wholesome fabric of these talks is wovennof Montgomery’s always recognizable,ndeceptively informal prose, alivenwith metaphor and gentle irony, andnpunctuated by wonderful aphorisms. Inhave to show you just one:nThe failure to recognize the giftnof particularity, the uniquenessnof each person’s particularity,nthe uniqueness of each person’snactual existence as a limit to hisnpotential being, is the presentncause of most of thenunhappiness in individuals andnthe cause of that chaos innsociety which prevents societynfrom becoming community. It isnan unhappiness, I regret to say,nsubscribed to by both thencommunity and its institutions,nboth bearing false witnessnagainst the true nature ofnmembership.nThere, in a thimble, are argumentsnsufficient to overthrow entrenched egalitarianismnand restore true communitynon the basis of individual worth.nMainly, though, it’s the writer’snurgency for the recovery of ordinatenlove, that ordering catalyst throughnwhich right education and communitynmust proceed and the goal towardsnwhich they must advance, which bindsnhis arguments and lends them a warmncogency. Such force of conviction herenfunctions as what the rhetoricians callnethical proof—a speaker’s capacity toncompel persuasion through (unstudied)nprojection of his character. (“I trust thenman’s words because I trust the man.”)nIt was partly to acknowledge the efficacynof ethical proof that the ancientsndefined the authentic orator as “a goodnman skilled in speaking.”nNote, too, how the presentation architectonicallynsatisfies the title theme,nprogressing as it does from focus onnstudents (“which each of us is insofar asnwe are rightly willed toward ourselves”)nand teachers (“as each of us is willy-nillyninsofar as we bear witness of ourselves”);nthen on to members of thencommunity at large (“in which propernrelation we must, as intellectual creatures,ncontinue active both as studentnand teacher”).nHere is the argumentum, whatnMontgomery identifies to studentlistenersnas his “principal theme andnsong :n. . . the decisive importance ofnwords rightly taken to anynperfection of one’s heart andnmind. A refrain to that song:nThrough the concert of heartnand mind tuned by true words,nwe may move beyond ournindividual, separate aspirationsnand become aware that we holdnhumanity in common; so thennwe have a common — that is, ancommunity—responsibility tonwords. We begin to understand,nfor instance, what St. Paulnmeans when he says that we arenmembers one of another. It isnthrough words, through thensigns we make one to another,nthat we discover ourselvesnbound one to another in ancommunity larger than ournprivate selves, larger than ournlives taken only individually andnindependent of other lives.nFurther:nDeveloping one’s ear andntongue to value meaning isnwhat we call education. But onenbecomes educated, not only in anconcert with his own mind andn• heart through words, butnthrough that larger concert ofnmembers in the body ofncommunity, one’s teachers andnparents and neighbors andnmedia gurus and politicos.nBecause most of these do not,nin fact, accept responsibility fornwords as the community’sninheritance, it makes your ownnresponsibility the more difficult,nmakes it even more a responsibility,none with a moralnobligation attached by your verynact of professing to be a student.nFrom here Montgomery moves forwardnto catalogue, illustrate with the rhetoricalnexempla, and assess the failures ofntoday’s undergraduate education, startingnwith failures of the public schoolsnthat so commonly send students toncollege for two years of remedial worknbefore higher education can significantlynbegin — which it usually doesn’tneven for juniors, because their professorsnare typically bemused with Deconstructionnand other intellectual fadsnand are preoccupied with (ofiose) pub­nnnlication and the games that lead tonprofessional advancement in today’sncorrupt academy. The result is thatneducation turns into indoctrination, ornsimply falls through the cracks of professorialnindifference.nThe ideological and cultural subversion,ntrivialization, and pompous semiliteracynthat parents pay so deariy for —nan item-by-item accounting of academicnfalse witness — appears innMontgomery’s expose of the Babelnthat is the campus just down the roadnfrom your hearth and home: unrepentantn60’s radicals using professorialnchairs to batter the permanent thingsnthey ought, by definition, to support;ngnostic mountebanks urging even thatn”we must reprogram nature” (!) whilenparading as dispassionate “scientists”;nadministrators murdering Englishnwithout embarrassment on behalf of annaggrandizement that is inseparablynpersonal and institutional (“the blueprintnfor this drive to excellence wasnlaid more than a decade ago”); andncurricula, now “redesigned and marketednin the interest of a product,” andncorrespondingly debased to includenthings like a for-credit course in then”History of American Radio & Television”nopenly advertised as “a collegencourse in trivia.”nChapter Four of Liberal Arts andnCommunity, “A Scholastic Foray,”nserves as peroration. It’s an addendumnthat draws on the writer’s grasp ofnWestern intellectual development toncarry to a deeper level the meaning ofnthe speeches. Here, among other salutarynthings, is terse analysis of the illsnwrought by John Locke’s sorcery aboutn”Social Contract,” which, in the namenof enlightenment and liberalism, has sonbanefully pried individuals away fromnfamily and community and made themnpawns of always bigger governmentnand other impulses constantly spun offnfrom the original Lockean heresy. It’snwhat (ironically) keeps reducing particularnpeople — forrriedy thought only anlittle lower than the angels — to evernsmaller dimensions, steadily proliferatingnthe numbers and kinds of intellectualnand spiritual dead-ends peoplennowadays reach. Everything that goesnswirling around John Locke’s cauldronncomes around the more viciously.nBut Montgomery’s conclusion is affirmativenthrough inclusion of view-nSEPTEMBER 1990/27n