Your evasion of the quality of education in favor of amount is itself a product of that quality. Late 19th century Americans graduated from high school at 15 and 16 w/the equivalent of todays M.A.
I'm very dubious about that assertion. Yes, they knew some Latin and Greek, and knew the classics and probably even had a better grounding in math, but given the pace of scientific and technological change of the 20th century (which admittedly they helped build) there is so much more to learn now than there was at the end of the 19th. It's apples and oranges.
Education is teaching children how to think like adults, not scientific or tech training. This means method as well as content. Classical education includes thinking in principles, a method rejected by the explicitly anti-knowledge, Progressive "education" of Pragmatist philosopher,John Dewey, that has dominated US schools, private and public, since 1920. Eg, the virtual mindlessness of Biden and Trump and their voters, w/their animal-like concern w/out-of-context concretes and emotions.
In other words, in the 19th century, very few people had access to the education you're talking about. The rest worked in factories or farms. It's not that classical education is dead - it's just as prevalent (I'm going to guess that of all the degrees being handed out at least 3.5% of them are in classical fields). It's that the rest of us are getting advanced degrees in engineering and tech areas instead of toiling away in sweat shops.
Since late 19th century US high school grads had the equivalent of todays M.A. (assuming its not in lesbian dance), there's a strong rational possibility that students not graduating from high school then had an equally better education relative to each grade, perhaps equivalent to todays high school graduate to todays B.A. Recall, too, going backwards from 15 and 16 years, these are young teens and children. I dont know how concretely precise this logical comparison is. There may have been an uneven progression of learning. And re that 3.5%, Im wary of Leftist influence in the humanities. Its very easy to hide a biased context.
And, most important, contra our anti-systematic, Pragmatist/Progressive chaos of bits and pieces of out-of-context information, they were taught principles at this young, cognitively impressionable age. Principles are overwhelmingly important for mans mind. They provide a cognitively needed framework, order, to the mind that is radically different from todays chaos of arbitrary, memorized whatever thats feverishly memorized for an exam and promptly forgotten. Ask todays high school grads what wisdom they learned in school. They literally have no idea. My only educational memory from grade school is that Chile (Peru?) imports (exports?) tin. Biden recently warned Iran, re the war in Israel, to "watch out" or words to that effect, words spoken by an angry, out-of-control child. He was never taught any principles to guide his thinking in concrete situations.
In Americas Revolutionary era, election posters attached to trees in rural eras had logical arguments in them. Think of farmers then who could follow an argument! Today, we have appeals to emotion; mystical, social or traditional ideals rationalized by a chaos of arbitrary and cherry-picked statistics. Today, conservatives who appeal to unidentified founding ideals know two things alledgedly about them: God and guns. Im, here, identifying todays intellectual level, not attacking conservatives.
They were consciously teaching for wisdom in living. We teach without a clear purpose (unless teacher is religious or an extreme Leftist). See the horrifying, excellent, "Why Johnny Can't Think" by Leonard Peikoff (online, text, vid).
Without intending snobbishness, my B.A. in philosophy provided four years of an intellectual chaos that is virtually unbelievable to outsiders. It makes what you may read about todays education seem rational by comparison. My Existentialist prof said, "I want to kill somebody, anybody." The Pragmatist professor said, of discovering an objective logic, "Choose your poison." The dept. chair, an analyst, said that because she could not objectively choose what color socks to wear, nobody knew anything. She is now the president of a university. It gets better! She was a bizarrely childish dyke who brought her lover to hear her deliver a public lecture on-wait for it-sex. Her theme? Sex is disgusting. If I had taken a different sort of notes for four years, I could have had a best seller. Maybe a Monty Python movie. Some years later, the new dept chair told me that he enjoyed confusing his students w/contradictory ideas. (When the Roman Senate heard something similar from a Hellenic Greek philosopher, he was instantly hustled, under guard, to the border). Oh, yes, that dept chair, in a spasm of sophisticated, intellectual rebellion, painted his office door blue. As '60s rocker, Marianne Faithfull, sang, "We've been trying to get high without having to pay." I like to think that her classical education was not a coincidence. I saw her three times. Dynamite singer.
I know it is preaching to the choir, but I can't help pointing out that Goldin-Katz also seem to be measuring only years of education (how long your butt was in a seat) and whether or not you graduated and not measuring quality of education, whether or not you learned anything useful. I rather doubt most X-studies majors are keeping up with technological progress.
Your evasion of the quality of education in favor of amount is itself a product of that quality. Late 19th century Americans graduated from high school at 15 and 16 w/the equivalent of todays M.A.
