The Horrid Disadvantage of a Scientific Major

As I was talking last Friday with the professor who teaches my Great Books and Rhetoric course, I was bemoaning my inexperience with close reading and digging into deep meaning within texts. I can do facts: I can name all the nations in Europe and most of their capitals, I can list the U.S. Presidents in order (I tried it just to make sure, and while I put Fillmore and Garfield in the wrong slots and actually forgot Cleveland entirely, the fact that I got them wrong will probably mean that I'll get them right in the future), I know most of the Periodic Table, and I can rattle off a pretty inclusive summary of yesterday's assigned reading from the Odyssey. I can do patterns, too. I am, after all, avidly pursuing the understanding of both math and music, and I think grammar is cool. But getting into the deeper structure of a work, understanding the mind of the author, finding the purpose behind the plot -- these are habits I have never formed.

Beyond the part that my personality plays in this unfortunate fact, I am largely to blame. As a homeschooler, I was basically in charge of my education throughout high school. My mom planned out my curriculum, bought my books, and checked on my progress, but it was up to me to make sure I was actually learning in my various subjects. Some courses were harder or more loathsome than others, naturally, but on one course and one only did I actually give up: Skills for Literary Analysis.

SfLA was a correspondence course that I took for about two or three months, during which time I wrote almost exclusively on The Call of the Wild (which I hated) and the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. I got my first B on a paper in that class, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I had no illusions of grandeur--I didn't like the paper myself--but I could not figure out how to improve it. When I asked my teacher, he just told me that he "graded subjectively." I quit.

What am I finding most challenging in college? Literary analysis, or more broadly, critical thinking. Lesson learned.

I explained some of this in far fewer words and with far fewer details to my professor, noting that Calculus is my easiest subject.

"I got through Calculus in college, and that's about it," he replied. "I worked hard, and I did well, but I never looked back." Perhaps, he suggested, Rhetoric & Great Books will be like that for me.

But I do not think so. Although Calculus is a fascinating subject which increases one's ability to solve problems, to understand the way things work, and to appreciate the orderliness of creation and the genius of other men, outside of a math-related field, it is rarely used. Not many people are like my grandfather, whose job as the printer for our church's publishing outfit didn't stop him from spending his free time teaching trigonometry to his young grandchildren and forming theorems to go along with the one for which Pythagoras is so famous. No, most people either use calculus regularly or shelve it permanently, or they never study it at all.

Critical thinking is different. It affects how one views so many things: literature, news, philosophy, religion, other people... And I want to learn how to think critically and analytically. That's why I came to Hillsdale instead of going to some technical school where I could become a skilled engineer/musician without going through Hillsdale's famously rigorous core program. I want to challenge my thinking process, to improve my understanding, and to get the kind of education that improves the student himself instead of attempting to expand his internal database. And I'm pretty sure I have come to the right place.

So what is the "horrid disadvantage of a scientific major"? Well, it really isn't a horrid disadvantage at all. The "horrid disadvantage" is that everything I'm studying is to a purpose. Unlike the English and History majors, most of whom are studying math and science because they are required and will (I imagine) leave them behind when they graduate, I have to know the technical things and the critical thinking/literature things. Everything I'm studying is something I will need to know later; in the long run, I have to remember twice as much.

The flip side is that I get to remember twice as much. I love learning, and I love using what I learn. Being on track to be able to do a lot of both makes me pretty happy.

Virtus tentamine gaudet.

Perspective

A gentle little thing, a sparrow,
Perched himself upon a ruined fence of stones
Beneath the summer sun,
Protected from its glaring rays by rustling leaves
That swayed above him,
Casting dappled shadows by his side.
It was the perfect day.

Along the wall, just up the hill,
A subtle movement caught the sparrow’s ever-watchful eye:
A lovely creature came, a cat
With fluid, captivating stride
And fur as black as night.
Without a thought of care
The feline strode with confidence and poise
Along the trail of rocks. She paused,
And with her paw, and sometimes with her tongue,
She smoothed her soft and silken coat of fur
Until it fairly gleamed.

The sparrow, head to one side then the other tilted,
Watched this spectacle with curiosity
Until the cat, herself detecting that her ritual was not unobserved,
Graced her neighbor with a warm, beguiling smile
Intended to disarm.
Ostensibly without a purpose other than continuing
Her happy, carefree afternoon excursion,
She approached.

