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From: Hud Reynolds
Date: 11/9/2003
Time: 11:46:19 AM
Remote Name: 199.44.215.199
As a former pedant first class, I have to admit that I am attracted to Montaigne's opinions concerning the failures of the educational process that began with Universities of the middle ages and continues today. A true education is the result of self-examination, not memorization of past opinions and cataloging of recent scientific findings. This means that there are as many paths to true knowledge as there are essential kinds of human beings, or perhaps that the educational process is idiosyncratic, i.e., peculiar to each and every person. If that is so, then what this class needs is a Socrates, not a Reynolds. I further suppose that I am not the only one to have reflected on Montaigne's teaching, so I suspect that some of you may have already given up reading these musty old texts, disparing of learning anything really worth while, and have decided to sit this one out, hoping that no one will ask you about the content of this course -- ever -- and longing to get on with your lives, which supply so many pleasurable distractions.