Doing math by hand lets you know how it all works. School is about education and learning. I can’t use a slide rule any longer, nor an abacus, but at some point in my education, we were taught those things and demonstrated proficiency. Not because I would necessarily need them in my job, but because an educated person should have a decent awareness of them. Same with log tables and figuring out sines, cosines, and tangents.

Can you consider yourself educated if you don’t know Shakespeare? Not every play, but who he was and his position in our civilization? Aristotle and Plato. Alexander and Caesar. Moses and Jesus. Washington and Lincoln. A Western person needs to have knowledge of these people if he wants to consider himself educated.


Excuse me, but I have to go chase some kids off of my lawn.