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The late great economist Milton Friedman often insisted on calling public schools
“government schools.” The distinction reminds us that in modern America, it is indeed
government that claims lordship over our children’s mental and moral upbringing.
Allowance is made for a variety of private initiatives, thankfully, but government certifies
and superintends them and, presumably, can shut them down at will.

There is another sense, however, in which Friedman’s terminology may not be helpful.
The better question is not whether government should play a role in our schools, but
which government and to what end? Turning things over to big cities, the fifty states,
and the United States did nearly irreparable damage to both liberty and learning.

“State schooling,” as opposed to public and private, is a product of the late 1800s and
early 1900s. The leading lights of the movement, like Columbia’s John Dewey, knew
exactly what they wanted and wrote about it candidly. Their aim, believe it or not, was
nothing less than to fashion a new kind of man, basically an individualist divorced from
religion and tradition who would lend his democratic consent to whatever the nationstate
was scheming to do next. Everyone a resource, a worker bee, for the greater
good of man and his mass economy and culture! Local communities, of course, could
still have their school boards and such, but only as administrative arms of larger, more
“enlightened” jurisdictions.

Those who think state schools have failed (probably most of us) should think again.
Given their original purpose, they’ve been wildly successful.

In the excerpt below from the most recent issue of Chronicles, classics scholar Thomas
Fleming discusses the state school phenomenon and the American educational scene:

Schools have been the factories in which we cranked out the perpetual adolescents
who hated everything their ancestors had accomplished. No one today can praise
Jefferson without piously denouncing him as a slaveholder and citing the Sally Hemings
affair as if it were an established historical fact rather than a theory perpetrated by a
known liar. *

Anyone who has gone to high school .knows’ that before the 20th century American
men spent their lives lynching Negroes, beating women, abusing children, and keeping
Jews out of country clubs. State schooling in the United States, from the very
beginning, has been a political and ideological project that had little to do with training
young minds and everything to do with liberating American children from the shackles of tradition, which can be loosely defined as anything their grandparents ever believed.

By and large, state schooling developed in the decades after the War Between the
States. Some New England schools, it is true, had state superintendents or agencies
even before the war, but for the most part public schools were still public–that is,
controlled by the people of local communities. It is only when large cities and state
agencies assume control over local schools, standardizing curricula and textbook
selection and amalgamating dozens of community schools into consolidated assembly-line systems, that it becomes proper to speak of state schooling.

Pseudo-professional educationists staged a coup in the decades before and after 1900.
They were clear in enunciating their agenda: Parents were too stupid and selfish to be
trusted to make decisions; the traditional curriculum had to be destroyed and replaced
by a curriculum designed by so-called social so-called scientists, who would create a
new democratic man.

* The reference here (“a known liar”) is probably to Pulitzer Prize winning author Joseph
Ellis, whose books on the Founding Fathers have proved a commercial success. Ellis
long maintained that he had seen action in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne, but this
was not the case. He never went to Vietnam. When exposed by an author from Texas
in Chronicles, and then by The Boston Globe, he apologized publicly.

(Fleming’s entire essay, entitled “Deforming Education,” appears on pages 10-11 of the
September 2011 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Chronicles is
the monthly periodical of The Rockford Institute in Rockford, Illinois.)

Veritas history students will take our Summer 2011 History & Heritage Quiz in class
this Friday, September 2. Faculty and families will receive the bright yellow hard copy of
the test in their folders the week after. It will subsequently be posted on our website.
What follows is commentary on this weekʼs Almanac readings. Please note that this is
the 12th-and-final installment of Summer H&H for this year.

August 23 — “The Poet”
The New England transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson gave a noteworthy lecture
by this title in New York City in the summer of 1842, a talk that inspired a young Walt
Whitman to write his acclaimed Leaves of Grass (1855)? Emerson called for a uniquely
American artistry to celebrate everyday life in the U.S. with its small farms, factorytowns,
and railroads. Whitman, who heard Emerson speak that day, later claimed his
creative juices had been “simmering” until Emerson brought them “to a boil.”

