If they read books they wouldn’t need me

Omar F. Najjarine
Aug 31, 2018 · 1 min read

Dr. Johnson (1791):

“People have now-a-days got a strange opinion that everything should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chemistry by lectures: — You might teach the making of shoes by lectures!”

Davenport (2006):

“What’s wrong with higher education is precisely classes. There shouldn’t be any. Gutenberg obsoleted the class at one sweep. Nobody noticed. My problem is that my students seem to enjoy — or tolerate — my lecturing about books, but they won’t READ them. If they read books they wouldn’t need me, though if they wanted to understand the books better, I could help them, and if they wanted to write books of their own, I could help them.”

Omar F. Najjarine

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Reader in classical literature and philosophical theology