Learning & Books

George Grant has a great little piece on education, learning and why it's all a type of repentance.

His friend Greg Wilbur has a list of books he's having students read this fall in order to understand Christendom through the perspective of the British Isles.

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I got St. Athanasius' On the Incarnation in the mail today. I'll give a review soon (um, hopefully). But I was tickled pink to find the introduction by C. S. Lewis. Here's a couple great quotes:

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books...The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face...first-hand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than second-hand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.

...I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it...If you join at eleven o'clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said.

He of course goes on to talk about the actual book but this is all very convicting - I feel so often I have jumped into the middle of the 21st century Christian dialogue while never having heard much of the rest of the conversation. Thus my new goal to always be reading at least one book by a dead guy or gal, to see if I can catch up on the conversation.