SOMETHING LIKE PERFECTION
The Recovery of Education
by James S. Taylor

- Homer, The Odyssey

In an age when there are those still fortunate enough to enjoy the classical texts and ideas of Western civilization, generally they are also troubled about the various failures with current education. They usually believe that in the haste (and waste) of modern times we have neglected some essential wisdom from the past. I think that those lacking a familiar knowledge with the ancient and classical educational traditions of our past, also suspect the loss of some ancient wisdom that would turn out to be medicinal for our educational malaise. However, I would say that it is characteristic of both groups that in their concern and perhaps even in their zeal to address the problem of education, they fail to grasp the significance of that first and most influential "bible" of education—the epic poetry of Homer. When we do grasp this significance and importance of the poetic mode of knowledge, we begin to understand that our falling off in education has been greater than that which a "back to basics" approach will lift up. We are at a place where we have to first understand how basic those basics are. It is a distance from reality that has to be shortened, not really boosting dropping standardized test scores which, for the most part, are based on information, and not knowledge.

With the demise of authentic liberal arts colleges (which didn't take long in America) where the best of the arts and sciences were read and studied and the best teachers emerged, bureaucratic teacher education departments came into being where teaching became a "specialty" somewhat set apart from the culture of general studies. Some of these, of course, were better than others—some much

Apotheosis of Homer

better.  Yet, in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of "foundations of education" courses in these departments there was usually a glance, if that, at Plato to begin such a tour; then, a brief warm up with Aristotle's Politics.  After that exercise, too often read in the form of textbook commentaries and not the text itself, the syllabus would pitch the student quickly through a semester's short season, a fast ball from the "dark ages" of medieval universities, a slow curve of the new freedom lifting from the Renaissance, then a hit and quick turn past post-Reformation influences, touch second base on the English schools, round third with New England colonial education, and, finally, the grand slam, as John Dewey brought home the victory of Pragmatism and the new thing called American Education.

Aristotle Contemplating Bust of Homer by Rembrandt

Now it is proper to read Plato and Aristotle concerning education, and all the rest mentioned in this baseball analogy, which, I promise, I will cease to extend. In fact, I will enlarge the scenario and say that even in the better courses in the foundations of education, where Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and the rest in that defining tradition are read, it is commonplace that Homer is not included, much less recognized as the first educator of Greece, that is, of the Hellenistic world, and by extension, the Roman and Christian world. Without lengthening the argument with the use of historical documents and footnotes to prove this, I ask you to trust me, and trust the more thorough scholars of antiquity and education who give Homer his due mead of honor.

In fact, this isn't an argument at all.  It is a call from what has been our cultural memory, alas, now approaching, at best, amnesia, at worst, dementia. Homer, and the poets in general, were simply the keepers of what had been discovered as those things that inform the educated man: manners, prudence, courage, an alert emotional life, wit, meaningful and poetic speech, and, not least, piety.  Nothing embedded these principles of the ends of education more firmly in the imagination of the polis than the sensory-emotional appeal of poetry. Of course, the opposites of these heroes were portrayed too—those lacking virtue, the gross, the barbarians—the Cyclops—and that was also the point, or how else would we know the model of the good man?  Or woman. Think of the intelligence, grace, style, the "class", the charm and virtues of Penelope.

Death of Socrates by Jacques David

Did the Greeks fall short of these ideals? Of course. But there has always been in the best of societies the determinate few, the elite class upon whose model the rest of society was measured.  But not in our times. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Charles Murray eloquently points out the obvious, that today those who are our elite have adopted the manners of the impious masses, the so-called underclass, leveling, through the power of their example, all society to the lowest common denominator.  Such concerns as Murray's have everything to do with the recovery of education, and it is obvious at least to me that we will begin not with a new model of education, but with an old one, yet ever new, seemingly dead, but breathing none the less, dormant in our cultural memory.

