Mongol prince studying the Quran, miniature from a fourteenth-century edition of Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of Chronicles. Universal History Archive / UIG / Bridgeman Images.
VIEW:
Miscellany
In 2003 about one-third of American babies between six months and two years old had watched a video from the Baby Einstein series, which promised exposure to culture, poetry, music, and foreign languages. A 2007 study reported that babies who watched the videos performed “10 percent lower on language skills” than babies who didn’t. Soon afterward, Disney spent about $100 million offering refunds to anyone who bought the videos between 2004 and 2009.
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
—John Locke, 1695
