation; as such, it does not really free us at all.

Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power, trans. Erik Butler. New York: Verso, 2025. p. 2-3.

Great Ideas: Relation, Slavery, Happiness, Government, One & Many

Given that this is one of Han’s older writings, I did not expect it to sound as though it had been written about today. And yet! That is precisely how this book sounds. I’m not through with it but is early criticisms of neo-liberalism strike me as devastating. And this tidbit, snuck into the argument mid-chapter 1, has kept recurring to my mind since I read it. This connection between “real freedom” and “fruitful relationship” is the positive definition of freedom that so many need, particularly our young people. I hope to read some Han in group settings, because I imagine so much of his thought resonates even stronger that way.

The Architect Returned

They became desperate for an antidote, such as coziness & color. They tried to bury the obligatory white sofas under Thai-silk throw pillows of every rebellious, iridescent shade of Magenta, pink, and tropical green imaginable. But the architect returned, as he always does, like the conscience of a Calvinist, and he lectured them and hectored them and chucked the shimmering little sweet things out.

Tom Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our House. New York: Picador, 2009. p. 2-3.

Great Ideas: Beauty, Judgement, Art, Citizen

This has sat on my shelf for years, and I would occasionally pick it up, look it over, and then place it back on the shelf. I do not know why, but when I repeated this ritual last week, I started reading instead of putting it back down. And now, I’m hooked. Wolfe is a funny writer, which helps a lot given the seriousness of my reading list lately, but I also find the discussion of architecture in our modern world utterly fascinating. Having worked recently in a Brutalist building on a college campus, while surrounded by gorgeous, classical styles everywhere else, might have something to do with my interest. I found this specific contrast interesting, the conscience as a metaphor for the learned idiot. Naturally, as a strict comparison, it doesn’t work. But I think Wolfe’s use here does serve as a reminder of just what influence architects wield in our culture. And it’s something to think about going forward.

I greatly enjoyed this one. And I hope to do more with it in the coming months.

The story is simple enough: three Roman soldiers discuss the death of Jesus Christ, while drinking in a Hebrew bar run by a fellow named George. This sounds like peak Hemingway, though the play format of the story does make it unique. Hemingway wrote only a small number of dramas, with The Fifth Column being the most well-known. And Hemingway treated the story as one of his “short stories” when he compiled The First Forty-Nine Stories anthology. So, while it stylistically stands out from much of Hemingway’s other writing, I think it should be thought as well within his regular framework of writing towards that “fourth or fifth dimension” that can be found in writing “the truest sentence you know.”3

It is appropriate that, in contributing to the great body of art which explores this central moment in history, Hemingway would be aiming at something profoundly true. The story ought to be considered a devotional work in this regard. The Crucifixion has been a primary focus of the Christian imagination for as long as Christians have been making art, though its representation has changed over the centuries.4

Hemingway’s choice to use three soldiers is interesting, since the number is never specified in the Gospels. There is the obvious connection to Christianity’s penchant for Trinitarian symbolism. But I think these three offer a kind of “outsider” Synoptic trio, with the bartender forming that lone Johannine voice in reverse. Though they are never explicit, the soldiers offer a whole view of the Crucifixion itself, showing how the skeptic, the curious, and guilt-ridden might view the death of the Son of God. And Hemingway accomplishes all of this through dialogue, letting the reader infer the speaker’s tone, pacing, and facial expressions.

This works in large part for the same reason that such scant details in the Gospels continue to fascinate readers after two millennia. What we do know is that the Roman soldiers recorded in the Gospels had a range of responses, something that Hemingway explores. It is also evident that none of these men are the Centurion mentioned in the Gospels, whom Matthew says, “became very frightened and said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!’”5 He’s clearly not among the three in George’s bar, but it isn’t a stretch to imagine them all coming from that man’s centuria. We see in such conscious constructions that Hemingway is aware of the tradition surrounding Christ’s death and knows where to push it and where to conform to it.

But the dialogue offers more than artistic riffs on the Christian tradition. An example from the early part of the story shows both Hemingway’s knowledge of the tradition but also that layer of truth he’s pursuing:

1st Soldier—Have a drink of it yourself. [He turns to the third Roman soldier who is leaning on a barrel.] What’s the matter with you?

3d Roman Soldier—I got a gut-ache.

2d Soldier—You’ve been drinking water.

1st Soldier—Try some of the red.

3d Soldier—I can’t drink the damn stuff. It makes my gut sour.

1st Soldier—You been out here too long.

Hemingway is likely referencing Paul’s advice to Timothy here, noting how a little wine is good for the stomach.6 But it’s also playing off a couple of connections to Christ specifically, with echoes of the Living Water and the institution of Communion occurring in this little space.7 It also establishes the character of each unnamed soldier, reflecting how each will respond to Christ’s death as the scene progresses.

A little bit later, as the third soldier tries to find comfort in the red wine, the four men in the bar get right to the heart of the matter:

1st Soldier—Oh, I don’t know. He was pretty good in there to-day.

2d Soldier—Why didn’t he come down off the cross?

1st Soldier—He didn’t want to come down off the cross. That’s not his play.

2d Soldier—Show me a guy that doesn’t want to come down off the cross.

1st Soldier—Aw, hell, you don’t know anything about it. Ask George there. Did he want to come down off the cross, George?

Wine-seller—I’ll tell you, gentlemen, I wasn’t out there. It’s a thing I haven’t taken any interest in.

2d Soldier—Listen, I seen a lot of them—here and plenty of other places. Any time you show me one that doesn’t want to get down off the cross when the time comes—when the time comes, I mean—I’ll climb right up with him.

1st Soldier—I thought he was pretty good in there to-day.

3d Soldier—He was all right.

