A classical and a mythological education are both important and missing today. I wrote recently:
> A mythological education is distinct from the common school subjects. It builds in the mind intuition for second-order effects, for the first lesson a child learns from one hundred stories is that every thing you do will have unintended consequences, something years of schoolwork fails to teach. Myths give us shared art and common culture—a set of characters with which we can play in and enjoy together. In any culture rich with myths, their vocabulary is enlarged far beyond words, to allegories and metaphors. The quality of thought follows.
(To this end I've been writing a book of fables, mostly for my children, but serializing them by newsletter right now, which is turning out more popular than I expected.)
I think this is very insightful, and is touched on quite a bit in Harari's Sapiens, which is alluded to in a sibling to parent post, which also mentions Jefferson: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24364993
I picked up an old copy of Grimm's Tales on a whim and read some every now and then before bedtime. Also Aesop's fables just to refresh my memory of them. I enjoy them both and think it's a worthwhile format.
This has been a discussion for some time with my friends, the utility of religion in humanity for social purposes and communications purposes.
I hadn't thought much of the importance of "studying the classics" to the ends of teaching cultural vocabulary, but I do think critical thinking and logic should be core subjects like math and reading.
> Myths give us shared art and common culture—a set of characters with which we can play in and enjoy together. In any culture rich with myths, their vocabulary is enlarged far beyond words, to allegories and metaphors.
> A mythological education is distinct from the common school subjects. It builds in the mind intuition for second-order effects, for the first lesson a child learns from one hundred stories is that every thing you do will have unintended consequences, something years of schoolwork fails to teach. Myths give us shared art and common culture—a set of characters with which we can play in and enjoy together. In any culture rich with myths, their vocabulary is enlarged far beyond words, to allegories and metaphors. The quality of thought follows.
(To this end I've been writing a book of fables, mostly for my children, but serializing them by newsletter right now, which is turning out more popular than I expected.)