August 25 — Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770)
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) called him “the marvelous boy;” other English literary
giants couldnʼt help but laud his astonishing ability to craft poetry, essays, journal
accounts, and stories. Chatterton claimed to be merely translating the works of
medieval monks from “brittle old manuscripts,” but that seemed fanciful to many.

Like many child prodigies of our day, too much success too early, along with severe
character flaws, proved his undoing.

Some words from the sketch that you should be able to define include scrivener,
elegies, eclogues, neophyte, precocious, profligately, unimpeachable. (Do not
merely consult a dictionary, but try to use the clues yielded by the context.)

Hereʼs a sentence worthy of careful attention: “Though most of the medieval academics
of the day questioned the authenticity of the manuscripts, the undeniable beauty and
stunning maturity of the pastoral eclogues made them doubt that a neophyte like
Chatterton could have manufactured such an elaborate ruse much less have written
such magnificent literature.”

Lastly, students of history should note when the teen prodigy lived: Chatterton passed
from this world (1770) just before the struggle of the American colonies for
independence from Great Britain heated up.

August 30 — Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826): Americaʼs Farmer
Jefferson, in Baltimore during his vice-presidential term (1797–1801), finds thereʼs no
room for him in the inn and proves his personal connection to everyday people and
everyday work (“democratic solidarity”).

As Americaʼs foremost agrarian theorist, Jefferson believed the land was the chief
material asset, and proper care of it the chief virtue, of a people. His words on this
matter bear repeating: “Widespread distribution and careful stewardship over property
is the most tangible attribute of liberty. The faith of a people, the vision of a people, the
destiny of a people may be divined by its corporate concern for the soil.”

Perhaps it behooves us today to consider the contrast between, and the relative
importance of, “corporate concern for the soil” and corporate concern for money.
Whereas the former nudges us closer to nature and a more enduring bond with our
geographic place in the world, our community and our neighbors, the latter typically
does not. With money, as they say, itʼs easy come and easy go. The earthʼs a bit
harder to move and take with us when we seek greener pastures.

For Jefferson, as with all thoughtful agrarians, the land not only belongs to us (under
Godʼs rule and ordination, of course), but we belong to the land. If there is some truth to
this, and the ancient Israelites would probably concur with it, then what lies beneath our
feet is our vital physical and “tangible” link to one another and across generations.

Suffice it to say that any spiritual link we have with each other (and with our ancestors
and descendants) is much harder to preserve without a solid and stable material one.

August 30 — The “Apostle to the Indians”
Highlighted in this entry are the remarkable achievements of John Eliot (1604–1690), a
Puritan clergyman who migrated from England to Massachusetts Bay in 1631 (part of
the “Great Migration”). Eliot, teacher of the church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, for
nearly 60 years (1632–1690), made strenuous efforts to reach the Algonquin Indians
with the gospel. His translations of the Old and New Testaments into the language of
the Algonquins formed the first printed Bible in North America.

Veritas history students, we will take the Summer 2011 History & Heritage Quiz during the first week of school on Friday, September 2.
Do not worry about getting a bad grade; grades will only count if you do well (and they
will count rather handsomely). Our quizzes are about developing cultural memory,
awareness, and thoughtfulness. That’s what matters, so pay careful attention to the
content of each question as you read through the test.
We trust you have kept up with the weekly Almanac biographical sketches (just 2
pages per week) and the summer H&H installments by email or the Veritas blog
(there will be 12 in all). It would be a good idea to print these installments, if you haven’t
already done so, and bring them to class for the first day of school (Monday, August 29).
Our set-up preliminaries complete, we now resume our summer lessons.
August 16 — Rufus King (1755-1827)
One of the youngest of the American Founders at the Constitutional Convention (he was
just 32 in 1787), known for his forceful eloquence in oratory and competence in the law,
particularly maritime and commercial relations. He represented Massachusetts for the
first half of his career (including the Founding era) and New York for the second half. A
High Federalist (an advocate for the U.S. Constitution) and a Unionist, there was still a
good measure of regional and parochial spirit in the man. A strong union was best, in
King’s mind, mostly because he thought it best for New England and the Northeast. He
thought secession was a legitimate option for the states, he threatened it a couple of
times himself, and once recommended it to Virginia’s John Taylor of Caroline (Taylor did
not think the moment was ripe for that option).

