Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education [Paperback]

David V. Hicks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 1999

A reissue of a classic text, Norms and Nobility is a provocative reappraisal of classical education that offers a workable program for contemporary school reform. David Hicks contends that the classical tradition promotes a spirit of inquiry that is concerned with the development of style and conscience, which makes it an effective and meaningful form of education. Dismissing notions that classical education is elitist and irrelevant, Hicks argues that the classical tradition can meet the needs of our increasingly technological society as well as serve as a feasible model for mass education.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David V. Hicks is President of the Darlington School in Rome, Ga.

Product Details

• Paperback: 182 pages
• Publisher: University Press Of America (September 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761814671
• ISBN-13: 978-0761814672
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #561,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classical Education Can Improve Modern Education!, July 20, 2002

By 

Harry Lewis (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education (Paperback)

I've owned this book since it was first published. I've also had the honor of meeting its author, who has followed the precepts he espouses throughout his life.

That life hasn't always been easy. Despite the harsh setbacks he has been dealt, David V. Hicks has modeled a life that champions valor and virtue, words that almost have disappeared from our civic discourse.

For parents and pupils alike, the question Hicks poses is fundamental: what is the chief purpose of education? Is it merely to build a skill set for a technological age, ignoring issues of honesty, integrity, courage, honor, duty, commitment, and personal sacrifice for the good of the larger community? Or do those fundamental virtues (an old-fashioned perspective, but a perspective central in the classical world) still have importance to modern education?

Bill Bennett has explored this territory, but Hicks was there first. For David V. Hicks, education always has been about paiedea, modeling the classical virtues both in the persons of the teachers and in the materials selected for instruction so as to teach them to pupils. And Hicks argues that stories about heroism, valor, and self-sacrifice are more compelling to pupils than "Dick, Jane, and Spot" in any event. So character-based education is inherently more interesting, and more effective, than more conventional "modern" fare in any event.

Hicks's careful scholarship teaches both the principles of classical (character-building) education, and offers a strategy for integrating the best aspects of that educational philosophy into the modern classroom.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon remind us that our children will need more than familiarity with technology to prevail in this new type of warfare. They will need all the courage, tenacity, and valor they can learn, both in school, from their parents and other role models, and from their brothers and sisters in this struggle. These new "fair and foul" times demand revival of our ancient virtue and ancient valor.

Although the words "virtue" and "valor" almost have vanished from our collective vocabularies, we defeated the Nazis and fascists with these qualities of character. In this dangerous new age, our children will require more than technical skills. We must do what we can to teach them the classical virtues at the foundation of our civilization. Hicks's book is the classic primer in this important subject.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So Glad to See This Back in Print, July 19, 2004

By 

Trent Dougherty "Socratic" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education (Paperback)

Having taught in two classical high schools (ACCS charter members), two homeschool consoria, a Big 12 university, and homeschooling my own kids I can say that the approach described by Hicks is the best. Now I'm a dedicated Adlerian (Mortimer, not Alfred) and I loves me my Great Books--so does Hicks, and he lays out his syllabus in great detail in this book. But he goes further in addressing the education of the *character* of students and--which is helpful for use in a traditional school setting--he focuses on the necessity of the right kind of *teachers*. The curriculum is actually less important than the teacher. Give a dunce of a teacher the best curriculum in the world and they'll make it boring. Give a great teacher the worst textbook in the world and they'll teach you all kinds of things. Get the curriculum in place, but for the love of God get some teachers that know what to do with it and don't churn out kids who can ace a classics exam, but aren't humble and courageous. Don't settle for anything less than the best of both worlds. If you dig that, you'll dig this book!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on education and not just for professionals, June 12, 2011

By 

Leslie M. (Falcon, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education (Paperback)

The other reviewers have given some excellent information about this book and its author, but they might give you the impression that this book is for the professional teacher in an institutional setting. That would be incorrect. I'm a homeschooling mom with no professional educational training, and this is the best book on education that I've read. Many homeschoolers have read Charlotte Mason (and he references her work in the bibliography), but Hicks gave me a better understanding of what CM was teaching. His work is also liberating. Classical education isn't a list of books to be read, it isn't stages of child development (ala Sayers) and it isn't tacking on Latin, Logic and Rhetoric classes to an already loaded schedule. The purpose of education is to lead children to be adults and to mold their character. The teacher's character and his or her method matters more than the content of the curriculum.

Hicks also makes a strong argument for classical education for everyone, not just for an elite highly intellectual group of students as one reviewer implied. All forms of government have a potential toward tyrrany, and classical education teaches the student in a democracy: 1)the balance between his obligations to society, state and Church and his need for them 2) to discriminate and judge soundly, 3) that freedom is good to the degree that it allows all the ability to develop their potential, but that freedom for its own sake leads to tyrrany, 4)to be more eager to fulfill their obligations than to demand their rights (an excess of democratic society that needs tempering.)

I reread this book every summer to refresh and refocus on my goals, and to be reminded of why I do this in the first place. I am following in the old paths, the proven paths. This is the only book on education that I recommend to homeschoolers anymore.