Education Inculcates Habits

Salv: OK, back to programmers. Why couldn’t an enterprising, smart young person learn programming without attending a university?

Simp: You mean by attending a community college, I presume?

Salv: Not at all. When a student learns programming, doesn’t he learn from books?

Sag: Yes. Of course.

Salv: Could he not then simply read and study those books on his own? I suppose a computer and some software would be required. But these do not seem like insurmountable obstacles.

Sag: Perhaps some might. But it is not as easy as it sounds. It takes time and dedication. Students need to be motivated to work hard. Few students would have the self-discipline to pursue such a course of study.

Salv: So what a university offers is a means of motivating students?

Simp: Yes.

Salv: And how does it do that?

Simp: With grades, deadlines, and a degree. Students are paying for their education. If they do not work hard, they will not succeed, and it will cost more to continue taking classes. Besides, good grades enhance a student’s job prospects.

Salv: These are all external motivations imposed upon them so they can get what they desire. Carrot and stick stuff, right?

Sag: Yes.

Salv: Does it work? Maybe it’s different in college, but I remember our high school days, and we spent more effort trying to avoid studying than it would have taken just to do the dang assignments. Carrots didn’t quite cut it, for me at least.

Simp: That does continue to be an issue, naturally.

Salv: Then these methods do not teach students to be self-disciplined.

Sag: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.

Salv: You would say that students do learn self-discipline?

Sag: Of course.

Salv: I see. They arrive unable to pursue a course of study without deadlines, grades, and a degree, but after they leave, they are no longer dependent on such things.

Simp: I do not know why we are talking about self-discipline. It is a character trait. It is not part of education at all. It is not the purpose of the university to teach self-discipline.

Salv: That’s great. If what you say is true, that self-discipline is a character trait, those students who have that character trait will be motivated to work hard regardless of whether or not they attend a university. So, perhaps such students could succeed on their own, while others will have to pay for the university to goad them with a carrot and a stick.

Sag: I am not sure I can agree with Roger’s position. I think that teaching self-discipline is part of a good education.

Salv: And is self-discipline a skill?

Sag: Not really.

Salv: Is it knowledge?

Sag: No, not that either.

Salv: What is it? I thought you said that education is the imparting of skills and knowledge, but now it seems we must add a third. Go ahead then. What is self-discipline?

Sag: I would call it a habit.

Salv: Alright. Now we see that education imparts skills, knowledge, and habits. Would you both agree?

Sag: Most definitely.

The server approaches the table.

Fabio: All done here?

Sag: Yes.

Fabio: Is there anything else I can get you? [passes out dessert menus]

Salv: I would like a cup of coffee.

Fabio: Yes of course. Coffees all around?

Sag: Please.

Simp: Yes.

Fabio: Very good.

To be continued…

Bud Sager: So how have you two been getting along?

Roger Simpson: Superbly, though I am frightfully overextended.

Sag: It is that time of life.

Simp: My new position as university president is exciting but challenging. Personally, I think my secretary accomplished a herculean task to find time in my schedule to allow me to come.

Sag: I am with you 100%. One’s duties as dean never seem to stop. But I wouldn’t miss this trip down memory lane for anything.

Simp: Solomon, my crazy friend, I haven’t seen or heard from you since graduation. It’s been too long.

Sag: It has. I miss all of those adventures you led us on. To this day, I’m guaranteed to get a room full of laughs when I tell the stories of the ingenious and elaborate pranks you got us mixed up in. You were always so clever. I’m dying to hear what great things you have accomplished.

Solomon Salvatore: I’m an auto mechanic.

Simp: Oh. … That’s great. Really?

Salv: Yep. But I’ve enjoyed it. Soon after graduation, I got married and had a couple of kids. So college was never in the cards. My eldest, Charlotte, though, is looking into college now, and so I’ve been poking around trying to help her to find the right school.

Simp: Well you’re at the perfect table then!

Sag: Has Charlotte got her eye on any particular school?

Salv: Not yet. We have been looking together, but it’s a bit overwhelming.

Simp: I’ll say. There are many options. Is she interested in any particular major or area of study?

Salv: She isn’t really sure. What I have been telling her, though, is that what is most important is getting a really high quality education.

Sag: Exactly. Fortunately the Northeast has an abundance of excellent schools.

Salv: So I hear. But the more I look, the more confused I get.