The refrain of the first solider, “He was pretty good in there to-day,” is repeated six times in a story of less than 1,100 words, of which only 752 words is actual dialogue, making this singular phrase account for 6% of what is said. Not a huge number by any means, but it’s the only thing repeated with this level of emphasis. The phrase also reveals that the first soldier sees in Christ more than a passive recipient of the Roman legal sentence. The first soldier views Christ as a willing participant, as though it could have been different if Christ had chosen. And it is the fact the He endured it anyways that fascinates him. The second soldier disbelieves this, even though his own account can offer no alternative explanation. And the third soldier only lowers his head more every time the phrase comes up again.

Which raises an interesting question in my mind: why not repeat it a seventh time? This would certainly make the Christian symbolism come even more to the fore and give the phrase a sort of finality to its emphasis. The first soldier even asks for “just one more” which the reader assumes is the request for wine but could just as readily been for that missing seventh repetition of the phrase. But that would be one step too far, I think, confirming for certain what will become of the first soldier after the curtain closes. Such intentional ambiguities highlight the very process of trying to understand what Good Friday means, which individuals must examine.

And this questioning is, I think, the point of Hemingway’s attempt to “make [the Crucifixion] new.”8 The closing discussion highlights how the three Roman soldiers each try to make sense of Christ’s crucifixion, like the various artists who was represented it across the centuries. The first soldier, who saw in Christ a fighter, finds that everyone is a “nice fella” after Christ’s death. The second soldier, who sees nothing special in Jesus, expresses disdain for Jews and his skepticism of his fellow’s reactions. And the third soldier, who has done nothing but “feel like hell,” wants merely to go to bed and forget this day ever happened.

That is of course true of every man and woman across all of history. Each of us must figure out who exactly we believe Jesus to be. We may turn out to be wrong, as the second soldier most definitely is, but we must answer the question either way. Hemingway is posing the same question that repeats throughout the New Testament, “who is Jesus?” Pilate never did find the answer that “pierced the heart” of so many at Pentecost.9 Perhaps Hemingway’s soldiers found the right answer somewhere further down the line?

I encourage you to read the story and decide what you think.

.

On Reading & Researching

I’ve been in several longer works of late and they have come together all at once. I wrapped up Crime & Punishment and Green Hills of Africa this month, both for book club. Crime & Punishment was amazing and took me almost two full months to finish. I have some thoughts which might be worth sharing at some point, but I also recognize it is a novel I’ve by no means fully grasped. When will another read happen? Around the same time I work back through Laurus, Truth and Method, etc.

I was quite excited to revisit Green Hills once Crime and Punishment was done. Despite its non-fiction origins, it lives up to the promise that “the shape of a country and the pattern of a month’s action can, if truly presented, compete with a work of the imagination.” I am looking forward to discussing it over some gimlets this weekend. I’ve also started Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary. I originally hope to finish it before I went to see the movie, but we ended up making a family event out of it this past Sunday. The movie was excellent and I’ve enjoyed the book thus far. I have not planned to continually find myself diving into books that explore the cosmos, and yet, here I am.

In the classroom, we finished Purgatorio and started Paradiso. I still have a lot left to cover this quarter, but I’m committed to the end! We’re also reading Perelandra, which is what the students are reading outside of class. We’ll round out the year with Edmund Spenser and Shakespeare. I just hope we don’t move too fast! If the students don’t stop and take it in, they could miss it.

On Teaching & Traveling

The first half of March was slower, something I welcomed. It was much needed as I prepped for the annual Ciceronian Society event in Omaha, NE. It was a family affair, as my wife and my oldest son attended alongside me. gave a talk on Cormac McCarthy, which was well attended and received, with loads of questions at the end. And volunteered, helping to man the registration table at points and serving as the microphone runner for the plenary Q&A sessions.

Of course, in addition to simply having a lot of good presentations, this meeting is one where I enjoy the company of friends. There were too many to enumerate here, but this is one of the primary reasons why I hope to never miss one of these events.

The panel which kicked off the conference schedule at 9:00 AM on Thursday was also the one on which I presented. Our group presented on various topics related to the Ransom Trilogy by C. S. Lewis, and since we were a plenary session, we had a large audience. , , and Madeleine Austin each gave excellent talks.

The keynote speaker was the always enjoyable Bill McClay. And his talk, using Ariadne as a metaphor for our cultural moment, was something I’ve been thinking about ever since.

The conference served as the launching point for the new Logres Institute as well. The program starts in the Fall and I am glad to be leading the Great Books Certificate portion. If you’re interested in reading some of the best books we still have, do come check out the options!

Our travel plans were waylaid, like so many in March, meaning that we spent an extra 48 hours in Omaha. When we finally did leave out Tuesday morning, we went through Charlotte instead of Dallas (as out original flight would have). Sullivan found a Lego Store there, which helpfully occupied some of our layover.

We returned just in time for our Grammar school children to be entering the final stages of Trinitas’s performance of The Princess and the Goblin. The school put on Donna K. Triggs’s adaptation and it was marvelous. It is true that I am biased towards the Goblin King and the cutest of his minions, but it was quite good regardless of that fact.

It was a good month, all in all.

One More Announcement

It is my distinct pleasure to announce that I will be joining the Institute for Governance & Civics at Florida State University this Summer. As the IGC launches its new Civics and Liberty Studies BA Degree, I am looking forward to teaching in the Educational Liberty track for this new program. This is an exciting opportunity to keep expanding the reach of classical education, though in this context by working more directly with the young men and women who will likely go on to be classical teachers one day. It has been great to be back in Pensacola for the 2025-2026 school year, and I am very grateful to Trinitas Christian School for the opportunity to serve as their first Upper School Principal. But I am also excited about what comes next!

If you or someone one you know is looking to get their bachelor’s degree from a great institution, and they want to study classical ed, please send them my way!

