Blue Letter: October 17th, 2008

St. Ignatius of Antioch

Dear Families:

Some other interesting quotes from Jacques Barzun:

Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning
All new machinery is exciting when new; it soon loses its charm, for the mechanical does not stimulate thought, and as a wise man said: “Most important things aren’t exciting. Most exciting things aren’t important. Not every problem has a good solution.”
Where is the individual in a numerical score?
Ethics must be seen to be believed.
There is no cruder mode of judging than that which asks: Is it new?
Trees may be splendid symbols of long life, and ship fragments valuable mementoes of the past, but neither are “imbued with history.” Only human beings are, by being creatures possessed of memory and of the capacity to reflect upon it.
The student who reads history will unconsciously develop what is the highest value of history: judgment in worldly affairs. This is a permanent good, not because “history repeats”-we can never exactly match past and present situations-but because the “tendency of things” shows an amazing uniformity within any given civilization. As the great historian Burckhardt said of historical knowledge, it is not “to make us more clever the next time, but wiser for all time.”
Teaching is not the application of a system, it is an exercise in perpetual discretion.
How is “real book” defined? Quite simply: it is a book one wants to reread.
But why, after all, learn to read differently by tackling the classics? The answer is simple: in order to live in a wider world. Wider than what? Wider than the one that comes through the routine of our material lives and through the paper and the factual magazines-Psychology Today, House and Garden, Sports Illustrated; wider also than friends’ and neighbors’ plans and gossip; wider especially than one’s business or profession. For nothing is more narrowing than one’s own shop, and it grows ever more so as one bends the mind and energies to succeed. This is particularly true today, when each profession has become a cluster of specialties continually subdividing. A lawyer is not a jurist, he is a tax lawyer, or a dab at trusts and estates. The work itself is a struggle with a mass of jargon, conventions, and numbers that have no meaning outside the specialty. The whole modern world moves among systems and abstractions superimposed on reality, a vast make-believe, though its results are real enough in one’s life if one does not know and follow these ever-shifting rules of the game.
…another illusion bred by university research, the idea of the obsolete, the apparent elimination of the past by the future, the belief propagated by science and industry that later is better, even when later has not yet come about and is only a prophecy by enthusiasts with something to sell.
But the reward of reading with a humanistic eye is not in doubt: it is pleasure, renewable at will. That pleasure is the ultimate use of the classics. All the great judges of human existence have said so, from Milton who called reading “conversation with the master spirits” to Virginia Woolf, who imagined the Almighty saying to St. Peter about some newcomers to heaven: “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them…They have loved reading.” I can only add one thing: it is always time to stop repeating the wise sayings and begin to believe them.
For my part, when I speak at a commencement, I prefer to say a few words not about what the newly hatched might do for the world but what they might do for themselves, as individuals. The speech goes something like this:
As you are now, the world does not depend on you; it is not aware of your existence; it will acknowledge it slowly, perhaps in keeping with your professional efforts, perhaps not. These efforts are unquestionably your main business, now that you have taken such pains to be knowledgeable and proficient. But these very pains, this professional preparation, and the striving to establish yourselves which comes next, are all activities that narrow the mind and stifle the spirit….
Alone though [educated persons] may be much of the time, they are not so much to be pitied as the sociable creatures who must have “people around” or a movie to go to. For the educated person has appropriated so much of other men’s minds that he can live on his store like the camel on his reservoir. Everything can become grist to his mill, including his own misery-if he is miserable -for by association with what he knows, everything he enjoys or endures has echoes and meanings and suggestions ad infinitum. This is in fact the test and use of a human being’s education, that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind.

Imagine a generation of young men who did not think they could govern better than their fathers, who did not want to revolutionize the world with new inventions or make T. S. Eliot’s laurels fade! If they do not believe they can do this, who will tell them?
As long as we cannot prophesy who will turn out a winner, we have no right to question initiative and self-dedication

COLLEGE NIGHT - The U.S. Military Academies will be our guest presenters this year. We are scheduled for October 16th at 7:15 PM. All high school students and their parents - especially parents - are invited to attend. Come find out about the Academies AND general college application and testing info from Mr.V..

JOG-A-THON - Thanks Mrs. M and Mrs. S and ALL THE VOLUNETEERS - and especially to all the students who are running their heart out!

IMPORTANT AUCTION INFO ENCLOSED - See Flyers.

VOLLEYBALL - Great Job Girls! 4 wins, 1 loss! Upcoming Games:

• Tuesday, Oct. 21th @ Home v UCMS at 3:30 p.m.
• Thursday, Oct. 23rd @ Home v. Mary Magdalen at 3:30 p.m.

St. Augustine’s Annual Oktoberfest! THIS SATURDAY - October 18th Beer, Brats and Polka! - Come with the family, bring some friends. This is the best Oktoberfest in town. Brats and Hot Dogs will be served starting at 4 PM.
Poker Games - tables limited to first 28 people! First cards dealt at 1:30 PM. Call S’s to reserve chairs!

CALENDAR NOTES

• Oct. 17th End of First Qtr.
• Oct. 23rd College Night - 7:15 PM.
• Oct. 24th Report Cards
• Oct. 31st All Saints Presentations, Noon Dismissal. Parent/Teacher Conferences begin.

Ora Pro Nobis:
For the great aunt of the G and H children as she faces her last few days. For Mrs. L, grandmother to our former students, who is suffering from an aggressive cancer. For the continued recovery of Dr. G. For Miss R’s continued recovery. We continue to keep all our friends and family in our prayers. Let us pray for one another.