Patrice Lewis says failing to read makes us ‘passive, stupid, biddable serfs’
Patrice Lewis
Some time around 1908, the president of Harvard University, Charles Eliot, accepted a unique challenge. “Eliot had stated in speeches that the elements of a liberal education could be obtained by spending 15 minutes a day reading from a collection of books that could fit on a five-foot shelf,” reports Wikipedia. “The publisher P. F. Collier and Son saw an opportunity and challenged Eliot to make good on this statement by selecting an appropriate collection of works, and the Harvard Classics was the result.”
A similar body of fiction work soon followed. “They take you out of the rut of life in the town you live in and make you a citizen of the world,” said Dr. Eliot.
Reading the Harvard classics is a humbling experience. Some are thrilling, some are boring, but to dip into these tomes is to dip into some of the greatest minds that ever existed. The power of the written word has transcended centuries and can still move people today.
Now keep this in mind as I recap some complaints from our daughters this week. They’re reluctantly getting ready to go see the second installment of “The Hobbit,” which recently opened in theaters. I say reluctantly because the girls didn’t care for the first installment of the movie. It departed too radically from the book, and the kids are enormous fans of the original Tolkien works.
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