On Listening

It’s Spring. And so, my listening often returns to old favorites: Nine Days, Counting Crows, and The Wallflowers. I hope you enjoy this classic 2000 movie song (and video).

Douglas Wilson, ed. Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education, Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1996. 272 pgs.

What follows here is something of a reflective book review, going back over a work that was influential in my earliest stages as a classical educator. I joke that this book “ruined” me for teaching something outside of the classical tradition, though in reality it was this in conjunction with a whole lot of other things that were simultaneously operating in my life. While I imagine there is much in this book that needs revision, given how much things have changed in the CCE landscape, there are still items that I find myself returning to from time to time. No book on education will ever be perfect, but as my post-doc supervisor used to say, “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

The title of this book comes from perhaps one of my most treasured Milton quotes: “The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection.”1 The phrase has stuck with me since I first read it in my undergraduate studies and has shaped my own ideas of teaching ever since that time. A book written in the very spirit of Milton’s own tract piqued my interest when it was first put in my hand by an administrator. One of its primary strengths is that it speaks with a multitude of voices, not a singular one, giving it a sense of unity for the CCE movement when it was in an early stage.

As with any multi-authored work, it would be impossible to treat each chapter sufficiently in a brief review. But there were a number of chapters that made an impact on my pedagogy when I first read it. As I reflected on this book, three specific chapters in Section Two seem worth revisiting. These chapters prompted me to think deeply on my own classroom at the time, and they shaped those first few years of teaching in ways that are hard to enumerate. What is perhaps even more interesting to me, in retrospect, is that these three chapters were concentrated in one place of the book, working together as a unit. Chapters 13 and 14, written by Doug Wilson, concern the teaching of literature and rhetoric classes (pp. 163-184), while chapter 15, written by Doug Jones, reflects on apologetics as a part of the educator’s task (pp. 185-197). Although I did not teach a formal Rhetoric or Apologetics course when I read this book, I was already employing the tools of those disciplines in the classroom (and had been tasked with revising an apologetics curriculum at another school).

One of the most important aspects of this book, which proved helpful as I adjusted my own thinking about student reading in those early days regarded teaching students to love old things. Specifically, Wilson notes that teachers should not “set the pace according to the whims and fads of a sullen kid muttering in the back” proved instrumental for me as I’ve spent the last decade plus steering teenagers towards good books which will bless them instead of bringing them down (p. 164). And his encouragement to help students read broadly, books by people with whom they will disagree, likewise oriented me towards a better mode of teaching literature (p. 166). I did often wonder, in those early days, “how do I equip them to appreciate pagan writers like Homer and Plato?” But I learned quickly, it wasn’t that hard. Students found the good things in such texts, sometimes with more help than other times. Yet digging into the text alongside them was often all that was needed to help them love the Great Books.

One more way that this book helped me is worth a brief thought. I struggled in my first few years with the balance of bringing contemporary books into the conversation (p. 175). As someone who loves the works of Ernest Hemingway, both then and now, I could not initially imagine a high school curriculum that did not teach something like The Old Man and the Sea. But Wilson’s primary complaint is against teaching those books directly in the classroom, which means having to displace a Great Book and spending class time on something more recent. I quickly learned that this is a warning worth heeding, and more importantly, that there were easy ways to handle it. The school I was at required students to read two books each quarter outside of class; why not use that built in system to point students towards high quality contemporary works that also fed into our classroom discussions? The student who reads The Old Man and the Sea for the first time will need to revisit it, just as they will with The Iliad or The Divine Comedy. At least in this method, the students’ taste was being better shaped so that they could engage the modern reading landscape on their own once they left my classroom.

It may seem strange to reflect on a book that is thirty years old in a field that is constantly in flux. But there are some real gems in this little book. I’d love to see a revision to Chapters 17-20, where so many things have changed in the CCE world. And the “Epilogue” could definitely use an update. But the book is one that played a vital role in the beginning stages of renewing classical education in the U. S. And it was instrumental in my own formation as well.

Young, Abstract, and Cruel

This last thought was the most loathsome of all to him; but he was already a skeptic; he was young, abstract, and consequently cruel; and therefore he could not but believe that the last outcome—that is, depravity—was the most likely.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Vintage Press, 2021. p. 339.

Great Ideas: Mind, Sin, Fate, Will

I finished Crime and Punishment this week and it was a wild ride. This line stood out to me, probably because I teach high school students for a significant portion of the day. Abstraction easily leads to cruelty, and the youthful (in their eagerness) find abstract concepts compelling. This can be true of people at any age, though in my experience it effects the young more readily. And boy, does this problem underpin so much of what afflicts Raskolnikov. This scene, between Rodion and Sonya, also plays such an important role in the shift for Raskolnikov.

The Cords of Love

Of the three books of the Commedia, the Purgatorio is, for English readers, the least known, the least quoted—and the most beloved. In forms, as it were, a test case. Persons who pontificate about Dante without making mention of his Purgatory may reasonably be suspected of knowing him only second hand, or of having at most skimmed through the circles of his Hell in the hope of finding something to be shocked at. Let no one, therefore, get away with a condemnation—or for that matter a eulogy—of Dante on the mere strength of broiled Popes, disemboweled Schismatics, grotesque Demons, Count Ugolino, Francesca da Rimini, and the Voyage of Ulysses, even if backed up by an erotic mysticism borrowed from the Pre-Raphaelites, and the line ‘His will is our pease,’ recollected from somebody’s sermon. Press him, rather, for an intelligent opinion on the Ship of Souls and Peter’s Gate; on Buonconte, Sapia, and Arnaut Daniel; on the Prayer of the Proud, the theology of Free Judgment, Dante’s Three Dreams, the Sacred Forest, and the symbolism of the Beatrician Pageant. If he cannot satisfy the examiners on these points, let him be to you as a heathen man and a publican. But if he can walk with ease in death’s second kingdom, then he is a true citizen of the Dantean Empire; and though he may still feel something of a stranger in Paradise, yet the odds are he will come to it in the end. For the Inferno may fill one with only an appalled fascination, and the Paradiso may daunt one at first by its intellectual severity; but if one is drawn to the Purgatorio at all. It is by the cords of love, which will not cease drawing till they have drawn the whole poem into the same embrace.

