Celebrating the greatest minds, contributions, and stories of Western Civilization. Passionate Homeschooler is sponsored by Lyceum Tutoring, which offers an online enrichment program for homeschool students. For information on how start homeschooling, please visit www.passionatehomeschooler.com.
Personally I think there is more to it. The greatest literature in the history of Western Civ accepts and reflects a traditional morality (many times even a theology) that our contemporary culture not only rejects, but hates. The intolerance of cancel culture has no regard for the wisdom of the ancients and prior centuries.
Although the Great Books series is a valuable resource, society has moved forward with remarkable advances in science and even history. Ahead of the Great Books I would place learning another language to at least read in it moderately well. Perhaps one would even consider learning Latin and Koine Greek. In dong so, one would confront a host of great authors in their own languages.
It goes back before Dewey and one can point to Ben Franklin's idea that education needed to be 'practical' but you are correct that Dewey and the Second Industrial Revolution had little use for "impractical" knowledge...After the First World War, the shift was well under way to make modern education relevant to the times. The end result, which I do not believe Dewey or many others of the day realized, was that today's American would be an untutored ahole incapable of understanding much beyond their own immediate consumerist appetites.
The classics got removed when education devolved into an industrialized obedience school for the masses. If your folks could shell out $50k annually for top private/boarding schools, the student would get good tutiliage. Two of my clients are retired from the Groton school. They are both in their 80's, but they still work to promote these studies in the general population. Warren, Michelina, and myself thank you sincerely for your efforts!
Thank you very much for your video and your analysis and recommendations on this book. Truly helpful. I will be getting it for reading! This book is recommended by KOLBE Catholic Homeschool Academy. Best of luck to you and all your subscribers.
As an Italian, I’ve been educated in a system that - in the sixties/ early seventies- was still much based on the study of the “classics”. Not everyone liked, but everybody was exposed to it and more or less been influenced by that. Nowadays, most students don’t even know what you’re talking about…and one could notice that by the way they speak or write …if writing is still a communication method. In my early sixties, I’m constantly returning to those books as a main reference for a deep understanding of the human behavior, of history or fundamental values. Forty years of management experience on technology and economics has by no means replaced those fundamental learnings.
I’m building my library and reading these one at a time and intend to instill in my daughter an appreciation of these books as a supplemental education.
This lady is so wrong and superficial! Dewey was nowhere near as influential as she argues. One reason the Great Books fell out of favor is that the people who taught about them during most of the 20th Century were, in fact, elitist! And now the people who teach them tend to neglect most of the 20th century scholarship that provides a useful understanding of the cultural context which created the possibility for the authors to write the great books! Also she neglects to mention how late 20th century science is excluded from most programs that teach great books.
well, the reason they fell out of favor... is the "Tear down the patriarchy" woke feminists took over academia ... up is now down, hot is now cold, and black is now white.
Very powerful assessment. I am over 70 years old an wish so much I had been exposed to and successful in learning as well as applying the classics. Your presentation is an excellent way to encourage the refocus of education to thinking & problem solving. I am on my own personal journey to catch up and immersing myself in classical thought and writing. Your comments on your website is most helpful. Thank you so very much for your gallent, timely and most useful work!
Well said! The ancient Greek sages got their education by attending wisdom schools in Egypt. The wisdom did not originate in Greece, but the set, which I also own, is a great value. There are also the set of The Sacred Books Of The East. Yes, it's sad these ideas were pushed out of favor.
To: Passionate Homeschooler: Very surprised that you are a Homeschooler. It seems that you must be a non-theist / non-Christian after watching this video. All three of my children are homeschooling their kids and they use the Holy Bible as a main source for a "Great Books" study. Most / many of those so-called "Great Books" are garbage from atheist Greeks and German and French and Austrian philosophers and nutcases that have caused mass murders and revolutions by Socialists/Marxist/Communists/and Nazis. About the only volume worth getting or reading in those "Harvard Classics set of supposed "Great Books" would be titles from John Bunyan, and Plutarch's "Lives" because that was a historical/biographical book, and many of Shakespeare's writings. A famous saying (and very true) is: "There will never be and can never be an agreement between Athens and Jerusalem!"
