The need for a body of common knowledge and common reference does not disappear when a society is pluralistic. On the contrary, it grows more necessary, so that people of different origins and occupation may quickly find familiar ground and as we say, speak a common language. It not only saves time and embarrassment, but it also ensures a kind of mutual confidence and goodwill. One is not addressing an alien, as blank as a stone wall, but a responsive creature whose mind is filled with the same images, memories, and vocabulary as oneself. Otherwise, with the unstoppable march of specialization, the individual mind is doomed to solitude and the individual heart to drying up.

The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it.

Everybody keeps calling for Excellence - excellence not just in schooling, throughout society. But as soon as somebody or something stands out as Excellent, th…

My notion about any artist is that we honor him best by reading him, by playing his music, by seeing his plays or by looking at his pictures. We don't need to …

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary soc…

A church full of singing, out of tune Everyone's gone to the moon

The Internet is a medium only at the bit level. At the human level, it is a conversation that, because of the persistence and linkedness of pages, has elements…