Dorothy L. Sayers, “Introduction,” in Dante Alighieri, The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, the Florentine: Cantica II, Purgatorio, trans. Dorothy L. Sayers (New York: Penguin Books, 1955), p. 9.

Great Ideas: Soul, Man, Love, Religion

This is a lengthy quote, but I could not figure out any satisfying way of trimming it down. And it also perfectly encapsulates my ow views on the Purgatorio after this most recent read through. It truly is a masterpiece. On my first read of the Divine Comedy, I was most fascinated by Dante’s Inferno. The second time through, it was the Paradiso that stood out to me. I guess the third time is the charm. Going forward, I think it will be a person’s comments on the Purgatorio that stands to let me know where in the journey we are, whether mid-way or otherwise.

No Art Except Poetry

They seemed to have no arts except a kind of poetry and music which was practiced almost every evening by a team or troupe of four hrossa. One recited half chanting at great length while the other three, sometimes singly and sometimes antiphonally, interrupted him from time to time with song.

C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet. New York: Scribner, 2003. p. 67.

Great Ideas: Art, Poetry, Custom & Convention, Animal

I assigned this to my students to go alongside our reading of Dante, which worked out since I had also proposed a paper on Lewis, Mars, and poetry for the Ciceronian Society meeting. I’ve been mulling it over for several months now, picking up little readings here and there. The recent read through of Out of the Silent Planet was perfectly timed and gave me plenty of fodder for the paper.

Neither Rational Nor Irrational

The fact is that poetry is neither rational nor irrational, since it is not concerned with the reasoning powers of man but with something else, with the whole range of the human consciousness when it is at work at a certainty intensity. It deals with much more than plain statement, and indeed it need not deal with plain statement at all. There are many human moods in which we speak not in the indicative but with imperatives or exclamations, and these are often the material of poetry.

C. M. Bowra, The Creative Experiment. London: Macmillan, 1967. p. 24-25.

Great Ideas: Poetry, Experience, Emotion, Language

Bowra was influential on Lewis, particularly his work regarding epic poetry. I started reading some of Bowra’s work back when I first taught the Iliad and the Odyssey, and I have had good occasion to return to it over the years. This one focuses on poetry much closer to Bowra chronologically than the epics, but there are still some very salient portions on the larger idea I’ve been exploring.

Surveying Individual Limbs

Wherever you cast your eyes, you will read something that could have been outstanding if the remainder were not equally good. For this reason, you must give up hope that you will ever be able to take just a quick sampling from the works of the greatest men. You must read them as wholes, come to grips with them as wholes. The subject matter is treated along the lines that are proper to it, and an intellectual product is devised from which nothing can be removed without a collapse. Still, I have no objection to your studying the individual limbs, provided you retain the actual person. A beautiful woman is not the one whose ankle or shoulder is praised but the one whose overall appearance steals our admiration away from the individual parts.

Seneca, “Letter 33: From Seneca to Lucilius,” in Letters on Ethics, trans. Margaret Graver and A. A. Long. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. p. 110-111.

Great Ideas: Poetry, Man, Beauty, Language

A while back I picked up Seneca’s letters because I saw one of them circling here on Substack. This one opens with a request for Seneca to provide some quotes (commonplaces?) and he responds with his thoughts on extracting things from larger works. This passage struck me as particularly lovely. I find the metaphor of a literary work being similar to another person compelling, and I’ve used a variation of it for years in the classroom. I’ll be adding this form of it to my repertoire for future uses.

But it’s worth noting that the Hebrew concept echoes with this argument to a degree, as seen in the account of Job’s suffering and his subsequent quest for understanding. For Elihu, one of Job’s comforters, the very nature of God is intricately bound with his understanding of justice: “Of a truth, God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice” (34:12). And just prior to God’s response to Job, Elihu asserts that God, “is great in power; justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate” (37:23). God is the source of justice according to Job, and His standard applies to everyone around the world, even when it is difficult to understand His justice. This confirms the idea presented by Aristotle and Aeschylus, but anchors in the personality of the perfect God, giving justice a foundation that rises above the community.

For even the Greeks understood how communities were not perfect institutions. In Prometheus Bound, the Chorus even laments the corruption of once good institutions, “For new are the steersmen that rule Olympus, / and new are the customs by which Zeus rules, / customs that have no justice to them, / but what was great before he brings to nothingness” (lns. 148-151). And for Aristotle, man is at his worst when isolated from the community (5). But taking it further, Aristotle reckons that justice is best expressed in a community of friends. “When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they do need friendship in addition” (Nicomachean Ethics 164). And this connection puts justice squarely in the context of the virtues, actions which yield good results for the actor, even if that good is nothing more than moving a step closer to the chief end of all mankind, namely happiness (221). Though a corrupt official declares otherwise, the ideal man will be the one who is good and also an excellent citizen, for justice should always work in the favor of the community (Politics 71).