On this subject of poetic knowledge and education, what do we continue to find in that memory? In the first serious conversation about education in the West, Socrates says in the part of The Republic that deals with the education of the Guardians, that knowledge should begin with poetry. He means for this to begin at the age of the nursery, and has in mind, for example, Aesop, and the songs that mothers and nurses would likely sing to their babes. This is not what we might imagine as arranged "quality time" parents schedule in with their children along with the soccer games, music or dance lessons, and Mom and Dad's jobs and business meetings. For Socrates, such poetic experience—rhyme, rhythm, images and metaphors—are an essential part of life, based on the observable emotional and psychological results that the Muse of the poem and story cultivates, namely, the senses of delight and wonder.  These prepare in the child a sensory-cognitive sympathy for that movement from the known to the unknown. These first stages of education are an art that will form the human, emotionally and intellectually, whole and entire.

Then, the child is ready to advance to Homer.  In spite of the fact that Socrates has much to censor in the Odyssey and Iliad, namely, those portions that represent the gods as deceivers and immoral, throughout all the dialogues Plato records Socrates quoting Homer and other poets as long-established authorities on all matters of wisdom. In other words, what we see is Socrates working naturally within a received tradition, from the poets. He knows Homer and the other poets by heart as did any educated Athenian.  Difficult as it may be for us to grasp, for Socrates and his age the poets were the oracles who were the keepers of the permanent things, the Greek religion, all in delight, wonder, and wisdom. It may even be more difficult for us to grasp that Homer and the poets are just as important for us today.

Now this "way" of approaching education (for it is not a method), presupposes that the intellect by itself cannot be educated, an assumption often made by the most well intentioned and concerned of parents and educators. Does that sound contrary to what is generally considered the basis of a classical or liberal education?  Consider this: You can force feed the intellect formulae and information drawn from a very high quality, to be sure; and students can become quite astute at regurgitating this back in a form that fits the demands of tests and examinations.  But this method—and etymologically that is exactly what it is, a short cut—produces a kind of knowledge-in-a-vacuum that is bereft of understanding. How so?  Because the intellect—that marvelous power that can see into the essence of things—is still dependent on the experience of direct or vicarious, imaginative objects upon which to gaze.  And such sensory-emotional experiences have a cognitive value, no matter how obscure, upon which the intellect seizes.  We are, after all, not really a body and a soul, we are a body-soul, a composite being, as the traditional philosophers and theologians say.  The eyes do not simply see; they must see something. And we think about what we see. Likewise with all the exterior senses. These exterior sensory experiences, in turn, have an inner connection with our internal senses, our common sense, imagination, estimative sense, and our memory. Further, these have an emotional resonance, fear, joy, love, anger, that is, we say we feel one way or another about experience, and in so doing offer the will the opportunity to follow naturally the good or with effort to resist the evil, depending upon our knowledge of virtue, our habits, the light of the intellect informing all of these functions at all times. 

This means the higher powers of the soul are dependent upon, and integrated with our most basic perceptions of concrete reality. The child must first have the sensory knowledge of apples and

Scenic Sierra Nevada Mountains by Albert Bierstadt

oranges, trees and stones, before their intellect can properly rise to the abstraction that a thing called a number 1, plus another number 1, make 2. Not two concrete things any longer, but just two—of anything.  If we can take ourselves back to our own childhood, we can recall what an intellectual leap that really is. Poetic knowledge, because it naturally responds to the sensory and emotional, is prerequisite to all higher studies, and requires sight, sound, feel and touch with the commensurate emotional resonance of wonder, of apples and trees, oranges and stones, and thus becomes connatural with these realities, effortlessly advancing to abstract principles. This is what Socrates learned from the poets and why he begins education (and actually ends his life) in the realm of poetry. He presupposed the presence of this intimate, intuitive knowledge of reality (obscure, by scientific standards), as did everyone afterward, peasant or philosopher, who lived in a pre-industrial, agrarian, craft culture.