Sag: Why is that?

Salv: I can’t figure out what high quality education is. For that matter, I can’t even figure out what education is supposed to be for.

Education Imparts Knowledge and Skills for Career

The server approaches.

Fabio: Good evening. My name is Fabio, and I will be your server this afternoon. Welcome to Diete, our premiere restaurant, where your health is our first concern. Would you like to hear our menu offerings?

Simp: I don’t think I will be interested in any specials today. I will order off the menu.

Fabio: Ahh, I am sorry. I was not clear. You see at Diete, we offer a variety of distinct menus. You can order from any one of them.

Sag: Different menus? How novel.

Fabio: Yes, we have the Vegan menu, the Paleo menu, the Meat and Protein menu, the Fruitarian menu, and the Liquid Diet Shake menu.

Simp: Ahh. I don’t suppose you serve Cobb salad?

Fabio: Absolutely.

Salv: Why so many menus, if I may ask?

Fabio: Of course. Our patrons seek perfect health and have a variety of dietary needs. Naturally we seek to provide service for all approaches to dietary health.

Salv: But these menus seem contradictory. How can they all promote health?

Fabio: Each patron has a specially designed program which they select with the help of their beautification advisor.

Sag: Beautification advisor? What in the world?

Salv: So the patrons come to the resort already knowing what is healthy, or do you teach them?

Fabio: Ah. Perhaps you would like to speak to our resident nutritionist. He would be glad to help you if you would like to hear more about our programs.

Sag: Look, could I just get a Cobb salad as well?

Fabio: Of course. And you sir, would you like to look at one of our menus?

Salv: No, thanks. I’ll go with the Cobb.

Fabio: Wonderful. Is there anything else I can get you? Drinks, appetizers?

Simp: That will be all I think.

Fabio: Thank you.

Sag: Odd. But if I may pick up where we left off, what is the source of your confusion about education?

Salv: My daughter’s got me thinking. What exactly is education, and what is it for? I have been looking for someone to help me sort it out but have not had any luck. I have this bad habit of asking too many questions, and my conversations go nowhere. To be totally honest, it was my hope that I might get some help from you two, which is partly why I tried to get us all together.

Sag: Ahh. Well I am glad you did. I am sure we would be happy to help.

Simp: Absolutely.

Salv: The problem is that I have heard so many conflicting ideas about education. I am having trouble making sense of it all.

Simp: Well, I don’t think it is all that complicated really. At Haverford University, we seek to impart knowledge, knowledge that opens up opportunities, knowledge that leads ultimately to a career of the student’s own choosing.

Sag: Exactly. Knowledge broadens perspectives. As they say, knowledge is power.

Salv: So they say. I wish I could remember half of the knowledge I learned in school. It all seems to have faded away, most of it about a week after the exam. But maybe with high quality schools, students don’t forget. Is that right?

Simp: Forgetting is a problem, no doubt. But it seems clear that if the students forget they have not been educated.

Salv: So how long do they have to remember?

Sag: I am not sure there is any clear length of time so long as they remember long enough that their knowledge becomes useful to them.

Salv: Oh. So are you saying knowledge that is not useful to them is not part of education?

Simp: This whole conversation needs to be put into context. The knowledge that students gain during their university education is directed to their career. They need to have the kind of information that will allow them to be successful in their chosen career path. As they pursue their career, those things that they learned and continue to use will be remembered. Other things may become less important to them, and they will forget.

Salv: Seems like the job is the goal then.

Simp: Clearly.

Salv: Then you offer students job-specific classes.

Sag: More or less, yes. That is what the major is for, of course.

Salv: Charlotte has one friend that has his sights set on being a computer programmer. Another has been saying he wants to be a chef, like that Ramsay guy on TV. So do they take only computer and cooking classes?

Sag: That is not exactly what I meant.

Salv: Oh. What did you mean?

Simp: Obviously, we don’t teach cooking classes.

Salv: How can he learn to be a chef?

Sag: Besides there are things that a student must know that don’t directly pertain to the specific job.

Salv: What sort of things?

Sag: How to write essays and work in groups, for instance.

Salv: Why must a cook know how to write an essay?

Simp: Well a cook does not come to a university for an education.

Salv: A cook needs no education?

Simp: He needs on-the-job training or to go to a culinary institute.

Salv: Is on-the-job training education?

Simp: Of a sort.

