Posted on 11/27/2007 7:16:16 AM PST by Loud Mime
In reading the original content surrounding one of yesterday's quotes, I was struck by Jefferson's recommendations for reading and his advice to aquaint oneself with firearms rather than sports that use a ball. The following is an excerpt from Thomas Jefferson's Letter to Peter Carr (August 1778). I have broken the letter's lines to make reading easier.
This is just a segment of the letter. The original, in its entirety, is at the source link. "An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second. It is time for you now to begin to be choice in your reading; to begin to pursue a regular course in it; and not to suffer yourself to be turned to the right or left by reading any thing out of that course.
I have long ago digested a plan for you, suited to the circumstances in which you will be placed. This I will detail to you, from time to time, as you advance. For the present, I advise you to begin a course of antient history, reading every thing in the original and not in translations. First read Goldsmith's history of Greece. This will give you a digested view of that field. Then take up antient history in the detail, reading the following books, in the following order: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophontis Hellenica, Xenophontis Anabasis, Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, Justin.
This shall form the first stage of your historical reading, and is all I need mention to you now. The next, will be of Roman history (*). From that, we will come down to modern history.
In Greek and Latin poetry, you have read or will read at school, Virgil, Terence, Horace, Anacreon, Theocritus, Homer, Euripides, Sophocles. Read also Milton's Paradise Lost, Shakspeare, Ossian, Pope's and Swift's works, in order to form your style in your own language. In morality, read Epictetus, Xenophontis Memorabilia, Plato's Socratic dialogues, Cicero's philosophies, Antoninus, and Seneca.
In order to assure a certain progress in this reading, consider what hours you have free from the school and the exercises of the school. Give about two of them, every day, to exercise; for health must not be sacrificed to learning.
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks."
I would also point out that for the 18th century, ‘modern’ history did not have the narrow ‘post-1648’ meaning it does now (and has had since at least the late 1920’s or early 1930’s). Their understanding of ‘modern history’ would have encompassed what we now call ‘early modern Europe’ including (usually) the Renaissance and Reformation, rise of the Swiss Confederation and the Dutch Republic, Tudor-Stuart Britain (remember the Glorious Revolution was still within living memory, if just, in the middle of the 18th century), etc.
Well it’s never too late in this day and age of the Internet. A university degree is one keystroke away. I didn’t have good formal education either but that hasn’t stopped me from reading and learning. I like ‘The Well Trained Mind’ and the companion guides to it.
We won’t be lost.
Machiavelli would probably qualify as "modern times" from TJ's perspective. Venice (consistently) and certain other of the Italian city-states (less consistently) were true-to-life Republics throughout a good part of the High and Late Middle Ages, even before the Renaissance.
I can’t say all that I want.
Loose lips sink ships and all that, but not referring to FR.
Your point? Jefferson was himself college educated, a member of the governing elite in Virginia, writing to a young man of the same class. Those people were not autodictacts such as were increasingly more frequent in the first half of the 19th century, about which Johnson writes. And, of course, it’s true that science, as we now understand it, was done largely outside of the universities — which were then still concerned with traditional and classical studies, the training of clergymen, and moral education.
I’ll check into that book.....thank you!
Or better yet one can do both! Anyway, we have far superior ball games these days than existed back in Jefferson's day.
I feel that we read to learn new things, sure, absolutely,
but more often than not, what we really get out of the good
books we read is self- recognition.
We read and discover stuff about life that we already knew,
except that we didn’t know we knew it until we read it in a
particular book.
And this self-recognition, this discovering ourselves in
the writings of others can be very exciting, can make us
feel a little less isolated inside our own thing and a
little more connected to the larger world.
Richard Price, Samaritan
Reading classical history is a plus. Thanks to the Penguin Edition, you can get Livy, Tacitus, Herodotus and Xenophon translated into English. They're all worth a read. "Billthedrill" and I have had many a good chuckle at Livy, who quotes huge speeches by famous men that he was never alive to hear.
I'm trying to come up with a list similar in spirit but incorporating authors Jefferson couldn't have read or who were nearly contemporary. Gibbon would be one, certainly. As someone pointed out above, Machiavelli, especially the Discourses. I'll have to give the rest some thought.
He's probably right about two hours of exercise a day, but it's a lot more difficult to attain these days. Riding was for him a form of transportation. Shooting was something you could do on the back forty. Personally I do get in an hour of walking a day, and lately with the snow, falling down and getting up again is good exercise... ;-)
cool quote ping
Cool. Makes me proud that I chose paintball as my sport.
I think the Loeb Classical Library editions are a better investment: reasonable translations facing solid (but usually not definitive) scholarly editions of the original. Sometimes you'll want another translation (e.g. Fagels for the Odyssey and the Aeneid) as well, but overall, you can't go wrong with the Loeb editions.
It is a pity the kids don't get at least Latin and a few years of Greek anymore, but I would settle for a curriculum that was solid in translation of the Latin and Greek philosophical, historical, and literary work, and included the kind of grounding in the history of the Roman republic that the founding fathers got. If I had to scrimp anywhere in history, I think I'd go light on the middle ages, but with the resurgence of radical Islam, perhaps more attention needs to be given to the fractious response of the Christian Near East and North Africa to the rise of Islam.
This could be a good resource for homeschoolers. I think Dave might be interested in being pinged to this kind of thread.
This is a low volume ping list. I’ll put you on it if you’d like.
After this week the thread will be twice a week.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.