sault from the radical left. The “essence”nof that curriculum can bentraced to the Great Books program,nwhich was organized at Columbia andnChicago earlier in the century andnwhich furnishes access to an “ongoing,noften raucous and contentious debate.”nThis debate, which is supposednto emerge from reading thinkers whon(Sykes never tells us) were, in mostncases, unmistakably nondemocratic, allowsnstudents nevertheless to grasp thenroots of “the democratic philosophy ofnthe West.” Democratic indoctrination,nongoing debate, and the study of pastnthinkers, most of whom held no briefnfor modern democracy, are supposednto produce an appreciation for ourndemocratic way of life. The means ofndoing this is to make sure that the rightnsorts of people teach the curriculum,nlest the resulting discussion leave opennquestions that true democrats shouldnwish to close. If politics and corruptionnhave indeed beset higher education, asnSykes demonstrates, perhaps we canndiscover their causes only by lookingnfurther back in time.nPaul Gottfried is a professor ofnhumanities at Elizabethtown Collegenin Pennsylvania.nVisible Saintsnby M.E. BradfordnThe Men I Have Chosen fornFathers: Literary andnPhilosophical Passagesnby Marion MontgomerynColumbia: University ofnMissouri Press;n264 pp., $24.95nThere is no other American man ofnletters quite like Marion Montgomery.nWith the addition of each newnbook to the canon of works published bynthe Sage of Crawford, his achievementnbecomes the more astonishing; thenrange and depth of his thought, itsnvariety and scope the more impressive.nFor Professor Montgomery has writtenneducational theory, poetry, drama, criticism,nfiction, systematic philosophy, literarynhistory, and theology. Which is tonsay nothing of his special gift for culturalnanalysis. Moreover, he has done all ofn32/CHRONICLESnthis at a pace that is constantly accelerating.nNor is there any suggestion ofnabatement. Montgomery’s syntheticnpowers are exceptional. Whatever thensubject, his results are original and unexpected.nTherefore it is a significantnevent when he comes forward to acknowledgenthose models and influencesnthat have directly impacted upon hisnmind.nThe Men I Have Chosen for Fathersnfits inside a recognizable genre, withnthe word “chosen” in its title seriouslynmeant. There is an explanation fornMarion Montgomery. And thesen”men” (including Flannery O’Connor)nare part of it. This list of fathersnleans toward the reflective. No modernnwriter has had a more comprehensivenencounter with the grand tradition ofnBritish and American literature thannProfessor Montgomery. Furthermore,nhis literary education reaches beyondnthose confines of language to includenVergil, Dante, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.nBut the principle of selectionnoperative in assembling this book isnnot primarily aesthetic in origin. Tonthe contrary, this time the commonndenominator bringing under onencover essays on Richard Weaver,nEric Voegelin, Cleanth Brooks,nEzra Pound, Robert Frost, FlannerynO’Connor, and Solzhenitsyn is truthnspiritual and religious—both the absencenof such insight as a kind ofnnegative evidence and its unquestionedncentrality in the work of those artistsnand thinkers Montgomery most admires.nIn The Men I Have Chosen fornFathers Pound and Frost are negativenexamples and Voegelin a mixed figuren— so determined not to violate thenmystery of God that he refused tonallow for revelation of his Deity asnimmanent in time; as incarnate, embodied,nof a proportion and placement,nsubject to discussion. Voegelin describesnhimself as a pre-doctrinal, “pre-nNicean” Christian who cannot depositnhis ineffable experience of “thenGround” in any dogma or religiousnstructure, though he knows how itncould be done.nAccording to Montgomery, we canntrust as guides O’Connor, Weaver, andnSolzhenitsyn — and Cleanth Brooksnremains the mentor in strictiy literarynquestions. Moreover, Thomas StearnsnEliot is never far from Montgomery’snnnhorizon.nThe art of his near-contemporarynand fellow Georgian, FlannerynO’Connor, has been a persistent subjectnfor Montgomery. No one else hasnwritten more (or better) commentarynon her fiction. Once more his subject isnthe reality of evil in Miss O’Connor’snstories and the sacramental view ofncreation that modifies her Augustiniannrigor. He also praises her reviews fornthe Georgia Bulletin — conversationsnwith members of a Roman Catholicncommunity to which she belonged.nIt is this same civilized availabilitynand discursiveness that he admires innProfessor Brooks’ William Faulkner:nFirst Encounters (1983). For MarionnMontgomery, it is criticism as socialnencounter concerned with the “ancientnrelation of life and art” thatnrecommends this introduction tonFaulkner studies — an “understandingnFaulkner” to go with Brooks’ othernguides to the inexperienced reader innthe art of construing texts on their ownnterms, with reference to the languagenand the mythos of the world to whichnthey belong. Brooks is critic as expositor,nwho presents the student withnliterature as a mode of knowledge innthe concrete. He is a rhetor, like ProfessornMontgomery’s other Southernnpreceptor, Richard M. Weaver ofnNorth Carolina.nWeaver’s The Southern Tradition atnBay is Montgomery’s focus among hisnworks. It is, according to the originalnsubtitle, a “study in the survival of anmind and a culture.” Montgomerynsalutes Weaver’s book as achieving itsnpurpose: for encouraging the phenomenanthat it also explains. Weaver, saysnMontgomery, earned a place “in ournpilgrim company” where he “bearsnhimself with the resoluteness of anprophet,” showing us always the significancenof our contingent status. Moreover,nas rhetor. Weaver is obliged tonpersuade us of the truth given to him,njust as the critic must teach us to readnon our own.nThe poet, in contrast to the rhetorician,nmust attempt both more and less.nHe must show an action, rendering “anmovement of the soul in words” that isnas far from provincial as it is fromnrootless abstraction.nWhat is of value in Solzhenitsynnhas, in this book, its counterpoint in thenqualities Montgomery believes to ben