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.

 

G.K. Chesterton on Mothers

It is not difficult to see why . . . the female became the emblem of the universal… Nature… surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist.

Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment… is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worthwhile to cast this burden on women in order to keep commonsense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless, and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

The Dot and the Line - A Romance in Lower Mathematics

This fun video about geometry turns out to be a parable about the ends of classical education as well.  The book is also worth finding.  It is by the author of The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster.

Fermi Problem Update

My ten year old has been doing Fermi problems since I posted here and he continues to request more.  A few problems done so far include:

1. How much paper would you need to make a stack that would touch the den ceiling?
2. How many hairs are there on one of your arms?
3. How much unpopped popcorn would you need to fill your sister’s closet with popped corn? 
4. How much does it cost your parents to feed you for a year?
5. Ignoring Oceans and such, how long would it take you to walk entirely around the world?
6. How many sheets of paper would you need to cover the largest wall in your room?
7. How many revolutions will a car tire make on a drive to Grandma's house?
8. How many pairs of shoes are there in Dallas?

We've also been using problems in the book Guesstimation.

The Habit of Perfection - Gerard Manley Hopkins

ELECTED Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.
Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:	5
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only makes you eloquent.
Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light:	10
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.
Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust	15
So fresh that come in fasts divine!
Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side!	20
O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street,
And you unhouse and house the Lord.
And, Poverty, be thou the bride	25
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-coloured clothes provide
Your spouse not laboured-at, nor spun.

Defending the Liberal Arts through Bumper Stickers

Source: The Imaginative Conservative: Defending the Liberal Arts through Bumper Stickers...:

"Keep your laws off of my Great Books"

"Down with the Servile Arts"

"My liberal arts kid beat up your vo-tech kid"

"The Liberal Arts: Earned, Never Given"

"Honk if you love Socrates"

"If you enjoy your freedom, thank an ancient Athenian"

"Better Read than Dead"

"Yo' mama ain't nothin' but a Carthaginian Witch"

"8/24/410--Never Forget!"

"It's All Greek to Me"

"Don't Blame Me.  I voted for Cicero."

Fantasy before Tolkien

Before J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings created a whole genre known as "fantasy", there was Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany.  Lord Dunsany wrote several fantasy novels and many short stories.  I've been reading his Wonder Tales, actually a compilation of two books of short stories.  The stories are strange, wonderfully atmospheric, and compelling reads for such short pieces.  One  of my favorites so far is  "The Hoard of the Gibbelins", a fantastic fantasy demonstrating the follies of avarice.