Even King’s fierce opposition to slavery seemed to be less about the moral injustice of
the practice than about regional power politics (mounting a challenge to what he
perceived as an ascendant and domineering South). King, by the way, was born in the
district of Maine (part of Massachusetts at the time), the son of a slaveholder. He
owned slaves himself until 1812.
August 18 — Carlyle and Wordsworth in 1840
A verbally sophisticated and enjoyable sketch about men of letters having breakfast (not
readily adaptable to questions and answers). Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was a
brilliant Scottish essayist and historian whose work on the French Revolution
established his reputation for wisdom in cultural criticism. William Wordsworth
(1770-1850) was England’s poet laureate from 1843 to his death.
We’ll quote one of Carlyle’s marvelous descriptions of the elderly Wordsworth as he
appeared to the learned Scot that sunny summer morning (make sure you get the
meaning of taciturn, hopefully from context): “You would have said he was a usually
taciturn man; glad to unlock himself to audience sympathetic and intelligent, when such
offered itself.”

There was one somewhat sour note in Carlyle’s account. After noting how Wordsworth
reveled in “the wells of English undefiled,” he complained about his being “stone dumb
as to the deeper rules and wells of Eternal Truth and Harmony, which you were to try
and set forth by said undefiled wells of English or what other speech you had.”

We can thank Mr. Carlyle for here reminding us of something we all know intuitively:
when it comes to rhetoric (speaking & writing), what we say matters more than how we
say it. Better to be true than merely eloquent or elegant.

Subsidiarity — (from Thomas Fleming’s The Morality of Everyday Life)
This term summarizes the substance of Roman Catholic criticism of both nationalism
and internationalism, ideologies that followed in the wake of the French Revolution?
Formulated by popes, including Leo XIII and Pius XI, in the late 1800s and early 1900s,
the Church’s teaching warned against larger jurisdictions swallowing up the functions of
smaller ones when the latter are indeed capable of performing them. Other names for
the concept include decentralization and federalism.

Students & friends, please note that this is our tenth installment of Summer History &
Heritage for 2011. If you missed any of them by email, you can find them on the Veritas
website blog (all 10 of them).

This week we continue our study of the August Christian Almanac biographical sketches
with a little commentary on some intriguing figures.

August 4 — King Oswald of Northumbria
Here we have a remarkable sketch on the intersection of pagan and Christian belief in
early-medieval (Anglo-Saxon) Britain, roughly covering the period AD 600-1100.
Northumbria is the ancient name for northeast England and southeast Scotland; many
believe it was 1 of 7 major kingdoms of the period (a heptarchy).

Reading of the heroic Oswald, the devout St. Aiden, and the influential monastery on
the isle of Lindisfarne reminded me a comment by author Ray Olson in his review of a
brilliant new anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry (The Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon
Poems in Translation edited by Greg Delanty and Michael Matto). Olson writes:
“Altogether, these heroic monologues, Bible paraphrases, riddles, battle accounts,
saints’ lives, prayers, religious allegories, moral exempla, and white-magical charms
depict a society full of necessary violence that has decided–quite recently, it seems–to
trust in the salvation of Jesus Christ.” Delanty and Matto (an Irish poet and an American
literary scholar) deny that Anglo-Saxon writings, supposedly taken up later and revised
by Christian monks, show us a pagan society (the conventional view of today’s
universities). Rather, they boldly assert that “Christianity is the sea Anglo-Saxon poetry
swims in.” Olson’s fine review entitled Anglo-Saxon Reality appears in the August 2011
issue of Chronicles magazine.

