THE CRADLE OF CITIZENSHIP

Classics to the rescue.

Schooling in America has been the cradle of democracy. With culture wars fought in the classroom and the school board, though, education has become suspect. This book by journalist and author Traub (True Believer: Hubert Humphrey’s Quest for a More Just America) lays out a plan to return the schoolroom to being a place where students can trust in knowing something. It advocates restoring “great books and the conscious molding of character.” It wishes “to escape the steel cage of our culture wars, to find our way to a deeper and less ideological connection to our history and ideals.” Through a series of historical and contemporary case studies, the book traces possible maps for finding that connection. “Classical education,” Traub writes, has a “goal of human development.” Education is “a form of training—above all, in reason—that makes the good life possible.” Thus, historians such as Howard Zinn and curricula such as the 1619 Project come in for critique. But Traub is no knee-jerk conservative. He praises the musical Hamilton for its complexity and provocation—the kind of artistic work that can stimulate “civic projects to draw on students’ idealistic wish to make their world better.” He chastises those leaders on the right who would rewrite curricula to patriotic ends. He wants, instead, curricula that are “narrow but deep”—strong on enduring works, light on personal electives. He invokes the Founding Fathers who, he says, “believed, like the classical writers they so admired, that a republic ultimately rests on the virtue of its citizens. We no longer think that way.” He wants parents to “seek out schools that have an overtly communitarian or ethical culture.” This may seem an old-fashioned vision. But the book stands out for its balance, generosity, and hope.

A reasoned, balanced argument for a return to “classical education” as a foundation for remaking American civic virtue.