[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 125 (Friday, September 18, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10574-S10576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      GETTING BACK TO THE CLASSICS

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I was pleased to read an article in the 
September 15 edition of the Washington Times, titled, ``Classics Back 
in Fashion at Some Schools.''
  Speaking precisely to the point that I have made countless times 
during my years in the Senate, this article reiterates the need to get 
back to the basics in education. I would like to get back to the little 
two-room schoolhouse in which I started along about 1923. I laud those 
schools that have taken this valuable step back and are getting back to 
the basics in order to reintroduce classical education into their 
classrooms.
  Who better to teach our students today than the true historians, the 
poets, and the playwrights of yesteryear. I long for the old McGuffey 
readers--I still have a set of those old McGuffey readers in my 
personal library--where the students read poems and wholesome stories 
that taught them good morals, how to act, how to grow up and be good 
citizens. The old McGuffey readers. The historians, the poets, and the 
playwrights of yesteryear, such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Shakespeare, 
and Sophocles, who were the four great master poets of tragedy 
throughout the years and were outstanding as writers of tragic plays, 
their works were among the classics that have built history, influenced 
the framers of our Constitution, and can serve to enhance our ability 
to better understand the present and to set goals for the future.
  Today, our students are caught up in the MTV generation--some of 
them--watching mind-polluting television sitcoms, listening to shock 
radio, and repeating the degrading language that they acquire by 
digesting this steady diet of unhealthy perversity.
  Sadly, many modern classrooms often offer nothing to counteract this 
flood of popular junk and ignorance, which are smothering our country's 
students. The classics have been ignored in recent years and replaced 
by psuedoliterature filled with profanity and violence, and textbooks 
which do a better job of teaching I don't know what than basic algebra. 
It alarms me to think that students cannot even begin to identify the 
great heroes of our past or the authors of the Federalist Papers.
  If our Nation hopes to produce better students, students who can 
match or outperform the competition in international exams, we must 
return to the basics, return to the great books and history, such as 
``Plutarch's Lives,'' Milton's ``Paradise Lost,'' Milton's ``Paradise 
Regained,'' Daniel Defoe's ``Robinson Crusoe,'' Emerson's essays, 
Carlyle's ``History of the French Revolution,'' the Bible, the 
``Iliad'' and the ``Odyssey.'' Alexander the Great kept a copy of The 
Iliad under his pillow.
  It was called the ``casket copy''. He submitted Homer's ``Iliad'' to 
Aristotle, and asked Aristotle to critique it. Then Alexander the Great 
prized it above all other literature.
  Shakespeare's 37 plays: I quoted extracts from Shakespeare's 37 plays 
one year in the Senate.
  These are all replete with the history and philosophy that are 
integral elements in a well-rounded, uplifting education.
  When I talk about an education, I mean one that goes through one's 
lifetime. It doesn't stop with graduating from high school or from 
college or from getting a Ph.D. in physics, as two of my grandsons have 
done. It means continuing to educate one's self throughout one's life.
  Solon, one of the seven wise men of Greece, said, ``I grow old in the 
pursuit of learning.'' That is a goal that all of us should emulate: 
``I grow old in the pursuit of learning.''
  I try to follow in Solon's footsteps in that regard. During the last 
break I read Cicero's ``Republic''--not Plato's ``Republic.'' I had 
already done that some time ago, but Cicero's ``Republic,'' and 
Cicero's ``Law''--and De Tocqueville's ``Democracy in America''--two 
excellent volumes.
  Ours is not a democracy. We are talking about a form of government. 
Ours is not a democracy. We live in a democratic society and we promote 
democratic principles. But, as for our form of government, it is not a 
democracy. So many people loosely and glibly refer to it as a 
``democracy.''
  One needs only to read the Federalist Papers No. 10 and No. 14, to 
get a good definition of what is a ``democracy'' and what is a 
``republic.'' Madison, in both of those essays, defines and 
distinguishes between a democracy, as a form of government, and a 
republic.
  So let us continue to study and to learn. Learning can be one of the 
most rewarding of the human activities. But it must be a lifelong 
journey.
  It ought to be a lifelong journey which carries one across the rivers 
of changes in events and into the recesses of man's immortal spirit. 
There is no better way to build upon shallow and superficial knowledge 
than to ponder the lessons of the past. There is no better way. As 
Cicero said, ``To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born, is 
to remain always a child.''

[[Page S10575]]

