MAY 2022. Blues Vol 38 No. 5

DARYL LOTT daryl’s

DARYL LOTT daryl’s deliberations Practical Education vs Classical Education The question of what types of education are needed in our society is not a new one. It is constantly evolving and has to do with what is best for our country as a whole. Although we educate all of our young people to reach their potential, the overall question is what is best for our country. Initially, for example, the cadets at West Point were all trained as road and bridge engineers. We look on it today as armies needing roads and bridges to advance in modern warfare, but in our country’s infancy, we needed roads and bridges here. That was the overarching need in education for college educated males for many years. Anyone who lives along the Gulf Freeway can attest to the fact that road building never goes away! Then shortly thereafter there arose an intelligentsia that became our country’s philosophers and spokesmen to the world at large. The epicenter of this movement was Boston, of course. Harvard University was there to originally train ministers in the Puritan form of Protestantism. There was a very practical side of an education at Harvard. One that we often overlook. The native Indian tribes of Massachusetts went to Harvard in order to learn English. Some actually went to London to meet the king after their education. However, there is one person I would to put forth as a man with a practical education that wasn’t entirely embraced by the intelligentsia around Boston. In the early part of the 1800’s a literary community sprung up around Concord (suburb of Boston). You’ve heard of the people that comprised it: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts to name a few. Herman Melville fancied himself an author and moved out to Concord to enjoy the fellowship of his peers. Melville wasn’t really embraced by his targeted community. Nevertheless, he wrote the Great American Novel and dedicated it to Nathaniel Hawthorne. When a reader opens “Moby Dick” the dedication page is the first page of their encounter. Most people skip it because it’s most often dedicated to the author’s wife or parents, but the Great American Novel is dedicated to Hawthorne as a thank you to him for reading the lengthy book. I’m sure Mrs. Melville had a question about that! “Moby Dick” got a lukewarm reception from the public and the literary community in Boston. Melville got a job as a customs agent in New York. He continued to write and his books received critical and commercial success after the author’s lifetime. So what does this have to do with education? There is an autobiographical line in “Moby Dick” where Melville calls out his colleagues. “A whale ship was my Harvard and Yale College!” Melville was not against classical education. He just thought that the practical educations that most Americans received was a form of education that gave the country much needed skills and warmed their hearths on cold winter nights. Indeed, I know many people who are the people I call when I need something done around my house. It should be noted that literacy itself is mandatory for any education. Mathematical (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, percentages) literacy is also required. A literate person was the baseline of every American’s education. Literacy is mostly taken for advantage in today’s America, but the written word was looked upon as akin to magic by illiterate native tribes. In fact, technically speaking, literacy is what divides history from pre-history. Melville, like so many of his fellow Americans, was very good at his rather perilous job. His books rightfully pointed out the dangers and skills involved in seamanship and whaling. When he said, “A whale ship was my Harvard and Yale College”, it reverberated down through the centuries. The line can have substitutes for “whale ship.” For example, I have heard farmers in my own family point to the John Deere tractor as their “whale ship.” My brothers and sisters at HPD can and do point to their patrol cars as their “whale ships.” Plumbers and A/C guys point to their respective vans as their “whale ships.” If the “Great Resignation” showed us anything, it was all the “whale ships” that our country needs to function. I’m a believer in all types of education. Practical education got very bad press by the intelligentsia some decades back. The word that was used was “tracking.” Tracking is basically taking kids who like to work with their hands and placing them in vocational programs. The vocational educators were accused of racism and other related things because when a student learned a trade he or she didn’t necessarily go to college. So the vocational system that our ancestors fought so hard to obtain was scrapped in large part because it was racist, sexist, classist, (throw in any of your left wing vocabulary), according to the elite specialists of education. We know by our current economic indicators that vocational education is an absolute necessity and no student should be stigmatized because they choose to work outside with their hands or take classes in shop or welding. Our country desperately needs all the cooks, servers, auto mechanics, HVAC personnel, plumbers, and other vocational trades now. Obviously, we still need our classically trained doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, and other college educated professions. I have been blessed to have a “whale ship” and a classical education as many of you have, but I hope I never undervalue the “whale ship” in my employment history. So what, if you have one, was or is your “whale ship”? 98 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 99