January « 2009 « MGTutoring.com. A Rational Perspective on Education.

January 31, 2009

Another Wright Brothers Anecdote

Filed under: Education,History,Recommended Books,Science — Administrator @ 6:15 pm

In the winter of 1878 the Wright Brothers wanted a sled. Most children of the time did not have a sled purchased at a store; they had a sled built by their fathers. On pp. 6 – 10 Mr. Reynolds writes:

“Why doesn’t Father build us a sled?” Wilbur blurted out.

“But Father is away, Will,” his mother said gently. “And you know how busy he is when he is at home. He has to write stories for the church paper and he has to write sermons. Now suppose we build a sled together.”

Wilber laughed. “Whoever heard of anyone’s mother building a sled?”

“You just wait,” his mother said. “We’ll build a better sled than Ed Sines has. Now get me a pencil and a piece of paper.”

“You goin’ to build a sled out of paper?” Orville asked in amazement.

“Just wait,” she repeated.

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Toscanini: Lessons on Discipline and Success

Filed under: History — Administrator @ 2:52 pm

Toscanini! Even today, thirty-five years after his death, Toscanini remains the supreme legend in classical music. Nearly every musician who ever played with him considered the experience to have been the pinnacle of his career. The greatest composers of the time implored him to conduct premieres of their works. Seasoned critics ran out of superlatives describing the power of his performances. Even his rivals acknowledged that he had no peer. He was called, quite simply, the Maestro, as if there was no other. His influence still shapes our modern perception of classical music. And yet, the modern listener is perplexed: Toscanini’s records often fail to affirm his reputation.
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What was the key to Toscanini’s magic? Most of the simple generalizations which have been offered are unconvincing.
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If there is indeed an explanation for Toscanini’s fame it lies in his attitude. Toscanini was a fanatic. He approached music as religion and performance as a sacred rite. His concentration during rehearsals and performances was unbearably intense and the kinescopes of his televised concerts remain mesmerizing. He had a savage temper and flew out of control at the slightest provocation. He demanded precise playing and was plunged into despair over a single lapse. He insisted that any musician, no matter how famous, who did not share his attitude be fired. He would sooner quit (and often did) than tolerate the slightest lapse in standards.

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January 30, 2009

Reading: The State of the Art, 3

Filed under: Education,Reading — Administrator @ 3:16 pm

The Pope Center‘s Clarion Call has posted Mr. Bertonneau‘s third and final installment of his series “What, Me Read?” I don’t have time to write about it now; I have not even read it. But here’s an excerpt:

Some writing specialists excuse bad writing on the hopeful supposition that a gap exists between cognition and expression—similar to the way a stroke victim can have a complex thought, but cannot properly verbalize it. That is, students who write badly nevertheless know what they want to say, or what they have read, as well as anyone else. I have concluded that no evidence supports this postulate. Having no other means to discern cognition than through its expression, one must take as a given that expression is cognition.

Defective writing, unlike the stroke victim’s aphasia, reveals more than mere awkwardness of expression; it reveals the confusions that becloud both the act of reading and the subsequent attempt at a mental sorting out of the narrative. The individual who cannot see things clearly cannot think about them clearly. Likewise those who cannot make sense of stories, which represent cause and effect in the human world, will have difficulty making sense of the actual human world, to which stories refer.

That ought to whet your curiosity.

I’d tend to agree with him. Without years of experience teaching, without years of experience teaching myself, and without familiarity with philosophy, I would not have been able to come to this conclusion. I’ll explain in later posts.

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The Little Golden Books

Filed under: Reading,Recommended Books — Administrator @ 2:38 pm

A post on the Core Knowledge blog, “Where Have You Gone, Poky Little Puppy?,” reminded me of this series of childrens’ books — i.e., of the Little Golden Books.

I read some of the books as a child, but I don’t recall which ones. I’ll have to ask family. Do you remember any of the Little Golden Books? Which ones did you read or have read to you?

I own a half dozen or so of their Western-themed books. One of the books that I like best is The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp by Monica Hill, pictures by Mel Crawford, Simon and Schuster, New York, (c) 1958. It ends in the morally uplifting fashion:

Wow. What an example to set: there are men out in the world prepared and willing to stand up to, and put out of the way, those who want to try to make others live by the false, evil maxim “might makes right.” And maybe you could be one of these good people who protect us from those who would oppress us.

Wyatt Earp was a man with moral backbone.

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“Guide Your Child” Advice

Filed under: Parenting — Administrator @ 2:37 pm

In the latest issue (Vol. III, Issue 3) of her Guide Your Child Newsletter, Mrs. Lockitch, M. Ed., says:

The phrase “Good job!” (and all its variants) has become almost a knee-jerk reaction to anything our children do these days.
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The problem is that tossing out a vague “good job” here and there does nothing to teach your child how to judge her behavior for herself.

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A Hunter-Gatherer Supper

Filed under: Exercise, Health & Nutrition — Administrator @ 3:31 am

Baby spinach tossed in olive oil and white Balsamic vinegar; freshly crushed black pepper; a sprinkling of shaved Parmesan; a sprinkling of chopped walnuts; some minced red onion; half pound of boiled shrimp (31-40 per pound count); a sprinkling of red pepper; an eighth pound of smoked salmon.

Quick. Delicious. Healthy.

Thank you, Art De Vany.

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January 29, 2009

Happy Birthday, Thomas Paine

Filed under: Americana,History — Administrator @ 6:06 pm

We know Paine as the writer of Common Sense. (Or we should.) But there is more.

