The Benefits of a Classical Education

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/benefits-classical-education.html

73 7 17 years ago

radar.oreilly.com

"Lector, si monumentum requiris, Circumspice."

One I've always loved, inscribed above the crypt containing the grave of Christopher Wren in St. Paul's Cathedral. Translated as: "Reader, if you seek his memorial, look around you"

Think that would work equally well for Tim O'Reilly, to the point of a nice Latin pun ;)

tomjen• 17 years ago

That is a good one, though I fancy this more:

"Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here: Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones. Epitaph on his tomb, probably self composed" -- Shakespeare

michael_dorfman• 17 years ago

Just out of curiousity, why do you fancy that one? It always struck me as the most inept set of four lines Shakespeare ever wrote.

FleursDuMal• 17 years ago

My favourite is:

The body of

B. Franklin, Printer

(Like the Cover of an Old Book

Its Contents torn Out

And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding)

Lies Here, Food for Worms.

But the Work shall not be Lost;

For it will (as he Believ'd) Appear once More

In a New and More Elegant Edition

Revised and Corrected

By the Author.

(The Epitaph of Young Benjamin Franklin)

mlLK• 17 years ago

I guess this explains how he got into publishing books for programmers/developers. . .

O'Reilly was initially interested. . .but after graduating. . .with a B.A. cum laude in Classics he became involved in the field of computer manuals.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O%27Reilly]

gtani• 17 years ago

I have a hazy recollection that classical education used to mean mathematics, Greek and latin. I take that combination to be pretty good prep for hacking haskell, clojure, erlang, F#, whatever.

Especially with some logic, stats/probability, applied math, linguistics, and intro classes to assembler and C thrown in.

Ardit20• 17 years ago

"I've been deeply influenced by Aristotle's idea that virtue is a habit, something you practice and get better at, rather than something that comes naturally."

For an individual who has studied classics, you would expect that he would know that all the ancients, greek and romans, considered virtue as a habit, not Aristotle alone. It was rather a cultural thing which is why the Romans emphasised training their pupils to be good citizens by teachers of great character so that they can imitate their habits.

The Benefits of a Classical Education

Related Stories