This presupposition accounts for the lack of formal, reflective commentaries on poetic knowledge in the pre-industrial past—it was simply a given. This is why Socrates begins speaking in media res about poetry as the place to begin education.  Poetry, in addition to being delightful in itself, was the reflection and representation of the essence of the concrete that contained within its imaginative experience the shadow of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.  Only after a life lived in the balance of the poets and the realities of everyday experience, would Socrates lead the learner toward the light of the transcendental realities that are only grasped by the mind. Even then, it was understood, and exemplified in the persons of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, St. Augustine, and the tradition they continued, that poetry and its knowledge is something never outdone or surpassed.

If Socrates and the tradition of education that followed him for nearly 2,000 years held this "way" to be essential to education, then how much more important is it now in our age so grossly insulated from the real, so profanely exulting in the behavior of the impious, having replaced the True, Good, and Beautiful, with the False, Evil, and Ugly? For make no mistake, while not moralizing, or departing from some aspect of wonder, the poetic way of education is never separated from virtue. There must be virtue in this experience, for the poetic is at root the powerful love of something beautiful, "something very much like perfection", and, having awakened this innate love, we all know how easy it is  mistakenly to desire objects of our unhappiness, and destruction.  Socrates says in several different ways in The Republic that the true end of education is only to teach us to love the Beautiful because it is simply proportionate to our highest nature—the end of such a love is to participate in the Good. So a recovery of education must begin in revisiting our cultural memory that has been kept in the hands of the poets and the philosophers. 

Both experiences, poetic and philosophical, depend upon the pre-rational knowledge gained in our first experiences with reality.  First, are the experiences of things as they are—fire is hot, water is wet, rocks are hard—only later do we wonder why these things are so.  Only much later, do a few actually go on to investigate and experiment and form theories of why such a phenomena is as it is. In any case, all is dependent upon the initial experience of reality embedded in our sensory-cognitive connections.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy

And, here, we must distinguish two kinds of experience.  The first is direct confrontation with Nature, that is, things as they are, the created world, so often referred to by the early Christian writers as the first book written by God, one that we must learn to read first; and, secondly, imaginative experience, or vicarious experience if you will, based on the memory of those direct experiences.  The first we may call poetic experience, and the second those arts of man that are poetic in their representations of a seen and unseen reality.  Where is science, one might ask, that is, modern scientific inquiry? It isn't here because it is not poetic knowledge, it is scientific knowledge which has been relegated in our time to learning information and data, often reduced to just another form of mathematics, and replicating laboratory experiments too often conducted in a vacuum-like atmosphere. Many of these experiments only work when removed from natural phenomena, such as, the absence of wind resistance in the famous Tower of Pisa de-monstration using a cannon ball and a bag of feathers. Natural science begins in close observation of one's own backyard and the open field—that's poetic—not the denatured laboratory—the realm of the expert. 

Also abiding in our cultural memory, concerning the need for such poetic experience for education, we find no disagreement between Plato and his pupil, Aristotle, who said in perhaps his greatest work, The Metaphysics, that all knowledge begins in wonder, that is, from the poets. And over a thousand years later, St. Thomas Aquinas says that poetica scientia (poetic knowledge), while not as precise, scientifically, as metaphysics, is the indispensable first degree of knowledge by which we gain a symbolic mode of experience of the highest forms of knowledge and understanding.

What does this mean for us, in the English language tradition?   Well, what it has always meant—we

Plato

begin with the rhymes and songs of Mother Goose and Robert Louis Stevenson and selected titles from the thousand good books for children and youth. In spite of all the garbage now on the shelves of libraries and national book stores—relevant and tyrannically "correct" sociology and pop psychology passing itself off as children's literature—the traditional good books are still in print and even occupy a space in those same libraries and books stores.  That's not the problem. We can get the books. But these books were meant to be read and listened to in a culture appropriate to literature. They presuppose the culture of natural order, ordered to the human order, which includes the dignity of the Greek word for school, "skola"—leisure.  So getting the books is the positive act, but there are negative requirements as well: turn off, if not get rid of, the television set, the computer, the stereo, and the video games. Alright, we will compromise: Watch some carefully selected and age-appropriate films, and listen to some equally appropriate recorded music, now and again, knowing, however, that both are technological shadows and echoes from deep within Plato's New 21st Century Cave. 