Salv: But, if Charlotte’s friend can learn the knowledge he needs on his job as a cook, what is the reason for going to a university for an education?

Simp: There is no reason, if he wants to be a cook. But some jobs are much more demanding that cooking. They require years of education and the development of complex skills. Employers in these fields are looking to hire someone who is ready to work right away. It is up to the employee to obtain those skills.

Salv: Seems like a raw deal to me.

Simp: Why?

Salv: Restaurants will pay their employees to learn the skills they need, but these other employers expect their employees to pay a whole heap of money for job skills. Cooking doesn’t sound so bad, if you ask me.

Simp: It just wouldn’t work for the employers to do the training. That is best left to those who specialize in skill development, universities and colleges.

Salv: Hold up a second. I think I am confused again.

Simp: Why?

Salv: I had thought you said that education is imparting knowledge. But now you say that a student learns skills at a university. So I can’t tell which it is—imparting knowledge or gaining skills?

Sag: I would think both skills and knowledge are important.

Salv: I see. There are certain skills, like writing essays, and various kinds of knowledge, like programming languages that comprise education.

Sag: Yes.

Salv: And since there are many jobs, there must be many different educations: one education for the programmer, one for the teacher, and one for the cook.

Sag: Exactly.

Salv: Hmm, I know I’m probably missing something, but I don’t see why a programmer would go to a university.

Sag: What do you mean that a programmer would not want to go to a university?

The Server arrives with lunch.

Fabio: Here you are. I have your salads for you. Is there anything else I can get for you now?

Simp: Not at the moment. Thanks.

Fabio: I do not want to impose, but based on your earlier questions, I have asked our house nutritionist, Lemuel Gullet, to come over so he can address any concerns you might have about health. Lemuel?

Lemuel: I understand you had some questions about our menus?

Salv: Just that the approaches to nutrition and health in your menus seem, well, if I may say, rather contradictory. So I was wondering what you meant by health.

Salv [to his companions]: I hope you don’t mind if I ask.

Sag: By all means.

Lemuel: I am tickled you have taken an interest. At the All Seasons, our motto, taken from the famous poem, is “Health is Beauty and Beauty is Health.”

Sag: You mean truth.

Lemuel: Indeed I do. For our motto expresses a profound truth. Look around you. Are not those who are healthy also beautiful? The beauty they display from their pleasing gait to their rosy cheeks speaks of their health.

Sag: No, “Truth is Beauty and Beauty is Truth.” I meant that you substituted health for truth. … In your motto.

Lemuel: Exactly. It is true that there is no substitution for health. I agree completely. We thus design our menus in a way that will help our guests to achieve simultaneously health and beauty. Now different guests have different desires as to how best to achieve those dual goals, and so we cater to their desires. It is all rather beautiful.

Salv: Can an ugly person be healthy?

Simp: You know, Solomon, perhaps you could take this up later with our sage nutritionist.

Salv: Of course. Perhaps later, Mr. Gullet.

Lemuel: I am available any time.

Server and Lemuel Gullet leave.

To be continued…

Now our second goal is fast approaching. Gutenberg must raise $250,000 (in gifts and/or pledges) by June 26 to avoid selling its University Street building and to put Gutenberg “in the black” for the 2013-2014 school year. We have raised about 109,000 (which includes the $75,000 first goal), but we have far to go.

Gutenberg tries to make its four-year degree program affordable to every student who seeks it. Money from tuition does not cover the cost of the education, and Gutenberg does not receive any money from the Government. (See Why Support Gutenberg and savegutenberg.com.)

The college also offers many written materials and audio recordings free of charge to the public, and people all over the world have availed themselves of its biblical teaching.

Now Gutenberg needs the support of those who value what it offers and want to make it available to others. If you are such a person, here’s how you can help Gutenberg reach its June 26 goal:

• Share our need with others, and tell them why Gutenberg College is worth supporting.
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This question took on a new dimension for me when I encountered the following sign on the door of one of Eugene’s artistic institutions:

I stopped short. There’s a men’s room. There’s a women’s room. And there’s an artists’ room. Traditionally, we have distinguished restrooms by gender and anatomy in the United States. Suddenly, an entirely new set of criteria had to be weighed in the realm of waste management. I started to wonder: “What kind of person do I need be to use this restroom, and what do I need to do to get access to this considerably shorter line?”

