Feature
Listening Up
Historical Truth, Beguiling Stories & Three Kinds of Hearers by Anthony Esolen
There once was a man.
Almost thirty years ago, the students at Alfred University, named for its small town of Alfred, New York, expressed their concern that a statue of King Alfred the Great, standing on campus, might be the wrong choice for a logo to advertise the school. One female student, a junior in English, noted: "If he was living in this day, would he endorse the education of women and minorities? Back then, education was just for the aristocratic males."
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Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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