An education that bears striking resemblance to the curricula of American classical schools: narrow in volume, deep in substance, grounded in language, moral instruction, and historical example.
Very interesting. It’s fun to use the “light” you’ve provided to illuminate what I know of President Lincoln’s life. For us today, Lincoln is a more distant historical figure than was Washington for him.
While your primary vocation is to shape young minds, my challenge is to “make up for” opportunities lost over 67 years. I attended a Catholic high school a few years after it dropped Latin as a required course. My religious education was of the balloons-and-banners, folk music era. In middle age I returned to far greater orthodoxy, yet the gaps remain.
I first read Tale of Two Cities with any seriousness in my 40s. I did manage to pick up and love Dante’s Comedia around the same time. Augustine’s Confessions, too, is a later-in-life love.
I was much helped by correspondence with the late Reverend James Schall. His The Mind that is Catholic, The Regensburg Lecture, Another Sort of Learning, and The Order of Things, among others have shaped my worldview.
Most influential in my life was a tenth-birthday gift from my grandmother – a paperback boxed set of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I know that Tolkien’s literary genius and deep Catholic faith were at works even during my most wayward wanderings. Naturally this led me to read virtually the entire CS Lewis corpus – fiction and non-fiction.
So, here’s a challenge, perhaps not for you but for some of my fellow CCR travelers: How to fill in for a life not-perfectly spent? I find reading poetry nearly impossible, except oddly, for Dante. Milton? Fuggedabout it. Iliad and Odyssey? Pretty tough. This is sad, because my son-in-law has an English lit Masters from Oxford. A very patient young man!
As I’m still working, I lack the time to fill in all the cracks. The Compleat Works of Shakespeare are probably only a faint dream. Or hallucination.
Thank you for this. I'm just writing something in which Lincoln is a vital part and this reminded me schole means leisure in classical greek. Education the greatest effort and greatest luxury!
I'm writing about the great task, the 'unfinished work' Lincoln spoke of in the Gettysberg Address, which Churchill had to repeat in 1940, how Britons had to brace themselves to their duty, to defend democracy. It makes me frustrated and angry to hear people talk of democracy as broken instead of an unfinished task for which so many have died, at Gettysberg, in WW2, now in Ukraine, and Nalvany in Russia and so many others in other times and places; to be so fainthearted as not to understand the task we're engaged in, and have been since Magna Carta and Marathon; to be so lacking in imagination as not to be inspired. To let the greatest idea we've ever had to go by default for want of ignorance of history and our failure of spirit.
Thanks for giving me the pulpit for a minute! I hope Americans will be inspired to listen to their greater Republican president again.
This isn’t an AI generated image! It was painted by artist Nathan Greene, a human being. The artwork depicts Abraham Lincoln during his visit to the Union Army camp at Antietam in October 1862, shortly after the battle. It shows Lincoln inside a military tent, reading. Through the tent flap, you can see soldiers of the 93rd New York gathered around campfires with moonlight reflecting off rows of Sibley tents. This painting is part of Greene's historical collection, where he portrays Lincoln in a contemplative moment during the Civil War. (http://www.nathangreenestudio.com/historical-collection).
This is wonderful. I'd love to see a recommended reading list for high school grade by grade!
Very interesting. It’s fun to use the “light” you’ve provided to illuminate what I know of President Lincoln’s life. For us today, Lincoln is a more distant historical figure than was Washington for him.
While your primary vocation is to shape young minds, my challenge is to “make up for” opportunities lost over 67 years. I attended a Catholic high school a few years after it dropped Latin as a required course. My religious education was of the balloons-and-banners, folk music era. In middle age I returned to far greater orthodoxy, yet the gaps remain.
I first read Tale of Two Cities with any seriousness in my 40s. I did manage to pick up and love Dante’s Comedia around the same time. Augustine’s Confessions, too, is a later-in-life love.
I was much helped by correspondence with the late Reverend James Schall. His The Mind that is Catholic, The Regensburg Lecture, Another Sort of Learning, and The Order of Things, among others have shaped my worldview.
Most influential in my life was a tenth-birthday gift from my grandmother – a paperback boxed set of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I know that Tolkien’s literary genius and deep Catholic faith were at works even during my most wayward wanderings. Naturally this led me to read virtually the entire CS Lewis corpus – fiction and non-fiction.
So, here’s a challenge, perhaps not for you but for some of my fellow CCR travelers: How to fill in for a life not-perfectly spent? I find reading poetry nearly impossible, except oddly, for Dante. Milton? Fuggedabout it. Iliad and Odyssey? Pretty tough. This is sad, because my son-in-law has an English lit Masters from Oxford. A very patient young man!
As I’m still working, I lack the time to fill in all the cracks. The Compleat Works of Shakespeare are probably only a faint dream. Or hallucination.
Thoughts?
Balm for the anxiety of trying to read every Great Book. Was Lincoln not exposed to Enlightenment writers: Locke, Voltaire?
Thank you for this. I'm just writing something in which Lincoln is a vital part and this reminded me schole means leisure in classical greek. Education the greatest effort and greatest luxury!
I'm writing about the great task, the 'unfinished work' Lincoln spoke of in the Gettysberg Address, which Churchill had to repeat in 1940, how Britons had to brace themselves to their duty, to defend democracy. It makes me frustrated and angry to hear people talk of democracy as broken instead of an unfinished task for which so many have died, at Gettysberg, in WW2, now in Ukraine, and Nalvany in Russia and so many others in other times and places; to be so fainthearted as not to understand the task we're engaged in, and have been since Magna Carta and Marathon; to be so lacking in imagination as not to be inspired. To let the greatest idea we've ever had to go by default for want of ignorance of history and our failure of spirit.
Thanks for giving me the pulpit for a minute! I hope Americans will be inspired to listen to their greater Republican president again.
Please don't use an AI image of Lincoln! What an insult to the very real man who showed human intelligence. Just no!
This isn’t an AI generated image! It was painted by artist Nathan Greene, a human being. The artwork depicts Abraham Lincoln during his visit to the Union Army camp at Antietam in October 1862, shortly after the battle. It shows Lincoln inside a military tent, reading. Through the tent flap, you can see soldiers of the 93rd New York gathered around campfires with moonlight reflecting off rows of Sibley tents. This painting is part of Greene's historical collection, where he portrays Lincoln in a contemplative moment during the Civil War. (http://www.nathangreenestudio.com/historical-collection).