Educating Boys: or Why Latin Disappeared
It is no secret that schools have become a feminized environment. It wasn't always that way. There was a time where school was a form of contest and a rite of passage marking you a man.
This is part three of an ongoing series which takes an extensive look at Walter Ong’s “Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality and Consciousness.” You can find parts one and two here:
Universities have been around as institutions since the 1100’s. In some ways they seem not to have changed much at all. Yet, we all know that in many ways they are one of the primary engines driving the culture war. Schooling in the broadest sense has become quite feminized over the years. It wasn’t always this way. So what is a masculine education? In comparison to martial training or learning the trades, academic training in general doesn’t seem like your typical repository for manly pursuits. So what does academics look like when it is aligned with the male bias towards contest and combat?
What makes the university such a cultural bellwether is that some of the biggest changes have happened in these seemingly timeless institutions, especially in the 20th century. We picture the campus protests w…
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