“While Paine was pre-eminently a publicist — and in this he was unexcelled — he also possessed a truly Jeffersonian versatility. His political writings overflowed political science, into economics, theology, and natural history. He showed talent as engineer and inventor. Perhaps his best known project was his plan for an iron bridge of a single arch, concerning which he frequently corresponded with Jefferson, and a model of which he actually sent to Peale’s museum. … He was full of practical projects, such as the design for a smokeless candle which he communicated to Franklin. Paine’s letters to Jefferson include plans for a ‘geometrical wheelbarrow,’ a new explanation of the cohesion of matter, a method for estimating the amount of cut timber to be had from standing trees, a design for a motor wheel to be revolved by the explosion of gunpowder (said by Paine to excel the steam engine because of its greater simplicity and its cheapter operation), a new design for the roofs of houses, an improved method of constructing carriage wheels, and a scheme for making one gunboat do the work of two. He developed his own theory of the causes and cure of yellow fever, and shared his experiments in this field with his friend Rittenhouse.” (p. 22, The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson, Phoenix edition, by Daniel Boorstin, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, published 1981, (c) 1981 by Daniel Boorstin.)

Paine “possessed a rare talent for reducing to simple language and memorable phrase the ideas which other Jeffersonians stated in diffuse and sophisticated fashion. ‘No writer,’ Jefferson observed, ‘has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language.’ ” (p, 21, ibid.)

On the Website of Thomas Paine Friends, Inc. there is an essay, “The Philosophy of Thomas Paine,” written by Thomas Edison in 1925. Mr. Edison says:

Then Paine wrote Common Sense, an anonymous tract which immediately stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion call to liberty .The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession.

In Common Sense, Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again. It must be remembered that Common Sense preceded the Declaration and affirmed the very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and was exactly suited to the hour. It is probable that we should have had the Revolution without Tom Paine. Certainly it could not be forestalled, once he had spoken.
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I was always interested in Paine the inventor. He conceived and designed the iron bridge and the hollow candle, the principle of the modern central draught burner. The man had a sort of universal genius. He was interested in a diversity of things; but his special creed, his first thought, was liberty.

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January 28, 2009

Hans of Iceland

Filed under: Art — Administrator @ 10:33 pm

I do not know which edition of Han of Iceland, aka Hans of Iceland, is best, but I recommend you avoid the edition published by the Federal Book Company, New York (year of publication, I do not know). The translation is not well-done, it has numerous grammatical and spelling mistakes (out of place periods and commas; the use of “you” instead of “your”), it is not very “lyrical”/”poetic” (which it would need to be to do justice to Hugo) and it appears to be abridged: it seems to be missing passages that are in the edition published by, for example, Little, Brown, and Company, Boston, 1894 (University Press, John Wilson and Son, Cambridge).

I found a few examples of the differences between the two editions really quick. (I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this; and the fact that I type slow will be tedious and time-consuming enough.) These are the first few examples I came upon in paging through the books.

Some preliminaries:

Part of the story takes place in Drontheim, “one of the four principal cities of Norway.” (p. 13 of the Little edition.)

“At the time when the action of the story takes place, in 1699, the Kingdom of Norway was still united to Denmark.” (p. 13, ibid.)

Drontheim was a port city. “In the center of the harbor, within canon-shot of either shore, the solitary fortress of Munckholm reared its walls upon a mass of wave-washed rocks, — a gloomy prison-house, wherein, at the time of which we are writing, a prisoner [Schumacker] was confined, whose sudden disgrace, following upon a long period of prosperity, made his name famous.” (p. 14, ibid.)

In the first pair of excerpts, people are in a public charnel house in Drontheim, discussing the death of a Captain. Someone says the Captain was probably murdered by the demonic character Hans of Iceland. They then talk briefly about Hans.

I find the Little edition more efficient and flowing in this passage (p. 12):

“What sort of man is this Hans, pray?” some one inquired.
“He’s a giant,” said one.
“He’s a dwarf,” said another.
“Has no one seen him?”
“The first time that any one sees him is also the last.”

The Federal edition says (p. 12):

“What kind of man is Han?”
“He is a giant,” answered one.
“No, a dwarf,” contended another.
“Has nobody ever seen him?” cried a third.
“Those who see him for the first time may reckon it their last.”

The next pair of excerpts show a difference in translation style, as well as translation substance: in the Little edition, a sergeant in Munckholm said something to himself; in the Federal edition, the sergeant speaks to “those around him.”

(more…)

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Fancis Bacon: A Quote, 2

Filed under: Quotes — Administrator @ 4:31 pm

“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”

From p. 115 of the Second Book of The Advancement of Learning by Francis Bacon, ed. William Aldis Wright, M.A., Clarendon Press Series, pub. Henry Frowde, London, MacMillan and Co., New York, 1885 (MDCCCLXXXV), 3rd edition, revised. See also p. 219 of The Works of Francis Bacon.

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Americana: Music of the ’20s and ’30s

Filed under: Americana,Art — Administrator @ 4:11 pm

Whether for educational study (history/America) or personal enjoyment, you can listen to “Vintage Popular Music and Jazz, 1925-1935,” via the Internet on Radio Dismuke. The owner of the station says:

Discover the exciting music from one of the most vibrant decades in popular culture and entertainment. From the boom times of the “Roaring ’20s” to the hard times of the Great Depression…from frantic Charlestons danced to by a generation of flappers to sentimental ballads performed by the early crooners…from the hot jazz bands of the top Harlem nightclubs to the popular dance bands of the formative years of the swing and big band eras, the great music of the 1920s & 1930s lives on and is entertaining a new generation of enthusiastic listeners. Radio Dismuke features original recordings from the 1925 – 1935 decade and can be heard at no cost from anywhere in the world by anyone with an Internet conection and a sound card equipped computer.

Good stuff. On his Radio Dismuke site and on his blog, Dismuke links to other Internet stations (like the ones I have recently posted about) that play older music.

I’ve got Radio Dismuke on right now…

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