While this thirty-second comic scenario played in my head, I was reminded just how much artists, art works, and the concept of artistry hold honorific status in contemporary society. We study and venerate art. We construct and designate special buildings like the Louvre to protect and exhibit art. We lionize artists like Jimi Hendrix and Ludwig van Beethoven and heap praise and admiration upon them. We even tolerate erratic behavior of artists who fail to conform to typical social conventions.

Definitions of art and artists have varied wildly across the centuries. In the Middle Ages, the Christian theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas defined art as “right reason in the doing of work,” stating furthermore that “The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.” At the turn of the twentieth century, the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde glibly remarked that “As long as a thing is useful or necessary to us, or affects us in any way, either for pain or for pleasure, or appeals strongly to our sympathies, or is a vital part of the environment in which we live, it is outside the proper sphere of art.” Meanwhile, the Austrian composer and music theorist Arnold Schoenberg insisted that “If it is art, it is not for all. If it is for all, it is not art,” while Russian writer Leo Tolstoy argued that “if, as in our day, it [art] is not accessible to all men, then either art is not the vital matter it is represented to be, or that art which we call art is not the real thing.” On the cusp of the twenty-first century, art philosopher Joseph Margolis contended that works of art are “physically embodied and culturally emergent entities.” Which of these definitions—if any—is right, reasonable, true, and consistent; and how can our perceptions of art affect and inform our perspectives of other disciplines?

The notion of art is so central to Gutenberg that incoming freshmen devote a term each to examining two central questions: 1) What is art? and 2) How is art done?

Defining Art

This past fall, the freshman “Defining Art” seminar looked closely at readings in the philosophy of art in an attempt to begin to define a rather slippery concept. We took as our starting point the importance, value, and ubiquity of art, art works, and artistry in cultural life. We all experience this thing that we—casually—call art and are thus affected by it, whether we know it or not. Art—whatever its form—makes philosophical arguments to audiences. And, because art is not made in a vacuum, it involves the agency of individuals and the art worlds that surround them. While we did not—because we cannot—exhaustively settle the question of “what art is,” each student clarified his or her own understanding of art by reexamining “art as concept” through acoustic, metaphysical, economic, cultural, and temporal lenses.

Our categories of inquiry related to art worlds and the individuals who comprise them, aesthetics and morality, cultural conventions of art making and institutions, the physical materials required for art, trends in art historiography, and the notion of artists as outliers. We read Tolstoy, Nicomachus, Kant, Hume, Rameau, Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, Becker, and Weitz in an attempt to gauge the wetness of the water in which we swim as twenty-first-century art cogitators.

As students defined and defended their definitions of art, they proved ready for the second term: the Art Practicum.

Making Art

The bedrock of the practicum is the proposition that making art requires both skill and knowledge. Knowledge and skills are communicated both verbally and non-verbally, and a master’s knowledge and skill involve articulable or inarticulable dimensions. The objective of this winter’s art practicum was to cultivate knowledge and skills relating to the performance, notation, and composition of music.

Over the term, we sought to understand the basic skills that master musicians have at their command when they create and perform artful music. Many of these skills are transmitted and apprehended by directly observing a proficient practitioner. Students started coming to grips with these skills by exploring the sound-producing capacity of a tin whistle, by learning to copy and interpret musical notation (and other graphic forms of musical representation), and by composing original music, an activity that integrates the former two skills.

An Excursion in Physiology

Philosophizing and making art are important dimensions of art as culture, but other crucial, though less often considered, factors are part of the story of art as well. For example, what kinds of anatomical structures allow human beings to physically realize concepts developed in the imagination? In order to pursue this question, the practicum students took a tour of the University of Oregon Human Physiology Laboratory. With latex gloves on hands, students observed human dissections and were allowed to hold several human brains, skulls, and other related structures.

While the question of where the mind stops and the body starts is by no means settled (at least in the realm of philosophy), we strode into the field of anatomy in order to get a glimpse of how it is that human beings can make art in the first place. While cultures change dramatically over decades and centuries, a Mozart symphony, Platonic dialogue, or Picasso painting could hardly have been conceived and documented without a primary motor cortex, hippocampus, or corpus callosum.

With a rudimentary understanding of how it is that human anatomy allows humans to do anything that can at some point be qualified at art, we endeavored to find out what kinds of art our anatomy allows us to do.

