You might call E. Christian Kopff the Allan Bloom of the late 90s. He too speaks out of a conservative standpoint. He too promotes tradition. He, in fact, says tradition is the central theme of his book. Like Bloom, his book, "The Devil Knows Latin," is no plug for a Great Books revival. He thinks the classics should be read in their original Greek and Latin. One of his teachers, by the way, was Richard Lattimore; Kopff has some "credentials." Unlike Bloom, who seemed to downplay mathematics, Kopff believes in the traditional curriculum of Greek, Latin, and mathematics. I was stunned Kopff mentioned one of John Barrow's books. I had just put down Barrow's "Pi In The Sky," a book on pure math theory, when I discovered Kopff's book. I too think that mathematics and the classics go together. (Note Roger Penrose's renewed mathematical Platonism.) Many will profoundly disagree with Kopff's traditional stance. Yet there is much where he is dead on right. I too have witnessed a lot of goldfish out of the bowl -- see the book for the story. To understand English something about Latin needs to be known. Since I have been studying Latin I am amazed at how insightful it is for my understanding of language and English. Paul Shorey was, indeed, a prophet who predicted more than 80 years ago the decline of education with the decline of Greek and Latin. Creativity has more to do with touching base with the past than creating out of thin air. I could say more but am still reading the book. Read it. Be infuriated by it. How ever you see it, it will make you think.
James C. Wiersum ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