(p.s. Did you notice that Oswald, once he secured Northumbria, visited the villages to
confirm his subjects in the Christian faith and to free slaves by turning them into monks?
Now if only Honest Abe and his generation had thought of an idea like that!)

From Modern Times: An Athlete and a Writer
With respect to the 20th-century, its political oppression, and world wars, I trust you
noted in the reading the remarkable fourfold triumph of Ohio State’s Jesse Owens in
Berlin (1936), and the heartbreaking arrest in Amsterdam (1944) and subsequent
concentration camp death of young Jewish diarist Anne Frank.

August 9 — Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204)
The highly educated lady of the 12th-century (1100s) was a force to be reckoned with in
public affairs, the queen-by-marriage of two kingdoms (France & England) and mother
of two kings (Richard the Lion-hearted and the infamous John).
If asked what acts of Eleanor’s were most pronounced in the reading, your answer
should call attention, I would hope, to her competence in teaching her sons and her
efforts to put Richard on the English throne and keep him there. She actually governed
the realm as Richard’s regent while he was away on the Third Crusade.

August 11 — Augustus Toplady (1740-1778)
18th-century Anglican clergyman and author of beloved hymn “Rock of Ages.” He didn’t
shy away from controversy, the author observing that Toplady was “best known for his
polemical and dogmatic works.” The reference here is to doctrinal dispute largely in
defense of the Calvinistic understanding of the Christian gospel. In other words, he
sought to prove that orthodox Calvinism was not only true to the Bible, but also the
historic creed of the Church of England. Many in the new Methodist camp of that era
took issue with both affirmations, opting instead for what was called an Arminian view of
salvation (named after Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius who died in 1609). The French
theologian John Calvin’s years, by the way, were 1509-1564.

Both Calvinists and Arminians affirm that only those who truly believe, who trust in
Christ for salvation from their sins, will inherit eternal life. Both agree that when man
chooses to believe or not believe he does so freely and under no external compulsion.
Their differences are rather complex but boil down to this:

Whereas Calvinists believe the decisive factor in salvation is what God wills and does
(whomever He has chosen from eternity past to save, out of His own good pleasure, He
will indeed save), Arminians believe that factor is man’s consent and cooperation. In his
free will man is able always, say the latter, to either embrace or spurn God’s gracious
overtures. The outcome depends, ultimately, on man’s choices in the Arminian scheme.

Both historic schools of faith have labored to derive their doctrine from the Bible, which
they affirm is the authoritative Word of God. Our own judgments on such a profound
question, to the extent we form them, should be a product of humility, care, study,
prayer, and heeding the instruction we receive in our churches.

Lastly, we would not be wise to dismiss this as a mere academic quarrel reserved for
professorial types. The conclusions we come to, the beliefs we adopt, have profound
implications for our understanding of both the depth of our sin and the graciousness of
God’s grace. We must not separate, because the Bible doesn’t, our doctrine from our
practice, our thinking from our living, or our theology from our praise (doxology).

Students & friends, we continue our look at the Almanac biographical sketches with
some commentary on Abraham Lincoln. Keep in mind that we are now observing, or
supposed to be observing, the sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) of the great war of
1861-1865, still the watershed event in our history.

August 2 — Ironies of the Lincoln Legacy
Could it be said, as the author suggested, that Lincoln, in order to save democracy and
the political self-determination of peoples, struck a blow to both (at least as they existed
in the American South)? One might also say the same about Lincolnʼs handling of the
U.S. Constitution. He appeared to skirt its requirements on several occasions, always
citing war necessities and always intending the salvation of that venerable document.
For example, Lincoln as commander-in-chief launched a military invasion of seceded
states (a new independent confederation?) without Congressional approval. He acted
unilaterally to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, incarcerated hundreds of war critics
without trial, and shut down opposition newspapers and journals. (Just wondering how
George W. would have fared had he tried something like that.) The question this raises
for us, and itʼs highly debatable, is about means and ends. Assuming for now that the
ends were legitimate, were the means appropriate and just?

