A List: John Dewey--Experience and Education............................................................48/116
B List: Between books
C List: Jack London--"To Start a Fire".............................................................................15/26
It took most of the month, but I did finally make it to all new books. And these are short, so I will doubtless be on a whole other new set of books next month as well.
Reading John Dewey at this late date, when I feel like as a society we are about to give up, even though people will stridently deny it, on the idea (hope) of any kind of truly mass education as a serious aspiration, does have the effect of clarifying a little some of the main points of contention over the last one hundred years, as the arguments put forth in the book are clearly and succinctly stated. I have to say that almost all of the people I have met in my life who seemed to me to be "well educated" I think acquired their learning by the traditional means of following an established program of information and the tried and true methods of absorbing it that Dewey wanted to move beyond because he didn't think it was working well for most students in the 20th century. He may have been right about that but his approach doesn't seem to have produced the results that were looked for either, nor do I even think it an ideal system for geniuses to grow up in, even if they should be given a little more leeway in the program of development they are expected to follow. Dewey even talks about the concept of "the real world" which I have heard people refer to my whole life, particularly in connection with education, and the hard fact of which I have always struggled to perceive and integrate with such education as I have picked up over the years. In me the two things have always remained stubbornly separate.
I had never actually sat down and read this famous Jack London story before, though I have often heard about it. It's a sound story, good structure, good technical explanation of natural phenomena, good pace, even an interesting philosophical foray where he talks about all of the things that the rather literal-minded protagonist did not think about that the sort of men who elevated the human species to the level of understanding of the world that it has attained would have thought about. Jack London is one of the best known American authors in many European countries, well above what I consider to be his level of fame here.
I am a little out of sorts this month (yes, again). There is just too much going on. I forget to do something important almost every day. I've had to skip my reading a few days, which I wish I didn't have to do, but I have to keep my life organized. This time of year I have to gear up to get through the many expenses of the December to March season which is almost upon us and which I worry is causing me more anxiety than it really merits.
This month's pictures. This is Massabesic Lake in Manchester, NH, the first weekend of November.
Halloween night #1 (our village goes trick-or-treating on the 30th). It poured rain.
Another picture from Lake Massabesic.
Me trying to get my annual "last day on the porch" photo. This was October 22nd. It turned out not to be the last day, though it kind of was the end of the season, as I was able to get out almost every day up to that point.
The view yesterday, November 9th, 66 degrees. I think this is probably going to turn out to be the last day for this year.
The best picture of this set didn't get in here (hard to see which one is which when loading from the phone). I've noticed in the last few weeks that I'm starting to really get jowls. Up until then I was deluding myself that I still looked young for my age.
More Halloween in the rain.
I finished Rob Roy. As you know I think it is quite good, has a vigorous, good-natured, irrepressible quality to it that is probably the most evident thing that is missing from modern writers when you come back to them. I am going to start trusting that if a novelist had a big reputation in the 19th century, I will find that there was a reason for it. One sample paragraph from the book I give you:
"Go young man! Amuse yourself in your world of poetical imaginations, and leave the business of life to those who understand and can conduct it.' His intention, I believe, was to provoke me, and he succeeded."
Back again to the Charles Tenney Estate in Methuen, MA. I think pictures of this in the snow appear in our March post.
Another place we have been to before, a marshland near Dover, NH, which my children especially like for some reason.
Back at the Tenney estate.
Yet another return, to Table Rock, on the Connecticut River.
Outside the Asian food market in a kind of rough looking part of Manchester.
Saturday drive on U.S. 3 at the peak of leaf season in early October.
One picture from the true Halloween night (it was unseasonably warm that year).
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