New Book for the Collection

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún is a previously unpublished work by J.R.R. Tolkien, written while Tolkien was Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford during the 1920s and ‘30s, before he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It makes available for the first time Tolkien’s extensive retelling in English narrative verse of the epic Norse tales of Sigurd the Völsung and The Fall of the Niflungs. It includes an introduction by J.R.R. Tolkien, drawn from one of his own lectures on Norse literature, with commentary and notes on the poems by Christopher Tolkien.

Gesta Gymnasium

Today was a great day in my squatting routine as I hoisted 525 lbs for a single rep full range.

strôngmn

Strong·man (strôngmn) n.: an intense sport of which the modern derivation is a direct descendant of the Scottish and Icelandic/Scandinavian test of manhood. A typical strongman competition is a test of strength, endurance, ingenuity and heart. It consists of events adopted from traditional Scottish Highland Games, variations of powerlifting, and Olympic lifting.

the habit of thinking

"The great intellectual tradition that comes down to us from the past was never interrupted or lost through such trifles as the sack of Rome, the triumph of Attila, or all the barbarian invasions of the Dark Ages. It was lost after the introduction of printing, the discovery of America, the coming of the marvels of technology, the establishment of universal education, and all the enlightenment of the modern world. It was there, if anywhere, that there was lost or impatiently snapped the long thin delicate thread that had descended from distant antiquity; the thread of that unusual human hobby: the habit of thinking."

G.K. Chesterton

two cow economics

Here are each of the basic economic philosophies explained in simple "two-cow" terms:

Communalism: You have two cows. You keep one and give one to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and--from time to time--provides you with sour milk.

Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes them and sells you the milk.

Liberalism: You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, and then pours it down the drain.

Socialism: You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point that you must sell them both in order to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow which was a gift from your government.

Free-Market Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Centralized, Multi-National-Corporation

-Based, Government-Subsidized, Democratic Socialism: You have two cows. You sell one, force the other to produce the milk (government mandated homogenized and pasteurized for safety of course) of four cows and when it dies you write off the depreciation, hire a lobbyist, and garner a government bail-out and tax-breaks in order to purchase two new cows. Repeat.

Northernness

Pure [Northernness] engulfed me. . . . There arose at once, almost like heartbreak, the memory of Joy itself. . . . The distance of the Twilight of the Gods and the distance of my own past Joy, both unattainable, flowed together into a single, unendurable sense of desire and loss. . . . And at once I knew that to "have it again" was the supreme and only important object of desire

Poetic Knowledge

"Poetic Knowledge skillfully excavates an essential mode of human knowledge. It is a mode as proper to our intelligence as it is redolent of man's transcendence and the value of knowledge for its own sake. Until we understand the philosophical rigor and precision behind the following statement, our darkened era will persist in its educational malaise: '[T]here can be no real advancement of knowledge unless it first begin in leisure and wonder, where the controlling motive throughout [is] delight and love.'"--David Whalen

Vulgarian Education

1. A slave’s education is coercive
2. The slave is not told why he is being forced to be educated
3. A slave’s education keeps the slave dependent on the thoughts of others
4. A slave’s education keeps the slave weak
5. A Slave’s education prepares him to work for others instead of preparing him to work for himself
6. A slave’s education neglects the slave’s unique strengths and contributions, developing only what some other institution or group needs him for
7. A slave’s education is not oriented toward the honor of the slave but the glory of his master
8. A slave’s education is not under natural authority but is under the arbitrary authority of the self-appointed and self-validating
9. A slave’s education does not develop the higher virtues of wisdom and justice (for rather obvious reasons)
10. A slave’s education does not cultivate the qualities of a free person (virtue and honor and all that arises from them)

vocational attitude

The Christian Century magazine asked several notable Christians the question, "What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?". C. S. Lewis' answer was:

1. Phantastes by George MacDonald.
2. The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton.
3. The Aeneid by Virgil.
4. The Temple by George Herbert.
5. The Prelude by William Wordsworth.
6. The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto.
7. The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius.
8. Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell.
9. Descent into Hell by Charles Williams.
10. Theism and Humanism by Arthur James Balfour.

