I call therefore a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.
- John Milton
On Wednesday nights an English literature course, taught by a wise and learned man, meets in the hydraulics lab at Angelina College’s Jasper campus. This placement is not an accident; this is because all the other rooms were already booked for classes in nursing, criminal justice, mathematics (shudder!), art, music, engineering, physics, chemistry, and other intellectual disciplines. Angelina College may never be another Oxford University (which, given the decaying intellectual climate of modern England, is probably just as well), but her graduates are grounded in both conceptual thinking and pragmatic applications of thought.
No, it’s not all Benthamitism and Utilitarianism at Angelina; a human being, before all, is far more than an economic unit. A whiff of hydraulic fluid quite enhances the study of literature, though, and literature is a reflection on and a celebration of life. The 6th century Rule of Saint Benedict requires that a monastic’s life be one of study, physical labor, and prayer, and this is a good model for anyone who wants a life beyond the dreariness of a no-hope-of-promotion job and the even drearier vapidity of passive entertainment as programmed by our would-be masters along the New York – Los Angeles axis.
Because in a small school the hard sciences and the fuzzy studies share the space, the learned English instructor must scribble on the board his by-night brilliant notes on Chaucer among the by-day trails of scientific formulae headed by the stern injunction “DO NOT ERASE.” The result is somehow quite pleasing aesthetically. As an English major might say, “Look at all the pretty number-squiggly-thingies!”
But now consider the following, part of an assignment in trouble-shooting some sort of control device for some sort of hydraulics device found in the classroom among the wires and switches and computers and machinery: “This assignment is intended to refresh your ability to program the PLC and make external connections. Remember that the 24Vdc used for the PLC inputs will not be used to power the outputs or any of the output devices.”
Oh, yeah, and some people say that iambic pentameter is hard.
Another part of the assignment reads: “If the red lamps are selected, the two lamps will alternate, one on while the other is off at the selected flash rate. The same is true of the other colors: yellow, green, and blue.”
And the art major says “Oooooh! Look at the pretty lights!”
Further: “Use your voltmeter and continuity meter to find the error. Avoid trying to locate the problem by touching the wires or by trial and error. At this point you should know what voltages to expect at various points in the circuit.”
You know, even a wheezy old English teacher can figure out that a fellow who has to be reminded not to try to identify a problem by touching live electrical wires probably belongs in the Senate and should kept away from sharp objects.
When you walk down the hallways of Angelina you will pass by the dangling skeleton in a nursing lab, math formulae in the next room, and of course the gadgetry in the dear old hydraulics lab (kinda makes you want to sing “Gaudeamus Igitur,” huh?). The eager and focused students, most of them not young at all, who are going to help make our county prosper enjoy the opportunity to observe, and thus honor, the disciplines of others, and when they someday run their own businesses or work their ways up in the large companies and in county government, their mutual respect and work ethic are going to make life better for us all.
Learning is good.
And the flashing red, green, and yellow lights sure are pretty.
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