So what then is justice? It is a course of action that draws its standard from God. It is a way of life which brings a person closer to the Divine, rather than pushing them farther away from it. It is a necessary outworking of a virtuous man when he is in community, for decisions require judgements to be enacted, and justice is the expression of right judgement. It is the measure of the community’s righteousness or corruptibility, and in the magistrate’s treatment of the just man, one may rightly judge any city. Justice then, is a way of life which embodies the virtues and is enacted in community as individuals seeks to execute righteousness and goodness through their relationships with one another. It is, in this sense, the expression in physical form of the best of mankind in the most trying of situations. As Aristotle explains, “the best way of life both separately for each individual and in common for cities” is the one where the virtues, particularly justice, as given free exercise and expression (189). In the end, the just man can say with Job: “I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban” (29:14). Justice, as a virtue, is something which the righteous man or woman will find enveloping them, becoming more than an abstract concept in the mind, and finding itself manifested in every word and deed. The Hebrew conception thus provides the foundation of justice, and a picture of its implementation, while the Greeks bring this idea into the practicable and political, testing the case of justice and finding it something of infinite value.

Bibliography

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins. University of Chicago Press, 2011.

⸻. Politics. Translated by Carnes Lord. 2nd Edition. University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Job. In The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, 267-286. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016.

February has been a whirlwind. And we did what many native Floridians did the first day the temperature broke 75: we went to the beach. The water was still cold, but it made for a beautiful sunset.

On Reading & Researching & Writing

Because of my reading selections, I’m still working my way through Island of the World and Crime and Punishment. In the classroom, my students and I have exited the Inferno and made good progress into the Purgatorio. It has been a marvelous journey thus far.

I finally managed to submit one of my very overdue book reviews to the editor, so I will see if he needs any revisions made before it is published. I’m also working on two projects, an essay on John Colet and Classical Education and a conference talk on Mars and the Poetic. That latter project is for the upcoming Ciceronian Society conference, which I’m certain will be a wonderful event. My wife, , will also be presenting at the conference with me. So, if you haven’t registered yet, what’s stopping you?! Sign up here!

On Teaching & Family Life

Most of this month was dedicated to teaching responsibilities. We had eight seniors defend their thesis papers to a panel and an audience. We also welcomed Ravi Jain to our campus to speak on mathematics, science, and wonder.

And we participated in the school’s annual Rhetoric Ball, which my eldest son was able to enjoy as tenth grader this year.

We closed out the month with a panel of alumni, speaking to our upper school students about the highs and lows of life after high school.

Fortunately, I do anticipate a slightly less busy March in the day-to-day operations at the school where I work.

At home, we’ve been playing the game Root, which has proven both more time-consuming and engaging than I had anticipated. I’m 2 out of 3 for victories at the moment, having won with the Woodland Alliance and the Vagabond proving the most effective for me thus far. I was close with the Marquise de Cat, but Son #3 overturned everything with his Lizard Cult. Since February is his birthday month, I will let it slide.

On another note, we will be amping things up at home soon as we prepare to welcome another Hadley to our fold. I’m pleased to say we are expecting a little girl this July. And the doctor says she is looking very healthy.

It will be a crazy Summer in the Hadley household, which I’ll have more to say about in future digests.

On Listening

My children have been prepping for piano competitions this week (And there is another one coming next week). So those are the songs currently lodged in my brain and recurring to me at the oddest moments. This is one that my eldest, , has been working on (though he’s not using a player piano). It is a fascinating song, which is good when you listen to it repeatedly for days on end. If I’m not tired of it, then I doubt you will be either.

While some schools will claim to be about other things, such as college admissions or practical life skills, these are ancillary to what they are really doing day in and day out. This isn’t to throw up a shadow opponent, but rather to state the obvious: every child leaves a school with a different view of virtue than when they came in, either for good or ill. And more to the point, that view is definitively shaped by the school. For this reason, students pay close attention to what their school values. Pour tons of money into technology, students will take that as the measurement for success. The same could be said of athletics, extra-curriculars, and so on. If this is how students will judge the Good Life, by allowing what their school cherishes to sink deep into their bones, I strongly suggest that schools construct a curriculum which delights in feasting.

While most schools have a scheduled lunch time each day, perhaps with some snacks peppered throughout the day, that is not feasting. Is a lunch with 160 students raucous? Maybe, though typically in a disorderly way. Do 75 upper school students enjoy lunch together? Certainly, particularly by those who think school is merely a social outlet for them. But this is borne out of their navel gazing posture, their inability to see beyond themselves. Because most lunch periods turn students over to themselves, asking little of them and thus giving them little in return.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been mulling over a line from Josh Gibb’s book, Love What Lasts, and I think it is applicable here:

Cheese is a way of giving thanks for milk. Wine is a way of giving thanks for grapes . . . The cheesemaker says to the cow, ‘It is good that you exist,’ and extends the life of the cow’s milk. The winemaker to the grape, ‘Stay. Make yourself comfortable. Do not leave too soon.’ As the cheesemaker to the cow or the vintner to the vine, so is the relationship between civilization and nature.2

A chief characteristic of a feast is its commitment to time, and therefore the commitment it demands from those would join the feast. One cannot hurry a feast without robbing it of its essence. Feasting tables are where bonds are formed, quests are undertaken, and hearts are broken. One need only look ever so briefly in the catalog of great books to quickly find characters feasting, laughing, crying together, and sometimes doing all three at the same time. The feast is the great civilizing event of the life of barbarism which characterizes the daily routine of most students. And schools neglect it at their own peril.

Christians naturally find resonances with this idea and thus don’t require too much effort towards persuasions. After all, feasting goes back into the Old Testament and continues into the New. Add to this that many will easily recognize the running parallel of weekly feasting through communion, which powerfully shapes worshippers into God’s workers, and classical Christian schools often find ways to join the feast. Still, if we’re honest, feasting finds easier resonance with the life of the Church than the life of the school. Below I propose three simple arguments for feasting as a part of the curriculum, along with some follow up thoughts.