I'm very dubious about that assertion. Yes, they knew some Latin and Greek, and knew the classics and probably even had a better grounding in math, but given the pace of scientific and technological change of the 20th century (which admittedly they helped build) there is so much more to learn now than there was at the end of the 19th. It's apples and oranges.
Education is teaching children how to think like adults, not scientific or tech training. This means method as well as content. Classical education includes thinking in principles, a method rejected by the explicitly anti-knowledge, Progressive "education" of Pragmatist philosopher,John Dewey, that has dominated US schools, private and public, since 1920. Eg, the virtual mindlessness of Biden and Trump and their voters, w/their animal-like concern w/out-of-context concretes and emotions.
Comprachicos-Ayn Rand
Teaching Johnny To Think-Leoinard Peikoff
Van Damme Academy
You are right about all that, but consider that in 1890 only 3.5% of American teens graduated from high school. In 1910, that had increased to 8%. (https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-resources/statistics-education-america-1860-1950). Is that the world you want to aspire to? As of now, over 13% of Americans have advanced degrees (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/02/number-of-people-with-masters-and-phd-degrees-double-since-2000.html).
In other words, in the 19th century, very few people had access to the education you're talking about. The rest worked in factories or farms. It's not that classical education is dead - it's just as prevalent (I'm going to guess that of all the degrees being handed out at least 3.5% of them are in classical fields). It's that the rest of us are getting advanced degrees in engineering and tech areas instead of toiling away in sweat shops.
Since late 19th century US high school grads had the equivalent of todays M.A. (assuming its not in lesbian dance), there's a strong rational possibility that students not graduating from high school then had an equally better education relative to each grade, perhaps equivalent to todays high school graduate to todays B.A. Recall, too, going backwards from 15 and 16 years, these are young teens and children. I dont know how concretely precise this logical comparison is. There may have been an uneven progression of learning. And re that 3.5%, Im wary of Leftist influence in the humanities. Its very easy to hide a biased context.
And, most important, contra our anti-systematic, Pragmatist/Progressive chaos of bits and pieces of out-of-context information, they were taught principles at this young, cognitively impressionable age. Principles are overwhelmingly important for mans mind. They provide a cognitively needed framework, order, to the mind that is radically different from todays chaos of arbitrary, memorized whatever thats feverishly memorized for an exam and promptly forgotten. Ask todays high school grads what wisdom they learned in school. They literally have no idea. My only educational memory from grade school is that Chile (Peru?) imports (exports?) tin. Biden recently warned Iran, re the war in Israel, to "watch out" or words to that effect, words spoken by an angry, out-of-control child. He was never taught any principles to guide his thinking in concrete situations.
In Americas Revolutionary era, election posters attached to trees in rural eras had logical arguments in them. Think of farmers then who could follow an argument! Today, we have appeals to emotion; mystical, social or traditional ideals rationalized by a chaos of arbitrary and cherry-picked statistics. Today, conservatives who appeal to unidentified founding ideals know two things alledgedly about them: God and guns. Im, here, identifying todays intellectual level, not attacking conservatives.
They were consciously teaching for wisdom in living. We teach without a clear purpose (unless teacher is religious or an extreme Leftist). See the horrifying, excellent, "Why Johnny Can't Think" by Leonard Peikoff (online, text, vid).
Without intending snobbishness, my B.A. in philosophy provided four years of an intellectual chaos that is virtually unbelievable to outsiders. It makes what you may read about todays education seem rational by comparison. My Existentialist prof said, "I want to kill somebody, anybody." The Pragmatist professor said, of discovering an objective logic, "Choose your poison." The dept. chair, an analyst, said that because she could not objectively choose what color socks to wear, nobody knew anything. She is now the president of a university. It gets better! She was a bizarrely childish dyke who brought her lover to hear her deliver a public lecture on-wait for it-sex. Her theme? Sex is disgusting. If I had taken a different sort of notes for four years, I could have had a best seller. Maybe a Monty Python movie. Some years later, the new dept chair told me that he enjoyed confusing his students w/contradictory ideas. (When the Roman Senate heard something similar from a Hellenic Greek philosopher, he was instantly hustled, under guard, to the border). Oh, yes, that dept chair, in a spasm of sophisticated, intellectual rebellion, painted his office door blue. As '60s rocker, Marianne Faithfull, sang, "We've been trying to get high without having to pay." I like to think that her classical education was not a coincidence. I saw her three times. Dynamite singer.
I know it is preaching to the choir, but I can't help pointing out that Goldin-Katz also seem to be measuring only years of education (how long your butt was in a seat) and whether or not you graduated and not measuring quality of education, whether or not you learned anything useful. I rather doubt most X-studies majors are keeping up with technological progress.