Jacques Barzun

In Smallvillle America in the late 1950s, early 1960s, we were among the last taught well by locally-managed public schools. We pledged to "one nation, under God," every morning (although the "under God" part was still kind-of new back then). Yet (although I didn't realize it for decades), education was already in decline, compared to a generation earlier.

Posted by: mindful webworker - in search of coffee at June 17, 2015 06:35 AM (VDCWC)

I have a book of essays by the late scholar Jacques Barzun. He was writing about the decline of the public schools back in the 1950's and early '60's.

Barzun, who died at the age of 103 a few years ago, graduated at the head of his class at Columbia in 1927 - when he was 19. His French parents sent him to America because they thought an American education was far superior to the French system, particularly after WWI. Barzun became a US citizen and a distinguished scholar, who spent most of his life teaching at Columbia.

It's probably a mercy that he didn't live to see Mattress Girl illustrating to the world just how far Columbia has sunk.