Meeting a Master

We ended up in the workshop of world-renowned luthier David Gusset. Gusset, a San Francisco transplant, has been honored in Europe and North America for his fine instruments, and he is a reputed builder and appraiser of violins (http://www.gussetviolins.com/).

Gusset has spent decades analyzing the botanical and geometrical composition of Guarneri and Stradivari instruments from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He has carefully laid out the proportions that these masters used for the design of their luxury instruments, and he reproduces their aesthetic with astounding fidelity. As a luthier, Gusset has had to develop incredible muscle control that allows him to shape wood in a way that reflects his Italian models. In addition to extraordinary motor control, Gusset has also developed a finely-tuned aural and visual acumen that allows him to evaluate the instruments that he makes. While the violin-making process is aided and documented with an extensive set of diagrams, numerical proportions, and qualitative descriptions, the “something” that makes an instrument finished enough for a master player is largely inarticulable.

Hours of scraping, sanding, bending, polishing, varnishing, carving, selecting, rejecting, and gluing combine to what many jealous violin makers would consider to be the zenith of the art. Yet, this morphological apotheosis would not be possible without a finely-honed aesthetic and the anatomy that allows it to be expressed in the physical world. Gutenberg students were allowed to play one of Gusset’s finished instruments, and it was immediately clear that this art is alive and well in the city of Eugene.

Investigation Continued

With a grasp on the brain and a sense of the violin, we proceeded to investigate musical notation. Now, this might seem rather pedestrian given that in our previous two excursions, the students held a human brain and played a world-class violin. But the truth is that in the world of music at least, art is largely communicable by a visual mechanism that we today call ‘notation’. Before Edison ever came up with the phonograph, and before youtube.com made musical ethnography immanently doable, Catholic monks in ninth-century St. Gall were attempting to document sound visually using what today are referred to as ‘neumes’ (neume is the Latin word for “gesture”).

In the twenty-first century, Western musical notation is an impressive constellation of signs and symbols that explains to the literate musician how loud or quiet, high or low, and long or short to produce sound. But what exactly is musical notation? Is it supposed to represent a sound? Is it supposed to be a set of instructions about where to place one’s fingers? Is notation supposed to be descriptive or prescriptive? Is it exhaustive or minimal?

The problem for contemporary musicians is, of course, that these questions are rarely asked until they are confronted with notation that looks like this:

from MS Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Codex 121(1151) f. 1

The squiggling over the word “Alleluia” is musical notation, and it obviously looks nothing like what most literate twenty-first-century musicians are used to reading. And yet, these are visual cues that other musicians were expected to be able to interpret in the Middle Ages. Today, we must ask ourselves: What kind of symbols are these neumes? Do they tell a musician how loud, long, and low to make a sound? What is the system of interpreting these signs, and how does one know if he is getting it right?

There is no dearth of documents that include neumatic notation, but these documents are not self-interpreting. Interpretation requires oral-aural discourse and discussion, and the most important missing element in deciphering this notation is the oral tradition in which it thrived. The inarticulable dimensions of interpreting these neumes could be easily demonstrated by a cathedral’s cantor, but writing down exactly how the singer is supposed to make the voice is a much more complicated—if not impossible—matter.

The art of singing monophonic Latin plainchant in the ninth century was wrapped up in acknowledging and appropriately bending the rules set in place by a monastic community. In our modern age suffocated by documentation, we might presume an invariable degree of sameness with respect to the meaning of documents to the point where the notes are sacrosanct when it comes to music. For instance, no professional performer would be caught dead tinkering with the melodies of a Beethoven piano sonata or with the voice-leading of a Palestrina mass. This was not the approach that Medieval singers took when singing from these visual symbols. Of course, there were rules and boundaries when it came to doing the art in an acceptable way. But, there was a flexibility to these rules that rendered the aural realization of visual cues acceptable despite certain kinds of variations that singers introduced.

We examined many facsimile copies of these old manuscripts in the Knight Library until forensic calligrapher Anne Merydith explained the nuances of how aesthetics of calligraphy in the Middle Ages informed how the neumes were shaped. The width of the nib (quill tip) determined how tall the letters would be, and writing became crammed together in an attempt to save space as the Middle Ages progressed. Writing music was much more expensive in the Middle Ages than it is today. For example, in order to produce a book that could be neumatic, virtually an entire herd of sheep had to be slaughtered before the bookmaker had enough vellum to assemble a chant book.

