Anthony Esolen's article on the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program at KU
From
Touchstone Magazine (Summer 2011):
Anthony Esolen, "Pupils Delighted."
. . . He was moved to write to me, a stranger, to tell about his experience. I trust I am not revealing a confidence. This person, this former student, sent to me a copy of the brochure that he received when he entered something called the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program, at the University of Kansas, in 1974.
I can hardly look at the cover page without wanting to weep, it is so achingly sweet, so emblematic of how much we have lost. An old man in the foreground, mounted on a swaybacked and skinny horse, wielding a lance and a buckler, looks up at the stars—at Ursa Major and Polaris. It is clearly Don Quixote and poor old Rocinante. The stars are framed by a Roman triumphal arch, whose frieze is decorated with scenes from ancient Greece: a man teaching a youth to play the zither; a naked sprinter; a chariot race; a woman dancing; and two Muses with stringed instruments. Below them, on the sides of the arch, are two medallions, one depicting a medieval monastery, the other, what I’m guessing is the cupola to Independence Hall.
The Pearson Integrated Humanities Program must have violated every educational truism of our time. Two hundred freshmen and sophomores, for six hours a week for two years, sat in the company of three professors, John Senior, Frank Nelick, and Dennis Quinn, who discussed art, poetry, music, history, philosophy, and Scripture with one another, while the students overheard them and eventually learned to participate in the discussions themselves. The students also recited poetry, learned to waltz, and were introduced to such words as truth, faith, honor, love, courtesy, decency, simplicity, and modesty, not words much used in an Age of Iron, but then, Don Quixote was sent into that time precisely to bring back something of the Age of Gold.
The motto of the program was Nascantur in Admiratione, “Let Them Be Born in Wonder.” One of the pages of the brochure explains why. . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment