Hi Old Silber !

Apart from being rather attached to this thing called Western

    Civilization, I have little affinity for the conservative mind. But

    often enough when  educators like Silber ( read Projo editorial today )

    write or lecture with honesty, passion, and no little  AUTHORITY

    on public education today, I LISTEN. Why ? Because they -often

    enough - they make sense.

               Here is the gist of it : you just can't transfer political

    egalitarian ideals to the education process- which even in the

    sciences is AUTHORITARIAN: the teacher KNOWS, the student LEARNS.

               If you never learn to respect RATIONAL authority -which

    has earned its power- you will never " get an education ". And

    you will never be  able to improve on the existing social order,

    with all its flaws and preventable miseries.

               And you hug trees all you want. But MOTHER NATURE is

    a cold mother and demands conformity to her laws. Even without

    an explanation. She leaves all that to " dull " pedants.

               The more we  really LEARN, the less secure is our

    precious SELF-ESTEEM. Education can be very humiliating.

            A lot of kids have not even mastered Copernicus: No,

    THEY are  not the center of the universe !

               And reading all those books demands a sort of " love "

    -being able to get outside of yourself. Einstein observed that we

    are all prisoners of our own egos.

              When somebody honestly asks you : " and how are YOU

    today ? "   - you can be sure he is at least SANE !