Poetic Knowlege, The Recovery of Education The new book by James S. Taylor

Up into the light from reading these good books, our entry into the "world" of poems and stories is not an escape into a time past, it is a discovery of where we came from, and measure  of where we are.  Most of all, they depend on a life of a sensory knowledge of the sun, the moon, the stars, a life lived mostly out of doors, of fireplaces in winter, front porches in the summer, of peopled living rooms, and casual conversation around a dinner table, free of rude electronic interruptions.  Let us take a collective look outside our front doors, and it should be obvious to anyone who has not already been desensitized by the loss of civility and general crassness, that, for the time being, we have lost the Western cultural war—no matter where we live, we seem to be "in the wrong 'hood'". Without an adventurous and courageous Odysseus to contain them, the Cyclopes have left their island—they're just down the block, perhaps approaching the front steps even now.  The least we can do, without becoming cultist or recluse, is to let our cultural memory live again in the home, which will, in turn, strengthen the bar on the door at the same time.  Then, as wiser men have said in bad times, wait for better days—not with sad faces, but with the well-groomed secret joy that becomes those who live on the side of the angels.

In living, and moving and having something of our being in a home culture, even with its all-too-human fuss and bother, if we but smuggle in something of the simple cargo—sturdy, comfortable furniture, fresh food, home cooked meals, good wine, one set of fine china for special meals, paintings and ancestral portraits on the wall, an old upright piano, acoustic guitar, any non-electric instrument, a time set apart to read aloud before prayers and bedtime—if we but make a welcome hearth for the songs of the Muses, we too will know that even on this earth, now and again, a courage will visit among us in those comforting, beautiful reflections of the permanent things, quite surprising yet strangely familiar for us who are passing to and fro in these playful shadows, and we will begin to see as Odysseus recognized, "something very much like perfection."

