Mute Inglorious Miltons

My title refers to the famous poem by Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, which is perhaps the finest tribute to the ordinary, uncelebrated people that make up most of every society. There is a contemporary echo in the Wall Street Journal this weekend in the form of a column by Peggy Noonan: Kids, Don’t Become Success Robots. It is likely behind the paywall, but you might be able to access it by googling the title. Here is a quote:

I came away from Tennessee Tech thinking what I always think when I see such schools: We’re going to be OK.

And now, because you’d be lost without it, my advice to students still considering college in the year 2019. Avoid elite universities if you can; they’re too often indoctrination mills anyway. Aim at smaller, second-tier colleges, places of low-key harmony, religiously affiliated when possible—and get a real education. Every school has a library. Every library has books. That’s what you need.

You’ll be with a better class of people—harder-working, less cynical, more earnest. First-generation college students who are excited to be there and committed to study. Immigrants who feel grateful to be there. Home-schooled kids with self-possession and dignity, who see the dignity in others.

Do not network. Make friends. Learn about the lives of others.

She is responding to the Ivy League admissions scandal that came out this week where dozens of people were indicted for fraudulently obtaining access to elite universities by paying remarkably large bribes. This is all about networking and getting valuable credentials: it is NOT about becoming educated. As she says, a lot of elite universities are "indoctrination mills." The very valuable point she makes is that a lot of smaller, lesser-known schools are emphatically not indoctrination mills but places where you can still get a good education.

I was reading a column in Canada's National Post on the admissions fraud where the writer, the usually reliable Colby Cosh, writes:

This all reflects on Canada in a complicated way. We congratulate ourselves as Canadians on not paying much attention to where grown men and women attended university. It matters within some professions — law or medicine or journalism — but only temporarily, upon entry, even in those fields. We just don’t have socially dominant or “elite” institutions of higher education, and pride ourselves on not wanting them.

This is, at best, a half truth. Yes, Canadians are not nearly as obsessed with elite credentials as Americans seem to be, but the idea that Canada does not have elite institutions is hilariously wrong. Two come instantly to mind: Upper Canada College and McGill University. The reason Canada tries to ignore these schools is likely because we are embarrassed by things like wide differences in quality and prefer to not acknowledge them. Evidence? Well, you might just have a look at the differences between the classical studies program at McGill and at the University of Victoria, for example. For a musical example, consider that candidates for graduate degrees in performance at the University of Victoria never are failed in their graduating recitals while the failure rate at McGill while I was there was about 50%. No, it is not that McGill had less able players. It is that you are not going to get that degree unless you give a very good recital.

I've talked about how I am impressed that McGill, among other places, has not become an indoctrination mill, but continues to preserve high standards of academic quality. All we seem to read about in the mass media is about those places where the mob has taken over or where everything is doctrine and propaganda. But I suspect that a great deal of scholarship remains of admirable high quality.

For example, I just got a book this week that illustrates this. The publisher is the venerable Oxford University Press.

I miss the older royal blue covers with gold letters, but in every other aspect this is up to Oxford's high standards. Thanks, by the way, to a commentator who recommended this book a while back. It is a fine piece of scholarship, looking at the subgenre of the minor key symphony that began in the 1760s and extended to the great 40th Symphony of Mozart written in 1788. The author delves into the whole context of the minor key symphony in examples written not only by Haydn and Mozart, but also by lesser-known composers of the time like Wagenseil, Gassmann and Vanhal and discusses such intriguing features as the mediant tutti, the extent of contrapuntal treatment and their distinctive stormy energy. One index to the kind of discussion is the other authors quoted who include William Caplin, my theory professor at McGill and author of an excellent book on formal function, as well as Charles Rosen and others of their level. Read this to learn the deficiency of referring to this repertoire with the phrase stolen from literature: Sturm und Drang!

Not so mute, but certainly Miltonic.

Our envoi really has to be Haydn's first symphony in this subgenre, the Symphony No. 39 in G minor, composed in 1765.