Word: hirsch
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Just ask E.D. Hirsch, whose educational philosophy mirrors Bacon's conclusion. Hirsch, an English professor at the University of Virginia, has enlisted the assistance of Joseph F. Kett and James Trefil to save our nation from cultural stagnation, assembling The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, a collection of specific knowledge of, according to the weighty hardcover's bold subtitle, "What Every American Needs to Know." But there is no power in this book's knowledge...
...Hirsch's explanation of the "theory behind the dictionary," like the controversial educational absolutism of Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, justifies his imposition of a cultural curriculum on all Americans by staking a populist claim to universal education and patriotism. To Hirsch, it is not enough that all children learn how to read; he believes true functional literacy requires a particular back-ground of factual information, which he proceeds to outline in his 600-page, 23-chapter tome. Despite his protestations against labels of academic elitism, however, his arguments are hardly geared to the masses...
...compute. Under a recent contract between the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. prison system, 45 inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Lexington, Ky., were set to work entering data from thousands of applications for FHA insurance into a computer. But Beverly Hirsch, 36, who is serving a 40-year sentence for credit-card and check fraud, was surprised to see that some forms carried not only information on applicants' income and debts, but their bank-account and credit-card numbers as well. "The information they were giving me in here was what I worked...
...repartee, which is rapid even for the British stage. Indeed, a quick pace seems to pervade the characters' every action. Elizabeth Humphrey as Mrs. Condomine affects a no-nonsense, secretarial air that perfectly fits, as her husband would say, her "glacial nature." As Humphrey's high strung counterpart, Peter Hirsch also seems to have had one too many cups of Sanka before the performance. This freneticism however, appears to be appropriate to Charles' character...
...Hirsch's Charles epitomizes the dilemma of having too much of a good thing. Bigamy normally isn't considered a funny topic. Yet the way Hirsch manages to deal with his world as it falls around his knees is funny. The simper on his face expresses the utter absurdity of his situation. As he tries to explain to Ruth: "Why should having a cheese thing after lunch make me see my deceased wife after dinner...