Thomas Young (1773-1829): A Genius With Childlike Faith

"Although I have readily fallen in with the idea of assisting you in your learning, yet [there] is in reality very little that a person who is seriously and industriously disposed to improve may not obtain from books with more advantage than from a living instructor... Masters and mistresses are very necessary to compensate for want of inclination and exertion: but whoever would arrive at excellence must be self-taught" - Thomas Young, letter to his brother, 1798

At age two he could read, and by age four he had read through the Bible twice. While a teen, he could read Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Persian, Syriac, and Chaldean. At 14 he was tutoring others on the classics. By age twenty he had also learned French, German, Spanish, Arabic and Italian.

While a teen he also taught himself calculus, studied the sciences, learned how to construct his own optical devices, and learned medicine. He also studied art and learned to play the flute. He was not a complete nerd, either; he could also ride horses, sing, and dance. Once he walked over 170 miles to see an art exhibition.

Please go here to read more about this remarkable scientist and Christian.  

The Freedom of the City of Books

“ The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend; and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding” - Charlotte Mason (quoted here on page 15)

The Purpose of Literature and List Making

For the end of great books is ethical: that is, to teach what it means to be fully human.  Every major form of literary art has taken for its deeper themes the norms of human nature.  What my old friend T.S. Eliot called "the permanent things" - the ancient standards, the norms - have been the concern of the poet ever since Job and Homer.  Until recent years, critics took it for granted that literature exists to form the normative consciousness - that is, to teach human beings their rightful place in the scheme of things.  Such was the endeavor of Sophocles and Aristophanes, of Thucydides and Tacitus, of Plato and Cicero, of Hesiod and Virgil, of Dante and Shakespeare, of St. Augustine and St. Thomas More. - Russell Kirk in Educating For Virtue

Over at The Imaginative Conservative, there is a blog symposium being conducted on books that make us human.  If you like lists of great books, head over and check them out.

The Way Great Books Ought to Look

Take a look at this beautiful handmade version of the Silmarillion and the interview with it's creator.

Definitions by Chesterton

Children: human beings who are allowed to do what everyone else really desires to do, as for instance, to fly kites, or when seriously wronged to emit prolonged screams for several minutes.

Family: the thing on which all civilization is built; the idea that a man and a woman should live largely for the next generation and that they should, to some extent, defer their personal amusements, such as divorce and dissipation, for the benefit of the next generation.

Gratitude: happiness doubled by wonder.

These and so many more can be found in Dale Ahlquist's new book The Universe According to G.K. Chesterton: A dictionary of the Mad, Mundane and Metaphysical.

You can get the book free with a membership to the American Chesterton Society if you join by the end of the month (Sept 2011).

Gilgamesh and the Textbook

Years ago I taught an eighth grade class on ancient history.  The school used one of those giant Western Civilization textbooks.  There was a page on the Epic of Gilgamesh recounting the details of the story and a little text box with a paragraph or two from the epic.  Students were able to get their points on the test by identifying Gilgamesh and his hairy friend Enkidu.  My guess is that this memory has long since faded and it really wasn't worth saving anyway.  How I wish that I had been able to have those students read the tale itself or a superb retelling like Gilgamesh the Hero and skip the textbook altogether.

I've now read Gilgamesh the Hero twice, once on my own and once with my 10 year old son.  We will never forget the friendship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the humor of Gilgamesh's refusal to marry the goddess Ishtar, the heroic feats, and the anguish over death and the search for immortality in this ancient story.
   



And just for fun (beware, this tune will stick with you for days):

Free Classical Education Media

The Society for Classical Learning has a huge list of free audio talks by the likes of Andrew Kern, Brad Birzer, and Christian Kopff.