Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that children develop – intellectually, physically, and emotionally – much like plants. He believed, moreover, that children are innately good, but that all social institutions, including schools, are evil and distort children into their own image. He doubted, therefore, that there should be formal schools at all. Whether there were or not, […]
You go out for dinner and order spaghetti with your favourite sauce. The pasta is so plentiful that it’s falling off the plate. Yes, your meal is appetizing. But isn’t it more than you bargained for? In an era when consumers look for great deals, it often seems as though the bigger things are, the […]
There are scarcely any moments that won’t benefit from a humorous remark or a cheerful lift. Yet still, some people regularly complain about everything, griping at the taxes and the political opposition and lambasting everyone around them. Frequently the gripers wind up in the doctor’s office. But I know many executives who carry on under […]
There has been an emphasis, recently, on the possibility that society itself, or the group culture, may be producing the mental illness, emotional instability and distortions of personality which apparently are widespread. Various writers have pointed out that man’s basic needs are being extensively thwarted by the demands of society. According to this view, man […]
Writing was not easy for the French novelist Gustave Flaubert. Because of his concern for form and precise detail, he often struggled for days searching for “exactly the right word”. He took five years to write Madame Bovary, his best-known work. Flaubert’s goal was to write faultless prose. In Madame Bovary, which tells of Emma […]
The mystique of the Kennedy family in United States politics was due in great part to the glamorous and attractive wife of President John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. They were the first presidential couple born in the 20th century. She brought grace, style, and a flair for beauty to the White House, quickly […]
China is the only country in the world with a literature written in one script for more than 3,000 consecutive years. This continuity results largely from the nature of the written language itself. It is the use of characters, not letters as in Western languages, that is most important in the Chinese language. The characters […]
For many years, the name of the Thracian slave Spartacus struck fear into the hearts of the Roman people. It served to remind them of the danger that constantly menaced the continued existence of their state – the danger of an uprising of the enormous slave population, which might destroy the Roman nation. Scholars have […]
Ian Fleming’s evil globefish – also known as a puffer, blowfish, swellfish, or, in Japanese, fugu – is one of the most mysterious creatures of the sea. It is perhaps the world’s most deadly fish, yet in Japan the honorable fugu is the perfect example of gourmet dining. With its lazy, almost feeble way of […]
Loch Ness is an immensely deep lake in the northeastern Highlands of Scotland. It is overlooked by brooding hills and wild moorland – the perfect setting for strange and unexplained events. In 1933, a motorist on the new lakeside road saw a tremendous upheaval in the loch*. The waters churned and boiled as a huge […]