A Sense of Education

And then there are others who had a sense of education, before access to universities was handed out like confetti, sugar-coated candies not torn-up paper, at an Italian wedding.

There is wonderful Jacques Barzun, a true scholar and a true teacher, author of, among many works, still more important, The House of Intellect. There are many retired and semi-retired professors, at last able to set down their qualms about, for example, the New Departments of English, and their Faculty, and Their Courses. There was Richard Hoggart. There was “The Human World” which came out of Swansea, genius domus of that short-lived, worthy enterprise being the unstoppable Ian Robinson, who has just published on important book on modern, belief-killing translations of “The Bible” (for the King James version could command belief even from non-believers, and it provided the indispensable literary, or cultural continuity that no later translation offers).

— Hugh Fitzgerald, Vocational Training, and Education, The Iconoclast, 19 August 2007