Thanks for featuring Frederick Douglass! I taught his first autobiography (The Narrative) for many years at the college level, and his story never failed to strike a chord with the students.
I prefer the World Books series due to the inclusion of the Syntopicon. The Syntopicon allows me to interrogate the Great Books at will, without having to read them all. On any given topic it provides a summary of the books, a reading guide, and an index. Within an hour or two I can have a good grasp on what all these great authors had to say on a particular subject, or within a few minutes I'll have the gist. There is nothing I love more in a reference book than a good index, and the Syntopicon is the best I've ever seen.
The GBWW series also has a syntopicon; the series is actually part of 3 interconnected sets: 1) Gateway to the Great Books (10-book series), 2) The Great Ideas Program (10-book series) and 3) Great Books of the Western World. The GGB series contains the syntopicon and is a sort of "prequel" to the GBWW in that the authors and topics are easier for readers to understand (Hutchins specifically states that the average 16-year old should be able to comprehend it). The GIP is a companion series by Mortimer Adler that acts as sort of a syllabus and curriculum to help the reader get the most out of the series (I use it as a homeschooler).
They have fallen out of favour because these books were meant to be read before the age of 20, and their contents well known and studied along with the wisdom of the Bible! The people who had this education already had a lot of skills. The shift was towards "industrial applied labour" which was a way of ensuring that many lost the actual skills that were passed down from Father to Son and sometimes Daughters ! It was a way from people to be brought under "masters" of industry. It had little to do with skills. It had everything to turning people into cheap labour, and those who worked in industry did not develop skills, merely they undertook dangerous work inside dangerous factories so other men could profit from their hard labour for a very few shillings in making bricks or rope making. They lost the freedom of their farms and working in the fresh air to be forced into the dreadfully toxic cities of the day such as London which were filthy, miserable and sad places.
Reading in general has fallen out of favor as the religious and political right continue to denigrate education and develop a society that spurns intelligence and education
That is a bogus rotten lie from an agent of Marx and the devil himself. The only thing that kept the U.S.A. ahead of and better than other nations (until 1963) was the basic Christian education many people had in America when the only book most Pioneers and settlers could afford to buy was a copy of the Holy Bible. The U.S. churches were far better than churches in Europe and the U.K., partly because people were encouraged to read the Bible at home 6 days a week instead of sitting on a pew and doing rituals for an hour once a week. Europe, starting in France with Voltaire, Rousseau and the scum of the French revolution in the late 1700's to Marx & Engels in Germany in the later 1840's started the ruination of good thinking based upon the God-breathed scripture. almost all European and British Isles churches and colleges went down the drain due to liberal theologians and writers who did not believe the Holy Bible was true. The words of the Holy Bible are 100 % better than the gunk and garbage of the Greek philosophers and godless Germans/Austrians and French writers and revolutionaries.
Great presentation - subbed. Critique: near the end you promote the great books as imparting skills that people in the workforce lack, whereas perhaps a better "sell" is that reading the Great Books enriches one's life and provides a window into our own condition.
I think a good way to follow this line of thinking and also update is to include great works from non western cultures. The poems of the Middle Eastern mathematician, the bava gita of india, the romance of the three kingdoms, an the book of the five rings. on of the more legit arguments against the classical education was its western focus but i think that is easily remidied and more importantly the idea that we learn the classics first is something i 100% agree with
The translations in that series of books are awkward and not up to date with 20th century discoveries about which texts are the least corrupted by inaccurate copyists in the days before the printing press. While you still can, read more recent translations!
Dedicated scholarship that inspires genuine creativity. The struggle to gain a sense of meaning...deep introspection, the writing. Bukowski nailed this one, "Any one that could ever write worth the damn, couldn't write in peace."
@@bdwonI'm sure there are few out there who have. What an undertaking, especially considering how many if the volumes are of an extremely specialized interest that few would find appealing for hundreds of pages.
I bought the older set which only had 54 volumes and intend to use it as part of my home schooling program. If we manage to make it through those, I will consider buying the last 6 as part of an annex. I got really excited to discover it is part of a collection, which also includes a sort of color-coded prequel called "Gateway to the Great Books," and a curriculum, of sorts, called "The Great Ideas Program," by Mortimer Adler.
