I didn’t know Mexico ever had a president like Porfirio Díaz. I learned about him while reading “Bound in Twine : The history and ecology of the Henequen-Wheat complex for Mexico and the American and Canadian Plains, 1880-1950” by Sterling Evans (2007). On page 42 he links Diaz with 19th century positivism, Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, and private property. I presume there is more to learn about him from this book, but I get a rather different picture of him from Wikipedia. In any case, this is something I need to learn more about, especially as it relates to the communal land holdings of the native peoples.
Well, I barely know what to say other than to expose my ignorance of this bit of history, which I’m doing here as seems to be the proper thing to do in this age of blogs.
And that got me to thinking that blogs are a modern version of the “blab schools” like those that Abraham Lincoln attended. In those schools all students would recite their lessons out loud simultaneously, which made for a cacophonous educational experience. Now modern technology has increased the ability for all of us to blab at once about what we’re learning, even if it’s not very well digested knowledge.
Not that I’m complaining. My own elementary education was in one- and two-room schools. First and second grades were spent in a one-room school, complete with pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room, overlooking the Missouri River in central North Dakota. I have always appreciated that I was able to listen to the 7th and 8th grade boys at their lessons. It was certainly more interesting than our Dick and Jane. And here were these big kids who we thought would just as soon kill us little kids if they were even to recognize our existence, and they were discussing poetry and literature. It was the usual fare in American public schools of the time — things like Longfellow’s “Evangeline” and Edward Everett Hale’s “Man Without a Country.” But those big, tough kids were so earnest in their discussions. I don’t remember what they said, but I still remember the tone of their discussions, which didn’t at all match what I saw out on the playground. It was disconcerting, but also made me want to get to the point where I could learn the things they were learning.
Maybe I’m feeling a little bit of that now.