Note the Hebrew.
Posted on 02/08/2005 10:53:29 AM PST by ZGuy
I was seated at an airport cafeteria in the Eastern United States when I was first asked the question. Although it’s been almost ten years since then, I can still remember it well. I was waiting to meet with a world-renowned scholar, and I was excited to tell him about the founding of George Wythe College just a few years prior. I had seen the scholar’s resume—he was educated at the Ivy League and Oxford, had taught at the leading schools during a distinguished career, and he had a list of publications several arms long. I was excited to meet him, but a bit apprehensive about telling him I had founded a Great Books college. After all, he was the epitome of the type of scholar George Wythe College was designed to educate.
I’m glad I knew the answer to the question, because it was one of the first he asked. “What is the central language of George Wythe College?” Real scholars of educational history will often ask this, since the answer tells them what your school is all about. If you answer “Latin,” they know that the school was founded to promote Western Civilization as the focal point of an education—such a school will stress the Roman and Medieval readings. The scholar knows that the focus of such a school is to train professionals and business leaders. If you say “Greek,” the scholar knows that the school was founded on the Greek classics, with the focus on training scholars, academics, clergy, philosophers and other “thinkers.”
If you say, “we teach many languages at our university or college,” the scholar knows that the school is a modern teach-whatever-sells school, which scholars of education often call “Behemeth University” (meaning that the school doesn’t necessarily stand for something speci.c, but offers lots of majors in many disciplines).
If you say “Hebrew,” which is what I said, the scholar knows you are either a Jewish Yeshiva school or an American school in the tradition of the American Founding Fathers. Upon finding out that I wasn’t Jewish, the scholar sat back in his chair and started rubbing his chin. “This is most interesting, most interesting,” he kept repeating. And to one who knows the history, it truly is “most interesting.” A love for Hebrew swept the American Colonies before, during and after the Revolutionary War, because Hebrew was considered the language of liberty. Hebrew was required at nearly all the Ivy League schools in colonial times. Their goal was to train clergy and statesmen, and that meant the Bible. In fact, until 1817 the annual commencement address at Harvard was delivered in Hebrew. Hebrew was required for all freshmen at Yale, and several early leaders proposed that Hebrew be adopted as the official U.S. language instead of English.
Why? Because all education is based around a central book, a core classic from which all others flow— whichever book the scholars of that tradition deem the most important, the deepest and purest source of truth. The “Latin” schools consider the philosophers of the middle ages (Plutarch, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Descartes, etc.) as the collective library or bible of great works. The “Greek” school considers Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato and Aristotle as the gospels—the accepted Canon, the real fountain of knowledge. And since the originals are in Greek, you can’t be truly educated unless you speak Greek.
“Behemoth University” (which includes the majority of colleges and universities today) speaks the pivotal language of Employment—all the majors in all the departments promote this language. (It is a curious side note that the word “behemeth” is the Hebrew word for “beasts”. I am not sure how this applies.) The colonial Ivy League schools were founded on Hebrew, because The Law, or Torah, is the basis of free government, economy, politics, law and in short liberty. As the generation of the American Founding Fathers understood it, liberty flows from the principles of the Bible—so a nation of freedom will be rooted in the legal, political, economic and governmental principles taught in it. Which helps explain the early Founding American generation penchant for the Hebrew language.
To sum it up: Latin is the language of the professions such as modern law and medicine, Greek of academia and the clergy, Employment is the language of the modern university system and indeed most of the nation at large, and Hebrew is the language of liberty and freedom.
So if anyone ever asks what George Wythe College’s central ancient language is, you’ll know two things: 1) you are talking to a very erudite person, and 2) the answer is “Hebrew,” the language of liberty— free government, law, politics, communities and economics. This is not to say that other languages aren’t studied at GWC—they are—but rather that the central language of liberty is consistent with the aim of the school to “build statesmen” who “inspire greatness in others and move the cause of liberty.” Back to the airport restaurant: The knowing smile on the prestigious scholar’s face across the table told me I’d found a new friend. “Hebrew,” he said as he nodded. “Building statesmen . . . “ he mused. “Well, it’s about time . . .”
Note the Hebrew.
The Hebrew language doesn't feed a family, cure diseases, and free the enslaved...Employed people do.
Gesundheit.
bump
The author's point may well be valid, but I noticed that the laws that immediately followed the Ten Commandments in Exodus included laws about slaves.
Now they may well have been avant-garde laws giving slaves rights that they had never enjoyed up to that enlightened time, but they were still laws regarding slaves.
It is ironic that many of the great incubators of liberty have had slavery as a prominent feature. On the other hand, it sort of makes sense.
If we think of Greek society, where slaves made up an enormous percentage of the population, or 1700s Virginia, where the same situation held, we may speculate that is was easy for the elites to be in favor of democracy (or a Republic) when most of the lower classes could not participate at all.
I hate to say it, but if the slaves in ancient Greece and 1700s Virginia had been considered citizens who would need to have the right to vote in a democracy or a republic, the elites would never have considered Democracy a viable option. Heck, landless whites were commonly denied the right to vote.
Given today's climate, is Hebrew still required and spoken at Harvard and the other Ivy League universities?
I seem to recall reading once that Benjamin Franklin proposed making Hebrew the "official language" of the (new) United States of America.
I believe there was some talk about replacing English, inspired by anti-British attitudes, not practicality. I've heard Hebrew was mentioned, but I don't think there was any real support and I doubt Franklin was involved. German was voted on in Pa. and lost. BTW, we still don't have an official language.
I speak as an Orthodox Jew, but besides Hebrew being the language of freedom and liberty, more importantly, it is the language of the G-d of Israel; and if our mission on this earth is to become closer to G-d, then it is indeed important that we communicate with Him in His language.
Our American founding fathers seemed to have recognized that Hebrew would bring us closer to G-d, and consequently the ideals of freedom and liberty.And it is this presence of G-d in our culture ( despite the many on the Left who would prefer to see an areligious culture here), that I believe has brought His blessings of unprecented wealth, power, and goodness to this nation. Our nation is special, largely due to our invoking G-d's presence into our lives and culture, and may it continue to be so.
Excuse me, but I have read about a dozen biographies on General Washington and am not aware of ever seeing anything that showed him fluent in any language but English. Because his father died when he was but a lad of 10, he had to forego education in England and work with his mother. He never received advanced education.
Please post a reference to your statement or retract.
What does anyone know about George Wythe college? It looks outstanding but their web site is not quite as informative as I would like. Is it a Mormon school? How many students? What distance students - how do they do seminars?
I don't know about Washington, but the College of New Jersey (Princeton nowadays) grads among the founders (there were many who signed the DOI) would certainly have known Hebrew. A Princeton undergrad education would have been sufficient to enter the clergy. It wasn't until later that seminary became an addition to the basic education offered to people like James Madison, by his teacher John Witherspoon.
And John Witherspoon is one of my heros of the Revolution, so I'm tracking with you, dude.
Urim and Thummim.
Interesting how the plural endings are separated from the words. As if it implies other meanings. Not to mention, that yud - mem is an abbreviation for Jerusalem.
Hebrew is not the language of G_d.
To accept that would be to accept he cannot understand all languages just as well.
Hebrew is simply the language He chose for the Israelites and many Jews.
We can talk to G_od and know he understands us in any language known to man, He created them all after all.
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