The Great Tradition

The Great Tradition will go on because the forces of nature are on its side; it has on its side an invincible ally, the self-preserving instinct of humanity. Men may forsake it, but they will come back to it because they must; their collective existence cannot permanently go on without it. Whole societies may disallow it and set it at nought, as ours has done; they may try to live by ways of their own, by bread alone, by bread and buncombe, by riches and power, by economic exploitation, by intensive industrialism, quantity-production, by what you please; but in the end they will find, as so many societies have already found, that they must return and seek the regenerative power of the Great Tradition, or lapse into decay and death. - Ablert Jay Nock , The Theory of Education in the United States

The Problem of the American University

Albert Jay Nock's diagnosis of the problems in American education delivered in 1931 were quite prescient and are still relevant. In the lectures he describes how a theory of education led to the destruction of classical education throughout all levels of the American school system. What led to the replacement of education in the Great Tradition with instruction and training? Nock identifies three aspects of the American theory of education: 1) A fantastic and impracticable idea of equality, 2) A fantastic and impracticable idea of democracy, and 3) A fantastically exaggerated idea of the importance of literacy in assuring the support of a sound and enlightened public order. This theory created a shift to training which vitiated the ideal of the educated person. Well written, precise, and at times very humorous, Nock's book is still worth reading today.

The Parable of the Sunfish

From Ezra Pound's ABC of Reading.

A post-graduate student equipped with honors and diplomas went to Agassiz to receive the final and finishing touches. The great man offered him a small fish and told him to describe it.

Post-Graduate Student: "That's only a sunfish."

Agassiz: "I know that. Write a description of it."

After a few minutes the student returned with the description of the Ichthus Heliodiplodokus, or whatever term is used to conceal the common sunfish from vulgar knowledge, family of Heliichtherinkus, etc., as found in textbooks of the subject.

Agassiz again told the student to describe the fish.

The student produced a four-page essay. Agassiz then told him to look at the fish. At the end of three weeks the fish was in an advanced state of decomposition, but the student knew something about it.