Mastersʼ Lincoln — (based on Clyde Wilsonʼs April 2011 article in Chronicles)
Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950), the Illinois poet and author of the Spoon River
Anthology (1915), penned a biography of the iconic 16th-President entitled Lincoln: The
Man (1931). In it he took a dim view of his fellow Illinoisan, even of his soaring political
rhetoric in speeches like The Gettysburg Address (1863). Mastersʼ view is a minority
report to be sure, especially in the North, but there have always been some potent
voices critical of Lincoln — of his character, his policies, and his vision of America — even
north of the Mason-Dixon line. For the most part the critics have been summarily
dismissed by the gatekeepers of respectable opinion in this country, and Masters was
probably the harshest of those critics (and perhaps an embittered one as well).

Whatever the merits or demerits of his biography, his critique of the Gettysburg Address
in that book is worth pondering. Masters believed that Lincoln, in that speech, “carefully
avoided one half of the American story” and proved “unable to deal realistically with the
history of his country.” Thus, the oration “remains a prose poem, but in the inferior
sense that one must not inquire into its truth. One must read it apart from the facts. . .”

What Lincoln really gave us at Gettysburg, said Masters, was “that refusal of the truth
which is written all over the American character and its expressions.”

Thatʼs a “hard saying,” maybe even an offensive one, and it cries out for some
explanation. What in the world is the poet talking about?

Leaving aside the fact that no “new nation,” including one “conceived in liberty” and
inspired by a great “proposition,” was forged in 1776, the speech and the political career
of Lincoln reveal that rock of the republic, as he understood it, consisted in the equal
rights of individuals and the democratic expression of such rights in sacred (and mass)
political entities like The People, The Nation, or The Union. Itʼs not that we canʼt find
such themes in early American political thought, but it seems dangerously reductionistic
to stress them at the expense of everything else. Above all, at the expense of the actual
history of America up to the Civil War.

What about the chartered colonies and their almost seamless transition to states with
their own constitutions and representative bodies? What about local and regional
customs? Communal authority? The various structures of society (beginning with the
family) that mediate relations between citizens and their governments? What about the
Christian religion and its scriptural authority?

These were, and in a gravely weakened state still are, American realities. Historically,
theyʼve served to define, temper, moderate, and in some cases, counterbalance those
broader, more abstract political themes mentioned above.

Lincolnʼs worldview, however, takes little account of such things. His rhetoric is
unquestionably brilliant, but he gives his generation, as Masters says, a half-portrait of
America, and itʼs not the better or stronger half.

This school of thought, then, sees Lincoln, not as savior of the old Union and the old
liberty, but as father and founder of new ones. (Did he not speak of “a new birth of
freedom” at Gettysburg?) It should come as no surprise, however, that succeeding
years have shown that neither the rights of individuals nor the jurisdiction of the nationstate have effectual bounds any longer.

As many of you know, this teacher often finds the case put forth by Lincolnʼs critics
persuasive. The mainstream view, however, says Abe saved the Union, freed the
slaves, and remains Americaʼs greatest spokesman for liberty, virtue, and prosperity.

(Our fine textbook author for the coming school year, William Bennett, sides with the
mainstream; his America volumes are subtitled “The Last Best Hope,” a descriptive
phrase he took from Lincoln.)

Students, please recall that our summer test will include questions from our last 4
History & Heritage quizzes (Summer 2010 through Spring 2011). Many of you have the copies in your possession, or you can access the quizzes on the Veritas website.

The August Almanac readings are as follows: August 2 & 4 — 9 & 11 — 16 & 18 — 23 &
25 — & 30. Below, some thoughts on this weekʼs content.

July 26 — William Wilberforce (1759-1833)
This English parliamentarian and philanthropist led a forty-year battle to outlaw
slavery in the British Empire before achieving legislative victory as he lay dying in 1833?
His affirmation of evangelical Christianity in the 1780s provoked a reassessment of his
political ambitions, but after seeking counsel, including that of converted slave trader
John Newton, he resolved to promote social reform from his governmental platform. His
fellow evangelical reformers lived in Clapham and were called the Clapham Sect.

July 28 — Le Morte dʼArthur (The Death of Arthur)
Your turn to write the question: we have here a prose epic consisting of 8 romances on
the exploits of King Arthur, derived chiefly from French sources and translated into
skillful English by Thomas Malory, a knight, in the late 1460s; note the central role
played in the epic by Bernardʼs medieval code of chivalry; you should be able to
recognize several English words that are based on the Latin names for the codeʼs
virtues (hilaris, hilarious; sanctus, sanctity; urbanus, urbane; etc.)

“He descended into hell” — (from July 21 daily Bible lesson in Tabletalk magazine)  As suggested by this phrase in the Apostlesʼ Creed, many in the early church may have believed that Jesus, in the time between His death and resurrection, visited hell and preached to souls there? The theory is based in part on St. Paulʼs reference in Ephesians 4 to Christ having “descended into the lower regions,” though in all likelihood
the apostle simply speaks of His descent from heaven to earth in this passage. Calvin
understood the old creedal phrase as a witness to Christʼs sufferings on the cross.

Of Magnanimity
(from the June 2011 issue of Chronicles, a poem by David Middleton for you to enjoy)
 To rule men well there first must be
 This virtue, magnanimity:
Greatness of soul whose depths forget
Each slight and hurt without regret;
In public and in private life
The servant-head of kingdom, wife;
 The foe included with the friend
In council for a common end;
 Due credit given to those few
Whoʼve earned it but to others too
Who did much less, yet when words praise,
Example, exhortations raise;
The man subsumed within the role
 That self, through selflessness, makes whole,
Free subject of a subject Liege,
His shed blood his noblesse oblige.

Students, please note the close ties these verses share with the medieval code of
chivalry mentioned in our Almanac studies above.

In the first stanza the word “magnanimity” is actually defined for the reader, its Latin
roots, I trust, easy for you to pick out. And in the last stanza you have that marvelous
French phrase “noblesse oblige” that we encountered earlier this summer. Again, I trust
you can define it.

Just wondering, however, what you make of the line, Free subject of a subject Liege?
Hereʼs an occasion for good conversation (table talk) with our parents and siblings.
Lastly, speaking of “credit where credit is due,” David Middleton is presently poetry
editor for Modern Age. He has authored many collections including The Habitual
Peacefulness of Gruchy: Poems After Pictures by Jean-Francois Millet (LSU Press).

 Students & friends, we continue below with the July Almanac readings and a question from Tabletalk magazine. We trust youʼre keeping up Tabletalkʼs daily studies in Ephesians, if not its current theme articles on fraternity or brotherhood.

July 12 — Jonathan Edwards   One of the sermons of this colonial New Englander (1703-1758), preached and first published in the 1740s, is the most anthologized work of its kind in the English language? The preacher, unfortunately, is remembered for little else in the secular world today and, accordingly, his reputation is that of a “fire and brimstone” evangelist. For the record, his voluminous writings and the testimonies of his peers prove him to be both a biblically-faithful pastor and one of the greatest intellects of all time.

July 14 — “Birkenʼead Drill”   This phrase became synonymous with brave, selfless, chivalrous manhood due to the rhymes of English poet Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)? Kipling was moved to memorialize the valor of the men, mostly Scottish Highlanders, who endured perhaps the worst naval tragedy in modern times aboard a troopship in the South Atlantic in July 1852. The Highlanders secured their women and children in the few available lifeboats and lined up in spirited military formation before their ship sank in shark-infested seas.

July 19 — New York Times / Abortion / Augustus St. Clair   Please write your own question here. An illuminating sketch that tells us, among other things, that the venerable American news organ, The New York Times, was not always pro-abortion. Note the post-Civil War time period and the national campaign the Timesʼ expose stimulated. Can you define “profligate,” “euphemism,” “opulent”? Lastly, donʼt miss the phrase “the dens of iniquity were simultaneously dens of inequity” as a descriptive summary of the abortion clinics of the day in major cities.

