Life is our dictionary

The theme at Goat Rope these days is the work of 19th century American sage Ralph Waldo Emerson, with a current focus on his essay/lecture The American Scholar. The essay didn't make a huge splash at the time but over the years its influence grew and he is now seen as a forerunner of those pragmatists and reformers who wanted to broaden the definition of education and scholarship to include knowledge of practical life.

This passage is typical:

Life is our dictionary. Years are well spent in country labors; in town--in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate and embody our perceptions. I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get the tiles and cope-stones for the masonry of to-day. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made.

That sounds lie a precursor to the current support for vocational education, although it is also about how practical life enriches and creates living language.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN. Here's a critique of the Obama administrations approach to the deficit debate.

IN CASE THIS BLOG HAS BEEN TOO MODERATE FOR YOUR TASTES, read this.

NO CLIMATE CHANGE HERE, BOSS, even though an Arctic sea route is probably going to open up later in this century.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED