LYTLE: Summoning up Greece to save Canada

A number of years ago, as a neophyte in the art of complaint, I was involved in a coffee shop discussion about the decline of the British Empire. Any number of explanations were mooted by our gallery of the highly opinionated and desperately uninformed. The explanation from one of the British contributors stuck with me,“Because we stopped teaching the Greeks.”Aristotle. Socrates. Plato. And the rest. Those guys. The Greeks. Just like that. An empire was lost for the want of classical education. I happen to agree with that theory. Others argued that the financial ruin of the Second World War was the actual cause but perhaps that ruin would not have manifested had the education of the “ruiners” been more classical.Apparently, the State legislators of Utah agree. They are currently considering a new bill (S.B. 226) that will mandate the teaching of a classical curriculum in state universities. It may seem odd that an indoctrinated member of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) faculties should support such an initiative but I am wholeheartedly onside and can only hope that it will be introduced to Alberta universities.The Utah version of the mandated, Great Books curriculum includes a study of Western civilization, American history and US government civics. In my perfect world, Alberta will include, but downplay, the overtly American content and fill the empty space with an accurate rendering of Canadian history to overcome the current fatuity that “Canadians don’t have an interesting history”. Nothing could be further from the truth.But how would such a curriculum be shoehorned into an already packed student schedule and where would the money come from to finance the new mandate? I am glad you asked.I am told that the average, full-time university student takes the equivalent of five, three-hour-per-week courses, per semester. This makes fifteen hours of instruction per week with perhaps another study/preparation hour per instruction hour. So, the beleaguered student commits thirty hours per week to his or her studies. That leaves ten unfilled hours. As an engineering student in the land before time, my instructional schedule included 45 hours per week in a classroom or laboratory with study and preparation on top of that. Cry me a river, arts students! Finding time for this Western civic instruction is easily possible.As to financing the new curriculum, perhaps universities could start by unlimbering themselves of the administrative dead wood that has accreted over the past 40 or so years. I suggest they start with anything that has the letters “DEI” in the department title. From there, they can challenge the faculties that have “studies” in their name to cancel all classes that mandate participation or voluntarily enroll fewer than 50 students. Surely the purpose of the university is to prepare citizens rather than protesters. The impact of the loss of these courses will be negligible, says the STEM guy.The larger question, of course, is “Why Western civilization?” Why so chauvinistic? The answer, equally obvious, is that Albertans find themselves, for good or ill, in a western nation built upon the principles of Judeao-Greco-Roman civilizations. And unless those principles are accurately inculcated, we will lose the civilization that some take such delight in defaming. It is time we stopped being a stupid people and started protecting and postulating the worldview tenets that gave us freedom of speech and assembly. The tenets that protect the rights of all citizens regardless of race, creed, and sexual identity. The tenets that are hard to find outside the Western world.Mr. Trudeau was a naughty boy for trampling his father’s Bill of Rights and Freedoms, but did he demand that we stand by like sheep and watch him do it? Maybe if we defend those rights and freedoms by learning how many had to die to create them, we will behave in a less bovine manner the next time someone comes along and says, “Watch me.”The British lost an empire, and we are in danger of losing a country for the want of a bit of classical education. It is time we demand a change in our education system. Perhaps Utah is giving us the necessary template.