"Our Failed Educational System: Is There a Solution and What Our Youth are Truly and Actually Capable Of," by Andrew J. Schatkin

"Our Failed Educational System: Is There a Solution and What Our Youth are Truly and Actually Capable Of," by Andrew J. Schatkin

There is a significant problem in the education system of the United States. In many ways there is a significant deficit in historical knowledge and literary background. Let me give you some examples: I know an attorney who shall go nameless who never heard of let alone read the great English epic poet John Milton. A college student I encountered in a brief conversation in a restaurant never heard of perhaps one of the greatest of writers and novelists, Leo Tolstoy. These are stray examples, but the problem is quite deep. It could be that our young people are simply being passed through; or the European-based writers and thinkers are longer being taught with the substitution of a politically based curriculum. Whatever the reason, we live in a sort of society of ignorance in some sense, although let me make clear I have no prejudice against non-European-based writers and books being made a more significant part of the secondary school curriculum. I do note, however, that our high school students and those in middle school and even elementary school are not being allowed to have their full potential developed and reached and raised to the level I think all people are in fact capable of.

Let me give you an example the education of the great English philosopher and thinker John Stuart Mill. James Mill, his father, created for John a comprehensive educational program modeled on Jeremy Bentham. Mill was equipped by his early teenage years with a complete university education with his father as his constant companion and tutor. By the age of 3, young John was studying Greek and arithmetic, and by the time he was 8 he had read through all of Herodotus and six dialogs of Plato, and by the age of 12 he had read the Greek and Latin poets and some English poetry. By the age of 12 he was introduced to logic in Aristotle. Mill supported himself by working in the East India Company but nevertheless found the time to pursue his own intellectual in books such as his System of Logic (1843); Principles of Political Economy; and detailed essays such as On Liberty, Representative Government, Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform, On the Subjection of women, and Utilitarianism. Later in life, Mill was elected to Parliament, voting with the radical wing of the Liberal party.

I speak of Mill and take the position that most of all of young people in secondary school, elementary school, middle school, and college are capable of the same or at least as much given the opportunity that Mill was given. Our educational system cheats our youth who I am convinced are and can be formed to the level of thinking and achievement that Mill attained.

Let me close this essay by saying that the classical education that Mill was given formed his mind to a higher level and I maintain that the Greek and Latin classics, if given to our youth and if they are so formed with this intellectual background, can and will produce and have produced the greatest of minds and thinkers whether be it Mill, C.S. Lewis, or and Milton. Perhaps our school system should rethink its offering with the Greek and Latin classics and give our young people the chance and potential they are capable of and deserve and that our nation and society fully and richly deserve, i.e. the greatness our young students can be and reach the high level that Mill reached and attained. No young person should be cheated from reaching the apex of their potential and possible development.

This essay is partially taken from the book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren entitled, "How to Read a Book, pp. 367-370, pub. by Simon and Schuster, 1940.