1. Feasting should require a lengthy time commitment to do it right.

Many classical schools have built feast days into their curriculums, which is great! But they struggle to balance the preparation times. From what I have seen, many feast days (on a grade-by-grade level) and planned quickly in the midst of a busy calendar. This hasty approach inevitably reduces the quality of the feast day and thus undermines its function. On the other hand, some teachers devote way too much of their time to feast preparation, throwing aside Math or Latin, and creating problems down the road. What is needed is a balanced approach, which will help with the chief problem for feast days, namely parent burn out.3 These events are the best way to keep parents and teachers working together towards the education of the child, because a good feast day cannot be enacted with effort from both sides. What does that time commitment look like? I suggest no more than 3 weeks for preparation, and no less than 2 weeks. Somewhere in there will typically be the sweet spot for a teacher to coordinate the necessary bits to pull off an excellent Medieval Feast or Dickens Feast.

Some smaller schools have taken an unusual approach to avoid these ditches is just host one large feast day for the whole school. Instead of, say, a Medieval Feast for a couple grades, they do a Hobbit Feast for the K-8. While this seems like a simple, pragmatic solution, I would argue it is actually detrimental to the student, to the teacher, and to the parents, for precisely the reason I will discuss next.

2. Feasting should interrupt the regular rhythm of the school day.

Feast days should disrupt the regular flow of things in a school, especially if conformity to scheduling is a besetting vice. Again, Gibbs is helpful in thinking this through. Considering Christmas, he explains:

the fact that Christmas is a burden is by no means a strike against it, for if it were not a burden, the holiday would be easy to neglect and forget.4

It is easy for teachers to grow weary in their job. Often this is results from the thing beyond their job, like the many after school meetings, surprise, informal parent conferences, and the staff kids wanting to chat after school because they can’t go home yet. None of these are bad in themselves, but added on top of the workload typically given to a teacher and exhaustion quickly sets in.

Feasting adds to that burden, without a doubt. But unlike the drop-in or extra-curricular, feasting is also burdened with meaning. It is tiring for the same reason that Gibbs notes, which also means that it is a worthwhile tiredness. It is tempting, particularly for administrators, to try and mitigate that exhaustion by limiting the feast day schedule (i.e. combining into one feast day as mentioned above or on the other side, leaving 8 feasts on the calendar but scheduling all in the same month).5 But like the church calendar, the purpose of feasts is to interrupt the regular flow of time. Ordinary time surrounds us but is punctuated with celebrations. A side effect of this is that the calendar helps us avoid being merely “boats against the current.” The feast day does the same in the life of a school. It reminds students, teachers, and administrators that schedules are good, but not The Good. The importance of this distinction could be emphasized more.

3. Feasting should cross ages gaps in deliberate, sensible ways.

My final argument for the feast day will, I think, need the shortest defense. If you take seriously the idea that feast days will take a reasonable amount of time to plan and should be appropriately burdensome, then it isn’t a big leap to believe that a key component will be the mixing of ages. The mirror of nature is helpful here as well; consider Thanksgiving or Christmas feasts. it would be odd to share such a meal with only people of your own age group. The mingling of family and friends across the age spectrum is part of what makes it a joyous occasion. Thus, school feast days should do likewise.

In order to avoid the already mentioned pitfalls, it is best to coordinate this in a straightforward fashion. Schedule feasts in accordance with curricular layouts, making it easy for young grades to combine with older grades by coalescing around shared themes or time periods. If you school teaches Roman history and literature in 4th grade and again in 8th grade, combine those grades for a shared feast. Of if you teach American history and literature in 5th, 9th, and 12th grade (as many schools do), then find a way to involve all three to make the day full. Leaving the older students out of these celebrations is where many schools go astray. There are concerns such events are juvenile, but this is only if you make it so. Making these combinations not only builds the community, but it also helps alleviate some of the deficiencies and excesses of points 1 and 2. Taken together, I believe these three ideas can help any school build a feast day schedule of significance for their students.

This may not convince everyone. Still, I will say this: I would rather weep with Odysseus at the table of Alkinoos that strictly follow the time-tables of Poirot.6 And this will only happen in a school where the feast provides relief, burdensome though it may be.

1

I’m working on a longer piece that connects this idea to some of the claims here:

Freddie deBoer

No, That's Not What "the Research" Says About Exam Schools

The New Yorker has just run a piece by Jessica Winter about New York City’s endless controversies over its gifted & talented programs generally and specifically its famed exam schools, special high schools that require students to do well on a standardized test and boast many famed alumni, schools like Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Sci…

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4 months ago · 24 likes · 4 comments · Freddie deBoer

Buying a Moment’s Rest

You see, my son, the short-lived mockery
of all the wealth that is in the Fortune’s keep,
over which the human race is bickering;

for all the gold that is or ever was
beneath the moon won’t buy a moment’s rest
for one among these weary souls.

Dante Alighieri, Inferno, in The Portable Dante, trans. and ed. Mark Musa. New York: Penguin, 2003. p. 39 [7.61-66].

Great Ideas: Wealth, Life & Death, Immortality, Soul

This is my first time through the Musa translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. I’ve read translations by Longfellow, Sayers, and Joe Carlson. While I recognize the Musa is quite readable, a plus for some of my students, I find it often sacrifices a beautiful turn of phrase for something “plain.” My students have also been given old, falling apart copies of the Sayers translation because her notes are so helpful. And occasionally, they will comment on places where the prefer Sayers to Musa on this same note. What is most interesting to me, though, is that they do not always agree with one another. This passage here is an example. There were some who were pro-Sayers and other who were pro-Musa. Regardless of which one they ultimately prefer, I appreciate that the discussions are happening. And it will be sometime before I forget Musa’s stanzas here as a result.

