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Entry: Taking Back Our Children Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/taking_back_our_children#4651 Post contents: Personal anecdote illustrative of the inflation of ALL kinds of education, both public and private, over the past century: my upper-working class (equal to what today would be called upper-middle-class) great-grandfather went to school in Victorian England until only age 15 - that was more schooling than most commoners got back then - and from his letters and business pamphlets I can see he wrote better than 99 percent of today's British or American holders of Doctorate degrees, of whom I am one. In one of his business pamphlets in 1915, he wrote, "I apologise for any errors of grammar you might find in this booklet. Boys (such as he) born and bred in the commercial trucking (ie, small farming) industry get little chance at Greek or Latin, but when it comes to improving your garden's yield, I have a lifetime of experience." Wow, just think of it: in 1915, he apologised for not knowing as much Greek or Latin as many of his customers did. How far we have fallen since then. His son left school at 18; his son in turn, my father had a BA; and I'm a Doctor of Law; yet my great-grandfather who left school at age 15 was equally as well educated as I, if not more so. And he had better manners than I. This is why my practice is never to address anyone other than a physician as "Doctor" - because if the ludicrous, mush-mouthed Condoleeza Rice PhD is a "Doctor", then I don't want to be her equal. George Washington never went to university. (I think neither did Wellington nor Nelson.) Let's bring back the ways of old when the appellation, "Gentleman" was the highest one to which anyone could aspire. Sent at: 2008 09 06