Written language is something whose function can be easily taken for granted. We see shapes on a page; we can sound them out phonetically so that those around us can understand what they mean. Whether neumatic or alphabetical, visual cues on a page cue anatomical requirements that make the notion of art a physical reality.

The Big Picture

The idea must first become physicalized: the motion of documenting the artistic idea on a piece of paper or some other medium. The musician must have an instrument or voice by which to reproduce the visually-represented idea. The auditory cortex must then experience and process the reproduced visually-represented idea. And the cycle repeats.

At Gutenberg, the study of art is a philosophical, anatomical, and lexical process that requires students to closely analyze much more than mere aesthetics. At Gutenberg, students learn how to think about art in a variety of contexts, and they investigate the very foundations of art-making.

———
Eliot Grasso joined the Gutenberg faculty in September 2012. He has a Ph.D. in musicology, is an accomplished musician, and teaches art classes at Gutenberg. To learn more about Eliot, visit his website, www.eliotgrasso.com.

Several times during my education, I read “Rip Van Winkle” as an assignment, but nowhere did anyone mention that it was anything other than a fictional story. The additional background information provided by Wood changes everything. I’m now looking forward to rereading “Rip Van Winkle.”

What I did see was quite interesting. Number ten on the list was Texas A&M, which must get all that good Texas oil money. I mean, come on, any school with the Aggies as their mascot and with “Agriculture and Mechanical” in their name must be doing something right. They have about $6.9 billion in their endowment. They are a state school, so they charge about $19,000 in tuition alone for Texas residents. But just think of the great seats to watch Johnny Manziel play football.

Other obvious schools are on the list as well: Northwestern University, Columbia, University of Michigan, and MIT. Number five was Stanford, alma mater of Gutenberg tutor Jack Crabtree and board members Earle Craig and Dave Smith. Princeton was number four, with the University of Texas slipping in at number three (more oil money and Longhorns’ fans I guess).

No surprise about who was at the top of the list. Number two was Yale, with an endowment of $19.3 billion. Tuition, room, and board will cost a Yale student about $52,700 a year—two years ago. And way above Yale, on the top of the college endowment charts, was Harvard, with an endowment of $31.7 billion and costs for tuition, room, and board of $52,625.

Here’s the complete list to see for yourself: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-10-richest-colleges-in-america.html.

This is a great opportunity for me to note where Gutenberg stands in regard to the top ten. We don’t have a competitive football program just yet, so we’re not funding big athletic facilities and extra-curricular programs. And our tutors actually teach, knowing the students and being known by them. They don’t spend all their time doing research and writing and bringing in grants. You can’t imagine a place where the students have better access to the faculty.

And Gutenberg’s tuition ($12,000 a year) and financial aid philosophy is pretty simple. If we decide that an applicant is good Gutenberg College material—meaning he or she has a heart to know and pursue what is true and a willingness to do tons of reading, writing, and discussing with classmates—then, based on what the student can truly afford, we will figure out how to make attending Gutenberg work. We can do that because Gutenberg doesn’t receive any federal money or loans with all of the strings attached. We believe Gutenberg’s tuition and financial aid philosophy has the greatest integrity in today’s environment of bloated tuitions and graduates terminally burdened with student loans.

If you have friends and family in the seventeen- to thirty-year-old range who are thinking about college and perhaps have the right stuff to be a Gutenberg student, be sure to tell them about Gutenberg and have them take a look at www.whygutenberg.com.

Dr. Crabtree continues his survey of some of the more important moments in the history of philosophy, theology, religion, and culture; and gives a comparative critique of those various philosophies and ideas from a biblical perspective.

The class will meet at Gutenberg College in the main classroom. There is no charge for the class, but donations to Gutenberg College are gratefully accepted. This class is available for real-time video streaming. For instructions on how to participate, see below.

Information for streaming video:

• You will need a computer with a high-speed internet connection using any internet browser.
• You do not need to download any special software; the class uses Adobe Flash which is loaded on most computers. It is recommended that you have an updated version of Flash, which can be downloaded here: get.adobe.com/flashplayer/.
• To attend the class, simply use this link (url): http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/jcrabtree01/.
• The class will include an audio-video stream of Jack teaching. You will be able to interact and ask questions using a chat box.
• It is recommended that you try to log in prior to the beginning of class in order to make sure that your feed is working. A moderator will be available to assist you at least 15 minutes before class.
• Maximum online attendance is 25 participants. We will admit participants on a first-come, first-served basis.

