“You amuse me: You’re like someone who’s afraid that the majority will think he is prescribing useless subjects. It is no easy task—indeed it’s very difficult—to realize that that in every soul there is an instrument that is purified and rekindled by such subjects when it has been blinded and destroyed by other ways of … Read more
Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans? I’d be glad to read him. – Saul Bellow. In asking about the Papuan Proust, novelist Saul Bellow summed up the core problem with the twin idols of our age, Multiculturalism and Diversity. For the ideology of Multiculturalism—now dominant on most college … Read more
On Tuesday, Nov. 8, the voters of Mississippi will have a very rare privilege in today’s America, so much of which is governed by unelected judges and unaccountable bureaucrats, where so many basic issues seem invulnerable to change: Those voters will have the chance to make an existential decision, to vote with a flip … Read more
Last December, I reported on Harvard University professor Stephan Thernstrom’s essay “Minorities in College — Good News, But…,” on Minding the Campus, a website sponsored by the New York-based Manhattan Institute. He was commenting on the results of the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, saying that the scores “mean that black students aged … Read more
Earlier this month, the left-leaning California State Legislature overwhelmingly passed The FAIR Education Act (SB 48) and has sent the bill on Governor Jerry Brown for what will surely be a celebratory signing. The FAIR Education Act is the seventh sexual indoctrination law to teach the state’s children to regard homosexuality, transsexuality (sex-changes operations) and bisexuality … Read more
I’m collecting the essays day by day in big batches from a post office in central London. By the end of this month, when the deadline arrives, there will be hundreds and hundreds of them, and I’ve already made arrangements, as I do every year, for a team of judges to meet at a venue … Read more
Two unrelated news stories on the same day show the contrast between government decisions and private decisions. Under the headline “Foreclosed Homes Sell at Big Discounts,” USA Today reported that banks were selling the homes they foreclosed on, at discounts of 38 percent in Tennessee to 41 percent in Illinois and Ohio. Banks in general … Read more
Not satisfied with a general failure to teach students basic arithmetic, the structure of the English language, the history of our nation, the rudiments of the physical sciences, and enough geographical knowledge to distinguish Sweden from Switzerland, the legislators of the state of California have determined to require that the public schools teach “Gay Studies.” … Read more
Every fall and spring the two of us play the game — the Pelosi-haired lady at the school district and me. We are like chess pieces — queens — coming at each other across the checkered board. Opposites, yet strangely similar. We are both dressed for the day’s business. She wears a neutral-toned, tailored pantsuit … Read more
One of the sad and dangerous signs of our times is how many people are enthralled by words, without bothering to look at the realities behind those words. One of those words that many people seldom look behind is “education.” But education can cover anything from courses on nuclear physics to courses on baton twirling. … Read more
The philosophical map has altered. We live in a world wholly different from the world known by C. S. Lewis, or by John Henry Newman before him, or by Francis Bacon in the Renaissance or Robert Grosseteste in the Middle Ages. Whether we wish to locate the wellspring of this latter change in the eighteenth … Read more
With the rapid advance of technology, education is in the midst of a transition between the traditional classroom model and newer, online-based methods. InsideCatholic editor Brian Saint-Paul spoke with Mark Giszczak of the Augustine Institute about Catholicism, distance learning, and the future of theological instruction. Is the age of the university nearing its end? ♦ … Read more
Two weeks ago I ventured into enemy territory: the Harvard Club in Boston. In all the time I’ve lived in New England, I’ve turned down every chance to visit Harvard’s prim, Georgian campus, though I’ve window-shopped in swanky Harvard Square. Out of loyalty to its rival, my alma mater, I’ve steered clear of Harvard, displaying … Read more
Apologies for the gap in service… Below is part nine of the ten-part serial “Catholics in Action,” which originally appeared in Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact in 1952-53. This set of stories dealt with Catholic Social Doctrine as it is lived out in regular people’s lives, often without any politics whatsoever. As always, these pages … Read more
I don’t want to oversell this, but these Connecticut high school girls — protesting their cheerleading squad’s skimpy uniforms — give me hope for the future: A half-dozen upperclassmen on the team appeared before the city Board of Education this week asking its members how they’d feel if their daughters were dressed in something similar. “We ask with … Read more
I am sitting in front of my computer in Washington, D.C. The electricity is on, and lights shine overhead; outside, I hear planes, trains, automobiles. Down the street, not far from where I live, are the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. None of this would be remarkable except that the purveyors of politically … Read more
Rising Road: A True Tale of Love, Race, and Religion in America Sharon Davies, Oxford University Press, 352 pages, $27.95 In 1954, Hugo Black joined his fellow Supreme Court justices in outlawing racial segregation in American schools in the unanimous, landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education. There is, indeed, as Reinhold Niebuhr might put … Read more
When America’s pro-abortion forces won their great victory of January 1973 — the Roe v. Wade ruling of the United States Supreme Court — they were not surprised to see that religious and moral conservatives were immediately outraged. Similarly, white supremacists were immediately outraged when the Court handed down its Brown v. Board of … Read more
Vatican II’s “Declaration on Christian Education” was clear that parents “must be recognized as the primary and principal educators” of their children. Your school’s attitude toward this foundational principal of Catholic education is the single best measure of the faithfulness of your local Catholic school. Indeed, the school should not only welcome your involvement as … Read more
When public school began earlier this month, some parents were wary of the idea of President Barack Obama’s likeness appearing on Orwellian viewscreens in their children’s classrooms. While the presidential address might have captured the banality of Big Brother’s compulsory public health announcements, the speech itself contained little that was politically alarming. Â Of greater … Read more