Education, anyone?

It's a great pleasure to have one's columns discussed, and used by some to duel with their friends at those breakfast seminars around the area. And, it's good to hear from readers who challenge me on my firm belief that today's educational standards, both in high schools and universities, are way below those norms of thirty years ago. In last week's column I wrote that "all educated people" knew about the story of how, as a very young student, da Vinci had painted a single angel that was so fantastic in its lifelike beauty that the art world was blown away with his talent. But, it was the assertion that many of today's students are woefully unprepared for a real university that caught the attention of quite a few readers. There's more about today's universities a little later in this piece. Last week's column (dddnews.com May 24, 06) was a feeble attempt to help set the record straight regarding the book and movie, "THE DA VINCI CODE," as they relate to the real Leonardo da Vinci. The response to that column leads me to today's effort.

Let's start with high school. I have before me a book that the late Louise Branum, my dear friend and mother of my sister-in-law, Jean Kinchen, used as a student in her "Music Appreciation Class" at Hornersville High School. The date of the "Property of Hornersville High School"statement is 1922, and the book is signed by Louise Perkins (not yet Branum). I was given this book by Louise, along with several other "keepsake" books and assorted sheet music that was popular in the 30's and 40's. Looking at the Music Appreciation book, once again this morning, one wonders how well the average high school student, or recent liberal arts college graduate, today would do with some of the following study questions? Check these out: "Did opera and oratorio have their origin in the same intellectual movement?" Or how about, "Describe the "Fools' Festival" and "Feast of the Ass." "Who was St. Phillip Neri?, and what means did he take to interest his congregation?" Do you know of any recent high school student who has had a high school level requirement with anything like one of Louise Branum's assignments? "Lesson XV: Oratorio, Cantata, Passion Music, Sacred Music >From 1700 To The Present Time"? Most of you are thinking, "no" but "so what?"

The response, "so what," illustrates the result of trying to "reach" (meaning entertain instead of teaching) students by going down to their level, instead of "teaching" them to learn and appreciate those enriching higher levels of knowledge that make life so much more understandable and enjoyable. I fear, if it weren't for the classical music background in children's Saturday morning cartoons, the great mass of our kids would never hear exciting, or foreboding, or emotionally moving and passionate "real" music. It was not always the case with the average mass of students. In the days when schools were meant to teach not follow, referring here to the arts, everybody heard some classical music in high school.

Here's an example: the late great, Mayor for Life of Hornersville, and my late brother's closest lifelong friend, "Sonny" Lomax, was, in the late 1940's, among the toughest young men in our school. He was also one of the more rigorous, and most respected, brawlers at Gobler's "B and B" Club, comically, yet correctly, called the "Bloody Bucket." If you haven't known Gobler in your youth, it's a pity, but we best be moving along. Fast forward to the 1980's, when a big group of husbands and wives, and one near foreign visiting brother, were on the way to the "river house" on Current River. We were riding in the bank's big van, when by some accident, the powerful theme of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony magically overtook the vehicle's FM station. Sonny Lomax, perhaps to show us that he was no musical barbarian, incredibly, but correctly, named the symphony, and deliberately mutilated the composer's name and title. "Ain't that the fifth 'sympathy' by Tischy-washie-ski?" I remember thinking how could "he" know that? Then it dawned on me. He learned it in "Music Appreciation" class while listening to recordings furnished, from her personal collection, by Miss Blanche Langdon, a cultured, well educated and well-traveled maiden lady, who was born into a genteel and generous local family. That Miss Blanche was a magnificent teacher, was evident, when, after several years, her former student, the brash Sonny Lomax, tough guy, identified, and probably secretly appreciated, "Tischy-washie-ski's" music. He was not alone in his education. Kids from all walks of life were really "educated" in our schools in those days. We were "elevated" by our teachers. They, and the board of education, and certainly not us, chose the curriculum. They didn't give a hootinhell if we liked what we were being taught. They knew the great secret: "You can't be interested in something you've never heard, nor read, nor seen." We might have been born with webs between our Swamp East Missouri toes, but by golly we know a Tchaikovsky symphony from a Chopin prelude when we hear it. Our teachers exposed us to the best they had, taught us well, and succeeded with most of us in reaching their goal of giving us a well rounded education, including the arts, whether we liked it or not. Those of us who were privileged to go to college were well prepared for the rigors of a real college education. Once there, we appreciated our former teachers for our preparation, and the sacrifices our parents made to send us, in my case forced me, to get a university education. One writes prepared for a "real college education" for a reason.

In the days when we went to college, a good university of the time had already been well described by Robert M. Hutchins, of the University of Chicago. Read his direct quote: "A community of scholars. It is not a kindergarten; it is not a club; it is not a reform school; it is not a political party; it is not an agency of propaganda. A university is a community of scholars. The greatest university is that in which the largest proportion of these scholars are most competent in their chosen fields. A college teaches; a university both teaches and learns." Compare Hutchins' standard with that of too many of today's universities, and you'll have a wake-up experience. The founding of the University of Chicago is a story in itself: it was started by a Baptist organization which contributed the idea; John D. Rockefeller contributed the money; and the first president, William R. Harper, a Greek scholar out of Yale contributed, in the beginning, nearly everything else. There will be more on the University of Chicago and its "Great Books" program, and its positive influence on higher education, some other time.

Kenneth Kinchen is an independent writer with a background in international business and foreign service contracting.