Visit On The Farm It's different on the farm Than where I live in town: A silo and a barn, All outdoors to move around. There's no light bulbs anywhere, No switches for a light, The lamps we have to share, To keep things warm and bright. It's real cold in bed at night, The big stove's down the hall. One spot in the covers tight Is the warmest place of all. It's cold and dark in the morning, When my feet touch the floor. I'm still tired and yawning When I reach the kitchen door. Uncle Jack, Aunt Mary, Say hello with a smile, I'm given real coffee And hot pancakes in a pile. The it's time to work the chores, Just Uncle Jack and me, We slop the sows and boars With just lantern light to see. Inside the barn it's colder, The lantern glows on all. His hand is on my shoulder As he leads me to the stall. The pail goes beneath the cow, I sit down on a stool. He has to show me how Not to milk with hands too cool. Outside the barn the sun's up, And now I get to play, With the dog's little pup And for the rest of the day. I will ride the white pony Out in the field of brome, Just like a real cowboy, Who always rides alone   Backyard Days When Mother hangs the laundry out Along the backyard lines, I walk between the flowing sheets While all the morning shines. The cloth is cool and dripping wet, And it's shady here inside Where I stroll the glowing corridor In my favorite place to hide. I can smell the bleach and soap In a world all white and clean, In my hallway of earthly clouds Where I know I can't be seen. When I reach the brighter light Outside the sheets and shade, I hear my Mother calling me As her voice begins to fade. It's time to do the morning chores Before the sun's too high, To pick from our green garden The beans before they dry. When Mother brings the white sheets in I'm there to help her fold, And feel the morning sun in them In bed when night's grow cold The Bees   Mr. Ward, He keeps bees In three white hives Beneath his trees. When I play On his lawn I stir'em up, Then I'm gone To my yard On a run To keep myself From being stung Safe at home inside the door, I always say, No, no more. But I know, The next day I'll make his bees Come out and play. DEAD POETS SOCIETY A brief review of the script by Tom Schulman (1988) Interestingly, Tom Schulman arrived at many of the same conclusions set Fourth in James Taylor's article about "poetic knowledge", but not through any formal study of the matter – nor were his conclusions set Fourth in any scholarly manner. The movie has serious flaws, and one mildly risque scene, but the main theme is a worthy one.  Schulman based the story on his own experiences in high school where he "remembered a couple of English teachers who had been very dynamic, very exciting. Along with this was the memory of my father always quoting poetry to me, little kernels of wisdom. I put the two together, started taking notes, wrote an outline, and then wrote the script." In Dead Poets Society, Schulman has the protagonist John Keating – an English literature professor played by Robin Williams – striving to inspire his students to develop their sensory-emotional lives which were being stunted at the fictional, rigid, preppy Welton Academy (actually filmed at St. Andrew's Academy in New Jersey). Here is the key scene setting Fourth the theme of the movie, so sympathetic to Taylor's view: KEATING'S ENGLISH CLASS - Welton Academy, Vermont Keating sits in a chair behind the teacher's desk. KEATING: "Boys, open your Pritchard texts to page 21 of the Introduction. Mr. Perry, kindly read aloud the first Paragraph of the preface entitled 'Understanding Poetry'." [The boys find the page in their texts. Neil reads.] NEIL: "Understanding Poetry by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D. To fully understand poetry, we must first rhyme, and figures of speech, then ask two questions:  1) how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered; and  2) how important is that objective? Question 1) rates the poem's perfection; question 2) rates its importance; and once these questions have been answered, determining the poem's greatness becomes a relatively simple matter. If the poem's score for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of it's greatness. A sonnet by Byron might score high on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great." [As Neil reads Keating goes to the blackboard and draws a graph. He demonstrates by lines and shading how the Shakespearean poem would overwhelm the Byron.] NEIL: "As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this manner grows, so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry." [Neil stops. Keating pauses a moment to let this lesson sink in.] KEATING: "Excrement! That's what I think of Dr. J. Evans Pritchard. Now I want you to rip that page out of your books. Go on, rip out the entire page! I want this garbage on the trash heap where it belongs!" [The boys are tentative. Does Keating mean this?] KEATING: "Go ahead, rip it out. Rip it out!" [Charlie Daulton rips out the page.] KEATING: "Thank you Mister Daulton. Come on, make a clear tear. In fact, rip out the entire introduction. I want nothing left of it! Dr. J. Evans Pritchard you are disgraceful! I want to hear more ripping!" [Keating strides to the front of the room.] KEATING: "This is battle, boys. War! And the casualties could be your hearts and souls. Now you will learn what this school wants you to learn in my class, however, if I do my job properly, you will also learn a great deal more. You will learn to think for yourselves. You will learn to savor language and words because, no matter what anyone tells you gentlemen, words and ideas have the power to change the world. Now, Mr. Pitts may argue that nineteenth-century literature has nothing to do with business school or medical school. He thinks we should study our J Evans Pritchard, learn our rhyme and meter, and quietly go about our business of achieving other ambitions." [Pitts smilingly shakes his head as if to say, "Who me?"] KEATING: (in a defiant whisper) "Well, I say drivel. One reads poetry because he is a member of the human race and the human race is filled with passion! Medicine, law, banking - these are necessary to sustain life - but poetry, romance, love, beauty! These are what we stay alive for!  I quote from Whitman: "Oh me, Oh life of the questions of these recurring. Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities filled with the foolish. What good amid these O me, O life?  Answer: That you are here -That life exists and identity. That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse." [Keating pauses. The class sits, taking this in.] KEATING: (in an awestruck tone) "That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse." [Keating waits a long moment.] KEATING: "What will your verse be?" | Welcome | First Issue | Second Issue | Third Issue | Fourth Issue |Contact Us | Links | Copyright © 2006 Classical Homeschooling Magazine.  All rights reserved. Classical Homeschooling Magazine - PO Box 10726 - Bainbridge Island, WA 98110   Website designed and maintained by Webshui L.L.C. (GBAmail@aol.com )