School of Athens, by Raphael, 1505, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City.

School of Athens, by Raphael, 1505. Apostolic Palace, Vatican City.

Ways of Learning

Volume 1, Number 4 | fall 2008

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A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts, by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1484. Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

Preamble

Playing with Fire

By Lewis H. Lapham

The framework of American education holds fast to the ardent but mistaken belief that education is a commodity, the stuff that one pours into empty vessels.

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The Seven Liberal Arts, by Giovanni di ser Giovanni Guidi, c. 1460. Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.

The College Idea

By Andrew Delbanco

What it was, is, and should be.

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Map

The Art of Knowing

Advancements in writing, medicine, mapmaking, and building.

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1618 | England

What Need We More of Learning?

In praise of a more practical education.More

1644 | London

Misspent Youth

John Milton repairs the ruins of education.More

1837 | Cambridge

Man Thinking

Emerson challenges bookworms to leave the library.More

Charts & Graphs

Living Wage

Teacher salaries in ancient Rome and modern New York.

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American psychologist and philosopher William James.

French man of letters Denis Diderot.

Portrait of Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and political theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Anglo-Saxon scholar Alcuin of York.

French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault.

Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing—the rest is mere sheep herding.

—Ezra Pound, 1934

Aristotle & John Locke

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Lapham’sDaily

Roundtable

Judged by Its Covers

By Josh MacPhee

Looking back at the design of the African Writers Series. More

DÉjÀ Vu

He Just Doesn’t Like the Word “No”

2018:

A twelve-year-old steals his parents’ credit card and gets on a plane to Bali.

1723:

Seventeen-year-old Ben Franklin runs away on a boat and ends up in Philadelphia.

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Rehab Hiding the Spies in Jericho, c. 1405. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

The World in Time

Roland Philipps

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Roland Philipps, author of A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean. More

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