Customer Reviews

Schola Illustris: The Roxbury Latin School 1645-1995

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book changed my life forever. Jarvis' history is so delightfully tactful, so eloquently smooth that I simply could not put this book down. Jarvis writes with a certain "je ne sais quoi" that a reader MUST experience on his/her own. The obviously blessed children who are chosen to enter this school must all be rewarded amply.

Jarvis has done it again! This wonderful epic of a novel, about a school passing the test of time and becoming the oldest school in continuous existance in North America. By passing this test of time The Roxbury Latin School has established itself as one of the Best schools in the United States of America.

I was attracted by the "Early Colonial History - how educational institutions were formed and financed" aspect of the book, and found it to be a great resource in that sense.

Tony Jarvis's heavyhanded attempt to rewrite history offended this reader, as I saw right through his transparent praisings of John Eliot. The man who taught the Algonquin Indians to "walk the narrow way" (i.e. at gunpoint) is lauded as an apostle instead of being reprimanded for virtual cultural genocide...Although this book offended me as a Native American, I was quite impressed by Jarvis's frequent quotations from British literary giants and his references to his boyhood days in rural Ohio...that egg-salad sandwich story really moved me...Stop, Look, and Listen...Tony really brings it home when he anglicizes words, by spelling them in the Queen's English (e.g. Favourite, colour)...Overall, not a bad read, just a little pompous.