The Benefits of a Classical Education

A minor throat-clearing before we begin; I cannot claim for my own any of what the title of this piece offers. I went to a mediocre university after an unremarkable performance at secondary school in England. I wasn't a particularly bad student; I was indifferent, middle-of-the-road; not sufficiently applied to my studies to excel but at the same time not courageous enough to rebel.

The study of Shakespeare and Dickens and James Joyce is unavoidable in the English education system and I drew very little from them at the time because it was a task to read them, not a pleasure as it has since become. I don't necessarily think I am significantly more intelligent at this point in my life, I think perhaps it's that now I am interested in more things. It is almost certainly a sign of age but I am now possessed of a desire to learn as much as I can about everything. Seriously, everything. At the very least I want to be able to contribute usefully to a conversation on any topic. A lofty goal, I concede.

Socrates defined intelligence as the realization of how little one actually knows. Of course, as a young man I thought I knew everything. I didn't think I needed to know Shakespeare because I didn't think it would have any value in later life. What I, looking back now, was missing is that the study of Shakespeare, Orwell, Russell, Joyce, Milton, Owen and so many others is not about their value (although it is handy to be able to pull out an obscure quote to reinforce a conversation point from time to time) but that they are worth reading for their own sake.

Orwell, for example, opens his books perhaps better than any other author. In 'Coming Up for Air', his most England-centric novel, the very first line of the first chapter reads 'The idea came to me the day I got my new false teeth'; if that doesn't make you want to read more you might want to check your wrist for a pulse. '1984' also has a memorable first line - 'It was a bright and cold day in April and all the clocks were striking thirteen'. One knows, in a single sentence, that one has been transported into a very different world.

Of course, there will be books that one intends to read but never gets around to. There are also those that one pretends to have read (Plato's Republic leaps to mind), but since there are only so many hours in a day and days in a lifetime, even if you don't get to them all there is, I feel, credit to be given for at least wanting to.

A mention of Plato brings us back to Socrates. If he is correct in his definition of intelligence, that it is the acknowledgment that we know almost nothing, then I hereby lay claim to the title of most intelligent man in the world.