  I encourage all schools to give their students this opportunity to 
grow, to share the lessons of the past, to share history, to read 
ancient history. Herodotus who wrote about Persia, and who wrote about 
Egypt, lived somewhere between 484 and 424 B.C.--Xenophon, Thucydides, 
Sallustius, Polybius, Zosimus, Orosius, Ammianus, Appianus, Arrianus, 
Caesar himself who wrote the Gallic Wars, Florus, Procopius, Eutropius, 
Cassius Dio Cocceianus, Livius, Tacitus, Plutarch, Gibbon on The 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Read histories of England. Of 
Rome and Greece.
  Read these histories, and read American history, and read the history 
of the U.S. Senate. These are illuminating. They are uplifting. And we 
can learn by past events how, in many instances, to deal with current 
events.
  Napoleon said, ``Teach my son to study history. It is the only true 
philosophy.''
  Enjoy the vision of the poets and the philosophers and begin to shape 
leaders, who can take us confidently into the future because they so 
well understand the past.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SESSIONS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to express my appreciation 
for the remarks of the Senator from West Virginia, and to take this 
moment to repeat again to him how much I appreciated his remarkable 
address earlier this week in the Old Senate Chamber in the majority 
leader's Lecture Series on the History of the Senate. He had the 
largest crowd I can remember. He had the rapt attention of virtually 
every Senator as he shared with us the great traditions of this body. 
Of course, we know that he has written a three-volume history on the 
U.S. Senate. On Fridays, I am often in the Chair that the Presiding 
Officer is in today, and I had the occasion to hear him address this 
body.
  I have written two letters congratulating Senators on speeches, and 
they have both been to Senator Byrd. I remember one of his speeches 
talked about education. He referred to our textbooks as ``touchy, feely 
twaddle.'' Too often, I think, they don't have or possess the power of 
the great historians to uplift, causing us to think and dream about 
heroic acts. He shared with us on one of those occasions his experience 
in the two-room schoolhouse where he grew up. I thought then of my 
grandmother who taught in a one-room schoolhouse. I remember the 
schoolhouse as I was growing up. Although it has been torn down now, I 
remember in her library--I don't know how she obtained it--was 
Macauley's ``History of England,'' Gibbon's ``The Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire,'' Shakespeare, and other great literary works. She 
shared those with the elementary schoolchildren in those schoolrooms.
  I am of a belief that they were richly educated in that one-room 
schoolhouse. There is something more significant than color pictures 
and videos in transmitting what it is that we are about as a people.
  I taught in the sixth grade 1 year, and we used what they called 
Basil Readers. They wrote stories in little pieces, and at the end of 
them were a lot of questions, and in each story they would add new 
words. It was all scientifically done, you see. It was to teach them 
vocabulary and things of that nature. But the children hated them and 
would not read those books. And around the classroom--it was an old 
class school--there were a lot of books like I had in my schoolroom--
Daniel Boone, the old bluecoat, the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift. And so I 
started encouraging them to read those books, and they loved them 
because they were stories that had some meaning and some adventure and 
showed people in situations which required courage.
  At any rate, I say to Senator Byrd, thank you for sharing your 
opinions with us. You can have a $500 textbook, but if it has no moral 
message, no meaning to it, does not uplift the spirit and no one wants 
to read it, then that textbook is not worth very much. Too often I 
think that is the problem with modern education.
  I, again, say how much I appreciate the Senator's remarks and the 
Senator's leadership in this Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. I express my deep appreciation to the distinguished Senator 
for his comments. It has been my privilege to serve over these 40 years 
in the Senate with some great Senators from Alabama.
  Senator James Allen was an expert in the rules and procedures. He had 
been Lieutenant Governor of Alabama, and I believe he told me that as 
presiding officer over the Alabama lower house, I believe it was, he 
used the rules of the U.S. Senate. He certainly was very conversant 
with the U.S. Senate rules, a master of the rules of the Senate, a very 
able man, and courageous. He had no difficulty in taking a stand even 
if he stood alone. We were sorry at his untimely passing.
  There were other great Senators from Alabama--John Sparkman, who 
promoted and wrote important legislation dealing with housing; Lister 
Hill. I can see Lister Hill--that is his desk, I believe it was that 
desk right there--speaking. He had a fine way of speaking. I believe he 
told me that he had been named after Dr. Lister--a great English 
surgeon, Dr. Lister. Senator Hill told me, if I am not mistaken in my 
recollection, that Dr. Lister had performed an operation on a man who 
had gangrene in one of his legs. They didn't have the anesthetics in 
that day and time that they have today. This man went through this 
excruciating experience and then wrote the poem ``Invictus.'' And the 
surgeon was a Dr. Lister. Senator Hill was given the name Lister, after 
that great English surgeon.
  I am proud to recall these fine Senators from Alabama who were here 
when I came to the Senate. I have lately come to appreciate the work of 
the distinguished Senator who is now standing at the desk of the 
majority leader, and I appreciate his kind words. I have treasured his 
letters, and I know that ours is a friendship which will be a lasting 
one. I shall cherish it.
  I thank him for relating his experiences in the little country 
schoolhouse. It doesn't have to be a massive building with beautiful 
columns and hallways decorated with shining pieces of furniture. The 
teacher makes the school. James A. Garfield, hearkening back to his 
schooldays, said that if he had his old teacher, Mark Hopkins, on one 
end of the log and he himself on the other there was a university. 
Those are not the exact words, but they were well spoken.
  I am trying to remember a poem about a teacher. It doesn't come back 
to me just now, except in part:

       A Teacher builded a temple
       With loving and infinite care,
       Planning each arch with patience,
       Laying each stone with prayer.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       But the temple the teacher builded
       Will last while the ages roll
       For that beautiful unseen temple
       Was a child's immortal soul.

  I thank the distinguished Senator.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from West Virginia 
for his comments. I do share his views about teachers. My grandmother, 
in her first job--and I have a photograph of the class--had a real 
rough looking group of poor kids, no doubt. But in that group was an 
individual who may have been somewhat inspired by her and who went on 
to become a U.S. Congressman, Frank Boykin, a man of some note. I 
always claim that whatever he learned, he learned in that first through 
sixth grade schoolroom when she taught there.

  So I think teachers do inspire us. Good teachers understand and are 
knowledgeable and learned people themselves, and they can then share 
that. Sometimes I think we spend too much time on process rather than 
on substance.
  I again express my appreciation to Senator Byrd for his leadership of 
this body, this Senate, for reminding us on a regular basis of what we 
are about, our heritage here, and calling us to our best and highest 
instincts.
  Thank you, Senator Byrd.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S10576]]

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________