Recently, I finished Wendell Berry’s novel Hannah Coulter. It, like all of Berry ’s work, is consistent with his greatest overarching commitments—a commitment to living life in the physical world and in a physical community. There is much to say about the book. It is (among his novels) particularly good. The narrator is Hannah Coulter and the story follows her life. There is one thought that comes through in this novel more strongly—or at least more strikingly to me. The thought is that the wrong view of education can destroy community. In Hannah Coulter, we see just this happening. Her children are all educated to leave their rural community to make their way in the great big world. Education becomes the libration from place instead of a tool that can be used by the righteous to liberate and serve and better their place and community.
As the Headmaster of a school in which I expect that most students will go on to college, this reading had an impact on me. We must help our children to see the beauty and glory in the life of our community here in Lancaster (this would work for any community anywhere, but I am in Lancaster ). We must help them to see and understand the lies that our culture tells—viz., that all important things happen in big cities, most notably
New York and Los Angeles . Education at its best should deepen and broaden a young person and prepare that person to take their place in a community. Education should not be (and at its root is not) an escape into a community-less reality. Anthony Esolen, whose version of The Comedy, I am reading this summer commented strikingly on the lack of community speaking of Hell saying, “It is a vast crowd of people with no communion.” We must never think, or let our children think, that life can be well lived without the communion that comes only in true community life.
New York and Los Angeles . Education at its best should deepen and broaden a young person and prepare that person to take their place in a community. Education should not be (and at its root is not) an escape into a community-less reality. Anthony Esolen, whose version of The Comedy, I am reading this summer commented strikingly on the lack of community speaking of Hell saying, “It is a vast crowd of people with no communion.” We must never think, or let our children think, that life can be well lived without the communion that comes only in true community life.