At 1:10 I’m already in agreement. Too many “educated people” and homeschoolers just do what they want and within their comfort zone. Your video was perfect
How the Great Books fell out of favor? When the Russians launch Sputnik, there was a mass hysteria in education in this country that here our best and brightest were learning Pilgrim's Progress or whatever, and the Rooskis were learning how to bomb us from outer space. There was a sudden change in emphasis as to what was to be favored in school curricula. The idea of a liberal education never regained the ground it lost.
Have the set myself and Harvard Classics. Read all these with the Bible and you will have a strong education in western Culture and potentially gain strong insight into purpose. At a minimum, you should come away with a fondness for your neighbor since our diverse thoughts make us so interesting.
People used to read because they wanted to learn, not because they wanted to appear better than others. Egos weren't so messed up back then, which great books help with.
The YT algorithm pointed me to your video. I've recently started reading some classic literature, and I couldn't agree more that they should be something young minds should seek to learn. Thanks for the video. I know it's been 3 years since you've posted anything, but I hope that you'll have more helpful videos in the future.
This is great encouragement because I feel like I’m nagging quite a bit when my kids are being idle. Just subscribed. Thanks for sharing. I’m looking forward to watching more of your videos. I also have a channel with tons of homeschooling content. I would love to be friends and connect here 😊
We had a set of the Great Books and an Encyclopedia Brittanica growing up. There was one major problem with them: the fonts they used were tiny and the line-spacing almost nonexistent! I agree it’s important to read from the sources. Why study about what Freud thought, when he explains it very well by himself? Thanks for your thoughts.
This comment captured my exact thoughts. We no longer read the likes of Plato, but about Plato - someone else's opinion of Plato; rather than reading, and forming our own opinion about Plato...
Привет из России! Я всегда считала, что американцы только смотрят кино про инопланетян, а оказывается, вы тоже читаете книги. Это очень хорошо! Как вам русская литература? Читали? Понравилось?
It is difficult to get a lot of Russian literature with good translations. I have read some Russian literature; it is very ... grim. Well, written but my word is it depressing.
"Compulsory education systems are designed to inculcate into the masses the values of the King because one doesn't revolt against one with whom he or she shares values." -Amos Wilson
Nice. I wold add that Dewey was a Socialist/Communist eugenics enthusiast and elitist who wanted to create an army of workers for industry. He never taught school but was full of theories about how to run a classroom. Basically a complete fool with a profound influence on American education methods and the teacher colleges. The Great Books effort was well intended but rather rushed and the translations chosen are random in quality, ranging from horrible to OK. Nearly every high school library had a set when I was a kid, and a lot of people who subscribed through Britannica salesmen. But the decline since the 1960's is from a much different cause. Look up the Cloward and Piven Strategy.
Do you know of a good discussion on which works included in the GBWW were poor translations? I have just gotten the series and would like to supplement it with better translations for those sections that are problematic, but I do not know where to start.
@@asdisskagen6487 That is a good one. I recall discussions decades ago on CSPAN. Maybe look for reviews of them a little after they came out. I know they had to settle for what was available or affordable at the time in some cases. These things change as more is discovered about languages and cultural history. I would look for some modern critiques on each translation on a book by book basis.
@@williamgass9242 The idea that everyone read these texts for centuries is clearly inaccurate. Just think about it - we're talking centuries where most people were just busy surviving, where many were illiterate and oral education was still the main route as just making books was a laborious task, where oral history was still significant, and just ideals around education and varied widely. Also, the formation of this book collection started in late 1800s with the Ancient Classics Reader and had significant uptick in the early 1900s with several collections including Harvard Classics and Everyman's Library. The Great Book Collection in the 1950s being pretty late on this trend, and after reading collections tended to move towards broader range of works. There are benefits to reading widely across time and place - the latter being something the Great Books is fairly limited on, it doesn't really need to be sold as an eternal education and misrepresent the history of it this way - like some of the books in the Great Books Collection like Plutarch's histories do.