July 21 — Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) Please write your own question here. Some things to consider: what is Marshall best remembered for? what positions and offices did he hold? what high school irregularity may have launched his legal career? what landmark case (1954) did he argue and win before the U.S. Supreme Court? That latter case struck a blow against racial segregation, declaring “separate but equal” schools to be anything but equal.

doxology — (from July 13 daily Bible study in Tabletalk magazine)   This English word, derived from Greek roots that may be translated “a word of glory,” is used mostly in the context of church liturgies to indicate a hymn of praise to God? The New Testament writers clearly show such hymns to be the true aim of all faithful theological study. The Apostle Paul, for example, often breaks forth into exuberant praise of the perfections of the Divine Nature in his letters, particularly after explaining profound aspects of Godʼs redemptive purpose and plan (see Ephesians 3:20-21).

Students & friends, our Tuesday/Thursday Christian Almanac sketches for July are as
follows: July 5 & 7 — 12 & 14 — 19 & 21 — 26 & 28. Below are some of my weekly
questions and answers.
July 5 — Andrew Jackson
“Having considered it with that solemn regard to the principles of the Constitution which
the day was calculated to inspire, and come to the conclusion that it ought not to
become a law, I herewith return it to the Senate. . .with my objections.” Thus wrote this
U.S. President, nicknamed “Old Hickory,” in 1832 when he vetoed the Bank Renewal
Bill, by which Congress sought to extend the life of a federal financial institution whose
doubtful constitutionality and privileged economic status troubled the chief executive?

July 7 — 476 AD
Historians have generally used this year in the 5th-century AD to mark the so-called
fall of the Roman Empire (at least in western Europe)? That’s when the Germanic
warlord Odoacer marched his legions into Rome and took over the imperial palace with
almost no resistance. What’s typically billed as a “fall” was more like a gradual fading of
the political reality of empire (with ebbs and flows), but the ideal of a great confederation
of autonomous kingdoms, under imperial protection, lasted for over a thousand years.

statesman — (from July 2011 Chronicles magazine)
This political term, says historian Clyde Wilson, describes one who “must be
something of a prophet–one who has an historical perspective and says what he
believes to be true and in the best long-range interest of the people, whether it is
popular or not”? Wilson contrasts this with a mere politician (all we get these days),
someone who “says and does whatever he thinks will get or keep him in power” and
whose sense of history is dictated by opinion polls and campaign contributions.

John C. Calhoun — (from July 2011 Chronicles magazine)
A descendant of immigrants from Northern Ireland, this South Carolinian (1782-1850) served at the highest levels of the U.S. Government, including the Vice Presidency and the Senate, for 40 years and proved himself one of our most brilliant political thinkers?
Written in his final months, his magnum opus, A Disquisition on Government, makes a
vital distinction between society and government, the latter (government) existing only
by virtue of the consent of and for the preservation of the former (society).

Nullification — (from July 2011 Chronicles magazine)
If secession, however regrettable, is the ultimate expression of the states’ rights school
of the American tradition, the penultimate is this political act? What it entails, in brief,
is a state’s disavowal of a Federal law in its jurisdiction (for constitutional reasons)
pending some workable resolution of the conflict by both the Federal Government and
the States. Calhoun may have been its supreme advocate, but Jefferson and Madison
set forth the basic idea in their Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (1798).

“The past is never dead. In fact it is not even past.”
American cities and towns, not to mention our fifty states, no longer believe they have
any communal right either to affirm or deny religious faith. Vestiges of the “old-time
religion” in public places (like prayer, Bible reading, manger scenes, or Christmas
carols) sooner or later come under fire and are challenged in the courts. Our judges
usually rule against the practices in question however time-honored, but it is really
liberalism, and not the Constitution, that conditions their verdicts.

In 2006, as reported in the most recent issue of Chronicles, one of the customary
religious symbols of Italy (crucifixes in the schools) was challenged by a Finnish
immigrant, who claimed various human-rights and church-state provisions agreed to by
the European Union were being violated. A lower E.U. court sided with the disgruntled
Finn, to the deep displeasure of most Italians. But this story has ended happily, for now
at least. On appeal, the European Court of Human Rights said that Italy need not
remove the crucifixes from the classroom walls.

