Category: Article

It may seem out of place to write about Beatrix Potter at a boys’ school; we associate her with the nursery or the Childrens’ Section at the library.  While we would be fortunate if we knew her there, it would be unfortunate if her influence and our knowledge of her extended no further.  She and her work are worth knowing, especially at a school such as The Heights, because they impart a love of nature and the proper relationship of man to the world around him that we would do…

At first glance, the only difference between the terms “free time” and “leisure” seems to be that the latter has a slight connotation of the hoity-toity. Characters from a British novel sit around and sip tea and converse inanely because they’ve nothing better to do or because the author is P.G. Wodehouse and he thinks it is hilarious. Other than that, both terms imply a potential to do something enjoyable that is not dictated by the necessities of the day. Enjoyable, obviously. Unhampered by practical necessities, because as need hampers,…

In Shakespeare’s Henry V, Gower warns Fluellen not to take the pretender Pistol for the true soldier: “Why, ‘tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then goes to the wars, to grace himself at his return into London under the form of a soldier.[…] But you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or else you may be marvelously mistook.” (3.6.62-74) I make no claim to aspire to be Pistol; but after some 25 years in the friendly battles of the high-school classroom, I try…

Praising St. Thomas More for his contributions to The Heights School is something akin to praising a single link in the strongest of chains, or a single pearl among many in a beautiful necklace. In one sense, we are given the same task as St. Thomas: we are charged with the preservation and propagation of truth, prudence, and wisdom for the sake of ourselves, our children, our country, our culture, our Church, and our God. Thomas More completed the task with a high degree of human and divine excellence: our…

Reclaiming Toughness A good man must be tough. In recent years, or probably decades now, the virtue of manly ‘toughness’ has come under heavy fire. Whether it come from news or entertainment media or national health and professional organizations, there are forces working to dramatically alter, if not outright destroy this foundational principle of authentic masculinity. Readers and listeners of The Forum are likely well aware of this crisis and can point out numerous instances of this undermining going on in our culture. You may have even noticed that the…

In a scene from Jane Austen’s classic novel Sense and Sensibility, a young lady is playing the piano and singing. All in the room praise and applaud her. All, that is, except one man. As Austen writes, “He paid her only the compliment of attention” (Ch. 7).  That seems a fitting place to begin an essay on manners. Are Manners Fake? Some people don’t believe in manners. They say manners “try to make me into someone I’m not.” They sing, “I gotta be me.” Well, the point of manners is…

Lacrosse sticks, baseball mitts, and footballs are the first blossoms of spring at The Heights. They pop up long before the flowers, as the boys prepare for a season of activity. Each boy bears the tools of his art; some carry bags as big as themselves across the parking lot each morning. In the fall, classes stopped for a full day of flag football. On clan days, the boys engage in the School’s home-grown sports like thud and bull in-the-ring. All for sport. It is appropriate that sport has such…

Poetry is both useful and useless. To put it in Horace’s Latin, poetry is both dulce et utile. To put in Boccaccio’s Italian, by reading good literature we may derive both diletto and utile consiglio. To put it in my English, poetry is both good in itself and useful for a life of virtue. As such, poetry is quintessentially human, for as Chesterton once remarked, one of the first practical needs of man is for something beyond what is merely practical. Perhaps the best way to capture the double nature of poetry in a single word is to say that reading—and…

Ironically, I don’t believe my love for the art of writing started with books. The very first poem I remember reading was Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” in sixth grade.  What clicked for me, at least at first, was how that poem in my elementary school anthology was printed over a watercolor of a snow-filled forest. Growing up in New England, I was quite familiar with such scenes. The luminous blue glow of snow by starlight caught my imagination, opened wide the door of Frost’s poem, and…

Trees. We generally drive past them and are sometimes glad when they shade the setting sun from coming straight into our eyes. We may love the leaves when they’re on their trees and shun them as they litter our lawns. The fall, however, provides an opportunity each year for us to examine them more closely. To see the tulip poplar leaf up close rather than 60 feet above us on its branch, to watch them reveal their true colors as the days shorten, the nights cool, and the chlorophyll cover…