Making Things More Difficult

The history of American schooling before the vast expansion of public schools was in many respects a direct response to the extent of the diversity that existed in the United States. Ironically, after this period, the answer of American government was to back public schools and to make it more difficult, especially through steadily increasing taxation for parents, to send children to religious and other private schools.

William H. Jeynes, “Education in the Diverse Mid-Atlantic,” in Fighting for the Freedom to Learn: Examining America’s Centuries-Old School Choice Movement, eds. James V. Shuls and Neal P. McCluskey. Washington, D. C.: The Cato Institute, 2025. p. 39.

Great Ideas: Education, History, Religion, Citizen, Custom & Convention

As a result of being in a Medieval humanities course right now, most of my reading has been poetry. However, I have managed to work in an academic book here and there. This one has been very interesting. I attended a book launch for this where the editor, James Shuls, gave a great overview of the argument and highlighted some key points. It was enough to prompt me to keep going and I have thus far found it rewarding.

Bent or Broken?

I see now how the lord of the silent world has bent you. There are laws that all hnau know, of pity and straight dealing and shame and the like, and one of these is the love of kindred. He has taught you to break all of them except this one, which is not one of the greatest laws; this one he has bent till it becomes folly and has set it up, thus bent, to be a little blind Oyarsa in your brain. And now you can do nothing but obey it, though if we ask you why it is a law you can give no other reason for it than for all the other and greater laws which it drives you to disobey. Do you know why he has done this? . . . I will tell you. He has left you this one because a bent hnau can do more evil than a broken one. He has only bent you; but this Thin One who sits on the ground he has broken, for he has left him nothing but greed. He is now only a talking animal and in my world he could do no more evil than an animal. If he were mine I would unmake his body, for the hnau in it is already dead. But if you were mine I would try to cure you.

C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Ransom Trilogy #1). New York: Scribner, 2003. p. 137-138.

Great Ideas: Law, Sin, Punishment, Virtue & Vice, Immortality

This will be the last Out of the Silent Planet commonplace for a while, though Perelandra is just around the corner. I have marked this passage multiple times because it is such a great description of the human condition, and it’s sinfulness, but done through the imaginative world of Malacandra. It might be my favorite single section of the book, in fact. It has so shaped my own vocabulary that “bent” and “broken” regularly show up in conversations, which sometimes means I have to explain myself. But moments where I don’t have to explain are actually the most fun. It becomes a genuine “you too?” moment.

A Little Flame at the Start

It begins as a little flame in the heart and grows and grows. He can’t put it out. It’s not the thing that always seizes the older boys when they begin to grow moustaches, but it must be something close to it, because for the first time in his life he cannot control his eyes, which are now always seeking her face, yearning to catch a glimpse of her, anywhere, everywhere.

Michael O’Brien, Island of the World: A Novel. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007. p. 68.

Great Ideas: Love, Soul, Relation, Emotion

Man, this is a heavy book. There are great moments which lighten the soul, such as the one I’ve quoted above. But O’Brien also confronts the darkness that weighs us down. It’s hefty, so I’ve still got a long way to go, but this particular scene has played in my mind a couple of times now. It reminds me quite a bit of scenes in Dandelion Wine, though the two books are very different. This is my second O’Brien book, with the first being The Lighthouse. And I do think I’ll be looking for more of work to dig into after I finish Island of the World.

Never Uncured

“But if that’s a lie,” he suddenly exclaimed involuntarily, “if man in fact is not a scoundrel—in general, that is, the whole human race—then the rest is all mere prejudice, instilled fear, and there are no barriers, and that’s just how it should be!”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment. New York: Vintage Press, 2021. p. 42-43.

Great Ideas: Man, Sin, Punishment, Universal & Particular

I’ve wrapped up Book One of Crime and Punishment, and man, Dostoevsky is just brilliant. There is so much . . . ordinariness that permeates the opening chapters. It is a slow build up, but that is clearly a part of drawing the audience in. We find ourselves recognizing these characters: “I know him!” Dostoevsky does not stop there, of course, and I have a long way to go to the end. But I feel ready for whatever ol’ Fyodor is going to throw at me. This little nugget, if it is indeed so, is one of the great moments of ambiguity in Book One. I wish a could read Russian, if only to read this book as it was written. But I’ll content myself for the Pevear translation. For now.

Singin’ in the Rain. Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanely Donen, featuring Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, and Cyd Charisse. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1952.

Anytime it rains, which is often in Florida, I’d wager someone nearby is thinking about clicking their heels and humming along to “I’m singin’ in the rain . . .” Further, I bet its true even of people who have never seen the actual movie from which this famous song and dance come. Singin’ in the Rain serves as one of the last vestiges of cultural memory in this regard, and that might be worth pondering further. But for today, I simply want to highlight a couple of items which make this movie worth the watch.

There are few movies which genuinely hold strong in our shared memory. Here’s an example: two people are talking and one of them spouts The Godfather’s “make him an offer he can’t refuse” line, which the conversation partner readily recognizes even though neither of them has seen the movie nor know that Marlon Brando uttered the icon sentence. There are other such moments, though I won’t rehearse them here. Singin’ in the Rain likewise lingers in a cultural memory that goes unrecognized by many.

Case in point: while this might be one of the most famous movies of the twentieth century, how many people have actually watched it? Or to put it another way, how many people have only encountered Singing’ in the Rain via pop culture references or in clips on YouTube? Specifically, I wonder how many viewers encountered this movie for the first time in an episode of The Simpsons (and a bad one at that)?

But that is what things with serious cultural purchase invite: parody. The parodical send-up has good and bad aspects to it, especially given the requirement for a certain level of shared knowledge for the “joke” to work. While shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Community, thrive on their ability to make cultural references, there are only so many shared items that can go around. Singin’ in the Rain is one of them, along the many, many, Willy Wonka send-ups. But Gene Kelly’s performance even has enough traction for more commercials (though I find this one visually disturbing):

So what gives this movie such staying power? While I’d like to say it is depth of character development and strong moral content, which the movie does have in some degree, I’d wager it is the technical aspects which have given the musical it’s lasting presence in the American memory.