Pro Bono Life then and now

Instruction in the elementary school, the Ludus Litterarius, was limited to three subjects; reading, writing , and arithmetic. The teacher (magister) had to depend entirely on the small fees paid him by the parents of his pupils and was often constrained to supplement his income as schoolmaster by other activities. Though the State, in the person of the emperor, became increasingly interested in the support of the distinguished teachers and scholars in the higher realms of learning, there is no evidence of any public contribution to elementary education during the classical period.

Daily Life in Ancient Rome - The People and the City at the Height of the Empire
By Jerome Carcopino, pg.104

The Saints' Tragedy

WAKE again, Teutonic Father-ages,
Speak again, beloved primeval creeds;
Flash ancestral spirit from your pages,
Wake the greedy age to noble deeds.

Ye who built the churches where we worship,
Ye who framed the laws by which we move,
Fathers, long belied, and long forsaken,
Oh, forgive the children of your love!

There will we find laws which shall interpret,
Through the simpler past, existing life;
Delving up from mines and fairy caverns
Charmed blades to cut the age's strife.

-- Rev. Charles Kingsley.
-- The Saints' Tragedy.

Cicero manages his library

Cicero had one of the best private libraries of all time. His collection would have probable started the time he began school and continued to grow throughout his life time. He had been able to obtain large blocks of books from his friend Atticus who acted as an agent on his behalf to purchase those books for him. Cicero also may have had the entire collection of Faustus Sulla, a collection which contained the original writings of Aristotle. Procuring Sulla's librarian, Tyrannio was one of the best moves Cicero made for managing his library considering how pleased he was once Tyrannio finished arranging his library.

It is not know whether Cicero had lost the collection he obtained from Faustus Sulla , but his intimacy with that collection would have made him familiar with the arrangement of those books which he could have implemented for the rest of his collection. The size and scope of Cicero's library required a specialist in the area of library management. Cicero would have the opportunity to procure Tyrannio to arrange his library for him. Tyrannio had arranged Sulla's library, thus he would have been especially familiar with the books that Cicero had and would have remembered how the books were formerly arranged. Cicero was so pleased with the work of Tyrannio that he urged Atticus to visit:

It will be delightful of you to pay us a visit. You will find that Tyrannio has made a wonderful job of arranging my books. What is left of them is much better than I had expected. And I should be grateful if you would send me a couple of your library clerks to help Tyrannio with the gluing and other operations, and tell them to bring a bit of parchment for the labels, sittybae as I believe you Greeks call them.

Even though Cicero did not seize a cache of books from a military campaign he did manage to build a considerable collection beginning with the books he would have already had from his studies in Athens and Rhodes. He would also rely on his friends to help him to obtain a large collection books for him. Cicero writes to his friend Atticus, a savvy book collector himself, in order to secure a library that has been put up for sale:

I should be grateful if you would see that I get the articles which you say you have bought and have ready for me as soon as possible. And please give some though to how you are to procure a library for me as you have promised.

wall-mounted trophy head

"Modern public schooling is the wall-mounted trophy head of a formerly lionhearted education. Its truncated and lifeless hulk provides a tamed likeness of the once vibrant and powerful creature whose pursuit exhilarated the hearts and minds of countless students. To be the prey of such learning was to be mauled by beauty, truth, and goodness; to stalk it to its lair was an expedition fraught with danger and delight. Sadly, the taxidermists of modernity have done their work well. Public schooling is a hollow shell, a stuffed charade, a glass-eyed cadaver of the once substantive education preceding it. Public schooling is a poor imitation of true education -- an inert imposture that is rigid, posed, and dead."

-- from Millstones & Stumbling Blocks: Understanding Education in Post-Christian America