Books, Arts & Manners: The Facts, Ma’am, Just the Facts

Challenges to the Humanities, edited by Chester Finn, Diane Ravitch, and P. Holley Roberts, with an epilogue by William J. Bennett (Holmes & Meier, 222 pp., $25.50)

Most academic disciplines were born as philosophy and now seem to be marching toward physics. The humanities are the disciplines that have been left behind by the exodus to number crunching, hypothesis testing, and disk driving. The humanities emphasize the old: old methods, old books, old ideas, or—as history—old events. They are being de-emphasized in schools by educators who want to keep up with the new. This collection of essays is meant to justify these hoary studies to the modern world. The essays are heartfelt, but vague. The authors are certain that the humanities are still crucial, but they don’t seem to know why.

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David Brooks

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Challenges to the Humanities, edited by Chester Finn, Diane Ravitch, and P. Holley Roberts, with an epilogue by William J. Bennett (Holmes & Meier, 222 pp., $25.50)

Most academic disciplines were born as philosophy and now seem to be marching toward physics. The humanities are the disciplines that have been left behind by the exodus to number crunching, hypothesis testing, and disk driving. The humanities emphasize the old: old methods, old books, old ideas, or—as history—old events. They are being de-emphasized in schools by educators who want to keep up with the new. This collection of essays is meant to justify these hoary studies to the modern world. The essays are heartfelt, but vague. The authors are certain that the humanities are still crucial, but they don’t seem to know why.