E'dum'acation

Brief rant, because I don't have time this morning to give the topic its due course, but I don't want to forget to write about it...

I know I'm probably preaching to the choir, but...ya need an education. You don't need one for money, or prestige, but because it makes your life bigger. Reading great books makes your life bigger. Encountering new and unusual philosophies, not your own, makes your life bigger. Traveling away from home, sometimes even oversees, makes your life bigger.

There's a nasty, petty, crab-in-a-bucket anti-intellectualism frothing at the mouth and nipping at the heels of the American middle class. Who needs college? Who needs a --scoff-- "liberal arts" education? How about this countries founders, who are always unironically on the sneering lips of those anti-intellectuals? Our founders would have been well read in the classics, spoke other languages, including (SHOCK) French, and some even knew the 'dead' languages of Latin and Ancient Greek, because it allowed them to study in the original the great Books, the exemplars of the democratic principles upon which this countries own governance was based! Washington is said to have kept the (translated) writings of Cicero by his bedside even! They knew the histories, in and out, of Greece and Rome, the progenitors of American Democracy, along with the thinkers of the Enlightenment. They would have been educated in the geometry of Euclid, learning not mere number crunching but logical proofing and argumentation.

A citizen educates himself. Educating yourself liberally isn't a sin simply because it has the word 'liberal' in it. A citizen should have both everyday, practical knowledge and ability as well as headier, thoughtful philosophy to ponder and discuss. They should be familiar with the history of the world, not as apologia for their preconceived notions, but to smash their preconceived notions. They should read extensively and have a keen nose for bullshit, both pseudo-profound and otherwise.

While many of the founders did not enter college, their education would have been in kind with what we can receive there today. Lincoln didn't have much of a formal education, but he studied extensively on his own, and this would not have been an education by tabloid magazines and the equivalent of cable television news. In College, we have at our hands one of the greatest tools for higher education, available for more people than ever. It is not perfect, but it can be made more perfect. It can be made more broad, more deep, more available for the mass of people, and it should be. It should be promised improvement, not cursed and threatened for its deficiencies. Education is ultimately an American Duty.