What’s really interesting are the comments on this case by one of the jurists of the
Human Rights Court, Giovanni Bonello of Malta. Given the judge’s appreciative
reference to Mississippi’s William Faulkner (quoted below), Americans especially should
take note. Bonello declared that, “A European court should not be asked to bankrupt
centuries of European tradition. No court, certainly not this Court, should rob the
Italians of part of their cultural patrimony. . . . The Court has been asked to be an
accomplice to a major act of cultural vandalism. I believe William Faulkner went to the
core of the issue: the past is never dead. In fact it is not even past.”

Bonello went on to say that, far from an act of religious neutrality, getting rid of those
crucifixes “would have been a positive and aggressive espousal of agnosticism or of
secularism. . . . Keeping a symbol where it has always been is no act of intolerance by
believers or cultural traditionalists. Dislodging it would be an act of intolerance by
agnostics and secularists.”

The judge was not afraid to call the crucifix “a timeless symbol of redemption through
universal love.” Apart from the desirability of the E.U. itself and any of its transnational
rulings, it’s good to see a man of standing in the West publicly acknowledge the vital
importance of religious traditions, in this case Roman Catholicism, to a society. True
conservatives know such things must trump abstract ideals like “liberty, equality,
fraternity” and a hundred others (rights, diversity, democracy, tolerance, etc.). Indeed,
such ideals find their meaning and concrete expression only in a living tradition, a past
that never really dies.

Now if we modern Americans, and our leaders, could be infused with some of Judge
Bonello’s spirit, maybe “the land of the free and the home of the brave” could be
something other than a distant memory.

Students & friends, what follows are some of my questions & answers on the last two
weeks of Christian Almanac readings (and an additional entry from Tabletalk):

June 21 — Christopher Wren
After London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral burned down in the Great Fire of 1666, Charles II
chose this ingenious English architect (1632-1723) to oversee its rebuilding? His
elegant vision for the structure, including its magnificent dome, survived the fierce
opposition of a royal committee, and he saw the project to completion in the relatively
short time of 35 years. A devout Protestant, he made the pulpit the focal point of the
cathedral’s interior.

June 23 — Thomas Malthus
The demographic theories of this 19th-century English clergyman (1766-1834) led
many to believe overpopulation was the deepest source of the world’s woes? In An
Essay on the Principle of Population, he dismissed charity as counterproductive and
actually welcomed disease and plague as nature’s way of redressing the imbalance
between the unwashed masses and an inadequate food supply. His modern disciples
are zealous for contraception and abortion around the globe.

June 28 — Fourteen Points
With the end of World War I in 1918, Woodrow Wilson did all he could at home and
abroad to advance his comprehensive peace proposal known by this title (it names
the number of its provisions)? The proposal included not only the formation of a
league of nations but such things as an end to all secret diplomacy as well as all trade
barriers among countries. Wilson’s notions can be seen as either ahead of their time or
hopelessly naive and unrealistic.

June 30 — the Welsh
Several claims to the discovery of America predating that of Columbus have been
advanced, including one involving an expedition party of this European people led by
Madoc ap Owen Gwynedd around 1200 AD? Cherokee legends made the claim, as did
American artist George Catlin in his North American Indians (1841). Catlin figured the
lighter-skinned, blue-and-grey-eyed Mandan Sioux he saw were likely descended in
part from the Europeans.

Mystery — (Tabletalk magazine daily lessons, June 27-30)
This New Testament term refers not to something inscrutable or impossible to
understand, but to doctrine that was revealed only vaguely to Old Testament Israel in
anticipation of greater enlightenment in the era of Christ and His apostles? As St.
Augustine memorably put it, “The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New
revealed.” When used in connection with the Gospel, the term refers to God’s purpose
in Christ to save His people from all nations, and not merely from ethnic Israel.