{"id":6883,"date":"2014-11-22T09:48:55","date_gmt":"2014-11-22T16:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6883"},"modified":"2014-11-22T09:49:33","modified_gmt":"2014-11-22T16:49:33","slug":"get-the-harvard-classics-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6883","title":{"rendered":"Get the Harvard Classics, Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Harvard Classics, <\/em>also known as\u00a0 “Dr. Eliot’s\/The Five Foot Shelf of Books,”\u00a0 are available as a free download.<\/a><\/p>\n

From a time when university presidents actually cared what people read, as opposed to just the size of their donations:<\/p>\n

What does the massive collection preserve? For one thing . . .\u00a0 it\u2019s \u201ca record of what President Eliot\u2019s<\/a> America, and his Harvard, thought best in their own heritage.\u201d Eliot\u2019s intentions for his work differed somewhat from those of his English peers. Rather than simply curating for posterity \u201cthe best that has been thought and said\u201d (in the words of Matthew Arnold<\/a>), Eliot meant his anthology as a \u201cportable university\u201d\u2014a pragmatic set of tools, to be sure, and also, of course, a product. He suggested that the full set of texts might be divided into a set of six courses on such conservative themes as \u201cThe History of Civilization\u201d and \u201cReligion and Philosophy,\u201d and yet, writes Kirsch, \u201cin a more profound sense, the lesson taught by the Harvard Classics<\/em> is \u2018Progress.\u2019\u201d \u201cEliot\u2019s [1910] introduction expresses complete faith in the \u2018intermittent and irregular progress from barbarism to civilization.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These books were in the public library of the Colorado town where I went to most of high school. The one that I checked out over and over, of course, was the mythology volume: Beowulf<\/a>, The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel<\/a><\/em> \u2014 tales like that. Over and over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Harvard Classics, also known as\u00a0 “Dr. Eliot’s\/The Five Foot Shelf of Books,”\u00a0 are available as a free download. From a time when university presidents actually cared what people read, as opposed to just the size of their donations: What does the massive collection preserve? For one thing . . .\u00a0 it\u2019s \u201ca record of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-6883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1N1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7032,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7032","url_meta":{"origin":6883,"position":0},"title":"The Scholar’s Mistress: The Speckled Bird","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"As an English major at Reed College, I experienced a semester-long combined seminar on William Butler Yeats and T. S. Eliot. To be honest, I probably liked Eliot's poetry more, and I wrote a just-slightly-tongue-in-cheek paper on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, although I did not have the chops\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"California\"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=california"},"img":{"alt_text":"William Butler Years","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/young-yeats.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6248,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6248","url_meta":{"origin":6883,"position":1},"title":"New Poems by Sappho Discovered","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my fondest fantasies is that some archaeologist working in Greece or Italy will find a jar of scrolls that when read turn out to be the complete works of the poet Sappho \u2014 and just to continue the fantasy, packed in with them are the commentaries of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2697,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2697","url_meta":{"origin":6883,"position":2},"title":"Wikipedia and the Pagan Academics","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Last weekend Cara Schulz wrote a piece on the trouble some Pagan writers were having with Wikipedia. It started when people noticed some Pagan-related entries, such as \"Paganistan\" being flagged for deletion. Much editorial chat ensued. Brendan Cathbad Myers, author of The Other Side of Virtue and other books, saw\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":799,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=799","url_meta":{"origin":6883,"position":3},"title":"New Paganism is not Old Paganism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Mary Beard, noted Classics scholar from Cambridge University, writes that today's Greek Pagans are not practicing exactly what their Hellenic ancestors did.It isn\u2019t entirely clear what this group (\u201cEllenais\u201d) believes; but it is clear that, whatever they say, it bears very little relationship to ancient Greek religion. You can tell\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1043,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1043","url_meta":{"origin":6883,"position":4},"title":"Knee Deep in the Bloody Ford of History","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometime around age 15 I took home Vol. 49 of the Harvard Classics from the Fort Collins (Colo.) public library and read for the first time Beowulf and The Destruction of D\u00e1 Derga's Hostel. (The Ring saga is in there too, but I had already encountered it.)Beowulf is an understandable\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Celts\"","block_context":{"text":"Celts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=celts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":627,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=627","url_meta":{"origin":6883,"position":5},"title":"From Vinland to \"Celtic America\"\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"From Vinland to \"Celtic America\" (Part 4)Part 1, Part 2, Part 3Reading of Richard Nielsen's championing of the Kensington Runestone, I was reminded of another independent scholar of marginal archaeology--another engineer, coincidentally--the late Bill McGlone of La Junta, Colorado.McGlone in turn had been influenced by Barry Fell (1917-1994), a marine\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6883"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6886,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6883\/revisions\/6886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}