Sensible and reasonable people often disagree on the purpose of education. As we’ve seen, men as renowned as Cicero and Benjamin Franklin believed the primary purpose of education was to build character and virtue in pupils. Moral education of this kind is likely to be palatable to most people—at least when a society enjoys general homogeneity
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Like most children, I began my formal schooling at age five. At the same time, I also began learning in another, less formal school: the school of nature. This less formal schooling commenced when my best friend gave me a small zucchini plant in a decorative tin mug. I planted it in a corner of
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It’s been fifty-four years since Jessica Mitford skewered the funeral industry in The American Way of Death, and twenty-five years since she followed up with The American Way of Birth, which was equally scathing. Unfortunately, Mitford died without writing the third part of what should have been a trilogy. Missing is an exploration of the
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In his book Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids and Other Small Events that Changed History, Phil Mason documents dozens of small happenings over the centuries, many of which seemed insignificant at the time, that seemed to change the course of history. As stated in the book, one of its purposes is to prove that “…significant historical events are
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Many of us continue to watch the tragedy of young Charlie Gard with a sick blend of sadness, anger, and pure horror. For those who don’t know, Charlie is an 11-month old infant suffering in a London hospital from a genetic disease. His parents raised $1.7 million to fight the illness, and had made plans
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My wife and I find going to Costco strangely relaxing—even if it usually results in a larger-than-planned bill by the end of our shopping trips. The primary reason why? We live in a society that prizes freedom, and that usually identifies freedom with “choice.” As such, we value giving people (i.e. “consumers”) as many options
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