1

I am teaching a "workshop" in history for Juniors. We do not come together to discuss, but to read. We meet in a library of old books, shelved in chronological order. We browse. I aim for students to select what they read by ineans of an "internal bell" that rings whenever a word or phrase of interest comes within their field of Visine. Unity of thought in a man's education would flow out of the unity of personality, rather than a set of formalizable, self imposed rules.

2

I am wary of regular "discussions," which encourage the very bad habit of talking when there is nothing worth saying. Prolonged discussion risks incestuousness; intermittent discussion fueled by random input from the bibliographic environment offers a greater possibility of genuine insight. Also, perhaps a more interesting relationship between teacher and student.

3

The format of our "workshop" resembles that of a design workshop rather than a seminar. The tutor serves as a consultant.

4

In Vietnam one reads that many lives are lost through the ambush of patrols. These occur because troops stick to roads and trails-i.c., perhaps one percent of land surface. In Ranger training one learns to navigate the other nineteen percent of territory, by night. The roads and trails of modern university education are its reading lists; the conformity of its scholarship, its ambushes. I would like to give the student intellectual "Ranger training."

5

"Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand." (Ezra Pound, Guide to Kulchur).

6

We should study the past the way we might visit a foreign country. Good travel brings one to perceive life from another standpoint.

7

To study history with textbooks is to stay at home (reading books about other countries).

8

To read anthologies of "primary sources," is to take a quick guided tour by bus of Paris.

9

To be transformed by the study of history is to prowl its alleys in the middle of the night.

10

Perhaps small children should study history by reading old children's books. Argument: the purpose of history is to give enlightenment through acquisition of the "historical sense." For this purpose, the past must be made real. Find snatches of the past to which children can relate most intensely.

11

By the same argument adolescents might read the pornography of the past.

12

Students might read the letters of men they wish to emulate .

13

The historical sense, by providing past platforms from which to view the present, can break the hypnotic spell of what is. We gain the option to attack the present from the past.

14

How safe is it to let fascination guide one's education? Is "WOW" enough to make reading a sentence or seeing a picture valuable, if there is no "discipline" involved? Shall we let our children read the comic books of yester-year?

15

How many book titles have been published since the invention of printing? Maybe 25-50 million, of which over 1 million before 1800. What percentage of these books are ever read, by all the undergraduates, Ph.D. candidates and professors in the United States, in an academic year? If we want to leave our armchair and travel in the past. we can use these books.

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