School’s Out Forever
By Michael Boyajian
The pariah of school cuts to arts and music has raised its ugly head once again. Those who use but one side of their brain have decided that only math and science count when it comes to financing our schools. By corrupting and taking a hard right off Plato’s conjectured road they say to hell with art, music, philosophy and the humanities in general without giving thought for a minute to the simple modern world facts that those with musical skills excel in science and that without the art and literature of science fiction there would be no landing of a man on the moon.
And our politicians sit around lamenting the fall of American power. Well here is why. We are not financing the arts in education. No great civilization has stood the test of time without solid education programs and an appreciation of the arts. Don’t believe me? Just visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art and see in wonder the great works of art from ancient Assyria, China, Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome.
Oh sure, a wise cracking illiterate pundit will say if they were so smart why are they all gone. Well Rome lasted a thousand years, Egypt and dynastic China thousands. How long did America last before she began to wane, two centuries?
Our spending on education should in fact not be contracting but expanding beyond K through 12. College and a liberal arts education should be free and mandatory to all. This is the only way America is going to survive in the new global marketplace. There can be no advancement without imagination and no imagination without liberal arts. Where would the world be without the imagination and vision of the founders of Apple or Microsoft? Would there have even been a Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell or an Albert Einstein without it?
When a corrupt and decaying Rome lost its imagination and finally fell Europe went dark for a thousand years. If America does not take the high road with education she will collapse as well and the lights will go out worldwide for a millennium. Q.E.D. Quod Erat Demonstrandum, thus it has been shown.
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