From the Academy

The Survey-Course Boondoggle

At the beginning of Aldous Huxley’s Antic Hay, an unfortunate master at a boarding-school sets his charges to write an essay on Pius IX. All the boys know about Pio Nono is what they have gathered from a brief passage in a typical positivistic modern history textbook; and they have little enough mother-wit to criticize that source. Their papers, naturally, are dreary regurgitations of the positivist’s prejudices. My favorite essay of the lot commences boldly, “Pio Nono was a Bad Man…” Upon reading this line, the history-master resigns his post and takes up another sort of work—selling pneumatic trousers.

RK

About the Author

Russell Kirk

Featured Tags

The Survey-Course Boondoggle

At the beginning of Aldous Huxley’s Antic Hay, an unfortunate master at a boarding-school sets his charges to write an essay on Pius IX. All the boys know about Pio Nono is what they have gathered from a brief passage in a typical positivistic modern history textbook; and they have little enough mother-wit to criticize that source. Their papers, naturally, are dreary regurgitations of the positivist’s prejudices. My favorite essay of the lot commences boldly, “Pio Nono was a Bad Man…” Upon reading this line, the history-master resigns his post and takes up another sort of work—selling pneumatic trousers.