The history behind making the film is complex, to the point that it was chronicled in a 300-page academic book back in 2009, which makes for interesting reading. The short version of this tale for our purposes is simple: this is a beautiful movie to watch. Yes, the actors are handsome and the actresses lovely, but that is not what I mean. The cinematography, how each dance scene is shot and choreographed, those elements create a visual feast that is rarely accomplished today. Sure, lots of movies provide splashy spectacle (which is something different), but they don’t create the same lasting impression.

One scene which highlights this well comes early in the film, when Gene Kelly’s Don Lockwood is walking through various movie sets in the same studio showcasing how films were produced en masse in the silent film era. It’s a well-executed moment that stays with you throughout the rest of the movie; the busyness, the ordered chaos of the moment is contrasted to the very technicolor practices used to create the engaging scenes between Kelly and Donald O’Connor’s Cosmo. When Debbie Reynold’s Kathy Selden joins the duo, the feast lasts for whole dance numbers. Take a couple minutes to watch the clip below and you’ll get a sense of what I mean:

The trio of the film work well together, to the extent that even nonsensical plot points manage to not distract from their on-screen chemistry. The almost haphazard of song groupings at times are jarring, which again is something that makes for great reading in the Hess and Dabholkar book I mentioned earlier. But even without that backdrop, the musical overcomes occasional holes in the script by balancing musical scores with vibrant visuals the draw the audience into a story that works rather simply on the level of boy-meets-girl typology.

In one of the earliest interactions between Kelly and Reynolds, Don Lockwood is trying to play somewhat humble with the charming woman who is giving him a lift. He opines, “Well, we movie stars get the glory. I guess we have to take the little heartaches that go with it. People think we lead lives of glamour and romance, but we're really lonely—terribly lonely.” Selden is not ensnared by the faux humility, and proceeds to explain how movie stars are shallow and not on the same level as stage actors (an argument that still rages 75 years later). But the sentiment here is the actual heart of the film. Lockwood is indeed lonely, as Selden will be too, entirely connected to their level of glory. It is only in that boy-meets-girl simplicity that the two are able to move beyond the primal calls to glory, and the heartaches that ensure. Such moments only punctuate the film in between songs, but their presence is charming, providing an essential groundedness in a film about the transition between silent and talking movies.

I could go on from here, with many more things to praise about the flick. It is, quite obviously, a movie that I recommend heartily, even if you do not love musicals. While I’d wager you’ll find things to enjoy, it will also serve the purpose of bringing you into a larger cultural memory that can only enhance your interactions with those around you. There are not many movies about which this can be said, but Singin’ in the Rain is at the top of that list.

January may start the year off by giving us 31 days, but it is also one of the months that always seems shortest to me.

On Reading & Researching & Writing

Fortunately, despite its fast paced nature, January has been a good month in terms of reading material. Though every single book I’ve picked up is a big one!

I’m deep into Michael O’Brien’s Island of the World from Ignatius Press, which has been great. A book club I was in years ago read this one, but I missed it that time. So, a different book club selected it to start off 2026 and I’m glad I accepted the challenge. A different book club went with Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment to start off the year, which is also a hefty book I’ve not read before. I had the Pevear and Volokhonsky one hand already, so that’s the version I’m working through. I know some debate exists around the Pevear translations of Russian classics, but they are readable and enjoyable for someone like me, who knows next to nothing about Russian.

My students are reading Out of the Silent Planet on their own and we’re reading Dante’s Divine Comedy in class. We will cover the entire Comedy over the next several weeks, which has already proven quite fun. We’re reading the Musa translation, which I don’t love. I’ve given them all old, falling-apart copies of the Sayers translation as well and invited them to use her notes as we discuss. but it has led several of them to make interesting observations about the translational differences, which has been an unexpected blessing to our conversations.

On Publishing & Traveling & Speaking

January was a lighter month in many ways, though my schedule with work has been fuller. If you have never worked at a small, private school, then you don’t fully understand how accelerated the Spring term becomes. Events, concerts, guests, admissions, tours, college application paperwork, curriculum orders for next year, and on and on and on. A school this size runs about six months ahead, which I find maddening; it is incredibly difficult to teach leisurely under such circumstances.

I did have the opportunity to visit Tallahassee for the Fighting for the Freedom to Learn soft book launch at the Institute for Governance & Civics. One of the editors, James Shuls, gave a bird’s eye view of the book’s contents and it sounds fascinating. I’ve got a couple of other books ahead of it, but it’s going in my soon-to-be-read stack.

Likewise, I did not have anything new hit publication, though I have received a couple of podcast and interview invites this month. Those are all classical education related, so I think provided I can find time in my schedule, I ought to be able to make them work. I’ve only done a couple of podcasts over the years and I’m not the kind of person who devotes hours to listening to these things, but there is no doubt that a significant audience exists for such outlets. I hope the upcoming forays into that world will be opportunities for good. If you’re so inclined, below is the first podcast I ever participated in, which seems like it was forever ago.

On Listening

My son has been working through a piano book with “Love Songs” in it from the last six decades. He’s been humorous to observe, sometimes recognizing a song and other times expressing surprise at something he’s not heard before. He asked me who R. Kelly was when he came across “You Are Not Alone” in the book. I told him the book must be wrong because I knew the song was performed by Michael Jackson (which my son then recognized). But nope, R. Kelly did indeed write this most excellent song made famous by the King of Pop. So naturally, we watched the music video because, in the words of my 15-year-old, “Michael Jackson made the best, weirdest music videos.”

Too true, my son.