Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
They. Learned. To. Code.
14-year-old boy identified as victim in University of New Mexico dorm shooting
I call, therefore, a complete and generous education, that which fits a man to perform, justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war.
-John Milton, “Of Education,” 1644
Learn. To. Code. is the fashionable chant
Staccato’d in every callow response
Make. America. Great. through cliché’ and cant
To force a lath-and-plaster renaissance
The Great Conversation of books and thoughts
The Great Dialectic of civilization
Are now toys, guns, and video games, all for nought
Ferality within a generation
Within a generation, within a blink
They. Learned. To. Code.
They did not learn to think