Audio recordings of the class are available, or use the links below to access the recorded video streaming.

Video links for “The Bible and the History of Ideas” (spring quarter):

• April 3: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p12bmba1snf/
• April 10: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p503zupzx2v/
• April 17: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p5n5gitusj6/
• April 24: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p167zvsb5bd/
• May 1: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p7xqrefvklh/
• May 8: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p49ixncq67j/
• May 15: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p459t0jxc7u/
• May 22: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p86lsi3w39p/

Video links for “The Bible and the History of Ideas” (winter quarter):

• January 9: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p8dc7l0ljwy/
• January 16: No recording available.
• January 23: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p2gaw4uaibs/
• January 30: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p5yhsd07vod/
• February 6: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p9ighj3cmd2/
• February 13: Class did not meet.
• February 20: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p7y3i21675k/
• February 27: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p1h7ki47lti/
• March 6: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p9fz61qxw2e/

Video links for “The Bible and the History of Ideas” (fall quarter):

• October 3: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p9nrve3inh5/
• October 10: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p6ur08jdt7m/
• October 17: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p5grpseljzh/
• October 24: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p880s2lj4yp/
• October 31: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p4v5avvvdd0/
• November 7: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p53aszphqj6/
• November 14: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p7elmlbm1eq/
• November 21: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p868zet4hch/

Why study church history? For this reason: Most Christians first experience Christianity–not through reading the Bible–but by going to church. We are raised in an interpretation of the Bible before we ever read the Bible. Thus, studying church history is uniquely valuable in understanding one’s expectations, hopes, and biases about the Old and New Testaments.

The class will meet at Gutenberg College in the main classroom. There is no charge for the class, but donations to Gutenberg College are gratefully accepted. This class is available for real-time video streaming. For instructions on how to participate, see below.
 
Information for streaming video:

• You will need a computer with a high-speed internet connection using any internet browser.
• You do not need to download any special software; the class uses Adobe Flash which is loaded on most computers. It is recommended that you have an updated version of Flash, which can be downloaded here: get.adobe.com/flashplayer/.
• To attend the class, simply use this link (url): http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/jcrabtree01/. (Tim’s class will follow a class taught by Jack Crabtree.)
• The class will include an audio-video stream of Tim teaching. You will be able to interact and ask questions using a chat box.
• It is recommended that you try to log in prior to the beginning of class in order to make sure that your feed is working. A moderator will be available to assist you at least 15 minutes before class.
• Maximum online attendance is 25 participants. We will admit participants on a first-come, first-served basis.

Audio recordings of the class are available, or use the links below to access the recorded video streaming.
 
Video links for “Christianity in America”:

• February 20: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p5i6sfgdph5/
• February 27: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p8ucqyjgnl9/
• March 6: Class did not meet.
• April 3: Class did not meet.
• April 10: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p23jiq2qy4n/
• April 17: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p3k052fm9t8/
• April 24: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p6xl5684323/
• May 1: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p9ou7h03rqe/
• May 8: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p7wbpwpkss7/
• May 15: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p6icfhre3wh/
• May 22: http://meet94806701.adobeconnect.com/p2ej4fbx0cc/

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Tim McIntosh is a tutor at Gutenberg College. He earned his M.A. in theology from Reformed Theological Seminary.

Education is not the same as training….I’ve always valued nonbusiness education, such as liberal arts and science and math, even creative arts, more than business education. I’m biased, and I admit it. I’m the father of five grown independent adults, some of whom are remarkably successful in business, none of whom have business degrees. My advice to them was to get an education first: they could learn business later. And they did.

Berry acknowledges the value of business training, and he has an MBA from Stanford University, but first he got degrees in literature and journalism: “I made a lot more money with the MBA than without it, I’m sure. But I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t had the education first, before the MBA.”

The common view of college as vocational training—“must prepare to get a job”—is a hurdle prospective Gutenberg students (and their parents) must jump. But, if Tim Berry’s experience is any indication, a liberal arts education like Gutenberg’s may be the best way to win the race.

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Robby Julian is Gutenberg’s publications manager, editor of its monthly News & Views newsletter, and wife of Gutenberg tutor Ron Julian.