PERSPECTIVEnRevolution and Tradition in the HumanitiesnCurriculumnAfew years ago I found myself in the belly of the beast.nTo be more accurate, I was actually in the appendix ofnthe beast, the Department of Education, giving a paper onncurriculum reform. Secretary Bennett, who preceded me,nspoke with his accustomed exuberance of the then currentncrisis in the humanities and of the need to recover ourninheritance. When the time came for me to speak, I couldnnot help remarking upon how familiar it all seemed. Fornnearly eighty years conservatives like Irving Babbitt, AlbertnJay Nock, and Russell Kirk had been complaining about thenstate of American education, and the worse things got, thenmilder the criticism had grown. Babbitt would have restorednthe classics to their preeminence. Nock wanted to educatenonly a saving remnant, but Mr. Bennett was willing to settlenfor a few readable books that promoted democratic ideals. Inneducational criticism, as in education, there has been anHesiodic progression from an Age of Gold to the Age ofnIron in which we find ourselves.nThe decline is nowhere more’ apparent than in the mostnrecent controversies over curriculum. The strife surroundingnStanford’s decision to abolish its “Western culture”ncourse in favor of something more sensitive to the needs ofnminorities attracted a great deal of attention in the press.nWho can forget the images of Jesse Jackson leading hisnband of Red Guard cultural revolutionaries in the chant,n”Hey Hey Ho Ho, Western Gulture’s gotta go”? OrnDifferent versions of this essay were given as lectures atnthe March 1990 Colorado Association of Scholarsnmeeting in Boulder and at the Philadelphia Societynmeeting in Chicago in April.nby Thomas FlemingnSecretary Bennett’s spirited defense of the old curriculum asna bedrock of democratic values?nThe opposition to what is now called Eurocentrism is anRainbow coalition of blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Indians,nfeminists (I deliberately do not say women), homosexuals,nand guilt-ridden white males, all of whom claim to havenbeen repressed by a civilization of sexist, racist, and capitalistnwhite Christian males. Do I exaggerate? New York State’snreport “A Curriculum of Inclusion” begins with this alreadynmuch-quoted sentence:nAfrican Americans, Asian Americans, PuertonRicans/Latinos, and Native Americans have all beennthe victims of intellectual and educationalnoppression that has characterized the culture andninstitutions of the United States and the EuropeannAmerican world for centuries.nIs this debate really important or is it only a tempest in thenvery small humanities teapot? I for one think it is verynimportant, more important perhaps than the collapse ofncommunism in Eastern Europe and more poisonous to ournculture than the AIDS epidemic.nEvery society, civilized or not, has a curriculum. Childrenneverywhere have to learn the techniques of survival and thenlore of the tribe; they must learn to recognize who is who innthe band, and the approved methods of propitiating thengods or spirits upon whom all life depends. In the ancientnworld, the curriculum bears a strong resemblance to primitivenpractice. Greek boys, in addition to their instruction innmilitaristic sports, memorized Homer, learned to read andnwrite and do simple math. They were also taught the lorennnSEPTEMBER 1990/13n