The little bird upon the heap of stones
Now had two options, and he must pick one.
Either he must stay and meet the cat,
Whose green, enchanting eyes bespoke a chance
To know excitement, sport, and games
If only he would wait
And, doing nothing, see what pleasures chance might bring his way;
Or else, launched with a tiny hop,
He might propel himself into the air
And, flapping tiny wings, soar with the breeze
Away
From every hope of undiscovered fun.

The sparrow hesitated, but not long.
He flew.

Silly little thing! Now he might never learn
What gay diversions still remained behind,
Watching as he flitted through the air
And thinking of what might have been
Had not the sparrow been so wont to flee.

Silly thing!
What had he to fear?

Misguided Connections

Miss Marple, the famous old spinster of a detective invented by Agatha Christie, had a keen knowledge of human nature. She could understand people's feelings and desires, see through their deception, and, of course, solve all manner of crimes because of her shrewd perception. And it all came because of her life in little St. Mary Mead.

In her little home town in the English countryside, Jane Marple observed the mechanic's hired hand elope with the minister's daughter; she saw her neighbor Gladys's dear niece move to the city to become an actress - which no one expected - and leave behind her job as church organist; she saw the vicar's maid (a very sweet girl) get caught stealing from the church treasury to pay for her nephew's hospital bills. And then, when she was in other parts of the world, her acquaintances would remind her of one or the other the people from home, and she could see right into their hearts.

I feel a little like Miss Marple. Younger, male, and possessing better fashion sense, it's true, but like her nonetheless. You see, here at Hillsdale, everyone (and I scarcely exaggerate) reminds me of someone I've known before. I meet someone, and I think, "Oh, he reminds me of so and so. She is so like Friend X." Like Miss Marple, I think of how Friend X would behave, and expect my new friend to do the same. Unfortunately, it turns out that this practice (in real life, at least) is less likely to solve mysteries than to breed confusion.

Case in point: when I was in line to have my picture taken for my student ID (a wait that lasted 2 hours due to technical difficulties), I was sitting with a guy who reminded me of Alan, an acquaintance from the music school I attended in NH, who was just about the ultimate musician. A quiet kid from a nice large homeschooling family, Alan played the piano for a chamber group, was the principal violist in the school orchestra, and is now getting his degree in organ performance. Well, the kid I was sitting with (I'll call him Marcus) was also quiet, also homeschooled, and also played the piano. He even looked a little like Alan. He must, I reasoned, also be the ultimate musician.

The problem was that he wasn't. Forgetting that my expectations of Marcus's musical knowledge were unfair superimpositions of my knowledge of someone else, I kept trying to make deep, intellectual conversation about classical music.

"What are some of your favorite pieces to play?"

"I like some classical pieces, especially romantic ones."

"Ah, yes, I like romantic, too. Do you know Chopin's Prelude in E Minor?"

"I don't know the name."

(Here I try to hum it, and finding myself unable to convey the feeling of the piece, I describe it.)

"It has a simple melody like that, and the accompaniment in the left hand is a series of chords that are descending chromatically, note by note, creating an impression of deep sorrow, or profound melancholia."

"Yes, well, I like Chopin. I play his stuff, mostly."

"Which of his pieces do you play?"

"I don't know any names."

Stunned silence. Can this be the Alan I know, the musical maestro who practically lived in the music school while he was in high school? Can it be? Oh, wait. No, it can't.

It keeps happening to me. I meet someone, he reminds me of someone else, and suddenly my mind is full of assumptions about his tastes, his abilities, or even his character. Chris reminds me of Richard. Veronica reminds me of Katie. Shannon makes me think of Hillary. Prof. Schlueter makes me think of Dan.

I don't always associate an old acquaintance with each new one. Sometimes I think of celebrities or fictional characters instead. Sometimes I don't think of anyone else at all. Sometimes I can't place my finger on who I'm reminded of; I just know there's some connection in the back of my mind, some bell quietly and indistinctly ringing. But even for the people who most strongly remind me of people I already knew before, the problem isn't permanent. As I get to know people better, their characters take a shape of their own. They become their own person. Sometimes the connections to friends from home remain valid, sometimes they don't. But in the meantime, my dear new Hillsdale friends, if I'm shocked that you don't know about Sarasate's Zapateado, or that you run cross-country instead of swimming, or that you don't already have your Ph.D. in geology your freshman year at a liberal arts school, forgive me. It's just my Marplean view of human nature kicking in. Give me a couple days, and I'll know you for yourself.