The Gadfly 04 !"#$%&'()*)+$,-$.,,/01! "#$%&'%()!*! +,-!./012)!3/44%5% W Sam Weinberg A’14 hen I was visiting Annapolis this summer, I had lunch cup or a pack of cigarettes brings to mind the damage that with a former tutor of mine, and we discussed the Johnnies can inflict on their books.” Waller discusses the probroader future of liberal education, outside St. John’s College. cess of restoring books—an important enterprise at a school What will the future of the Great Books be, we wondered, in that cares so much about these artifacts, however much we the face of phenomena like iTunes University, where millions may neglect their structural integrity, like Ms. Meade and her of people can stream a computer programming class from copy of Paradise Lost. Stanford? Our way of doing things is I admit that my argument is at odds with current popular trends. largely sentimental I, and many The technology is not intrinsically At St. John’s we frequently live other Johnnies, love the “peculiar harmful—one could prefer that way anachronistically. Obviously our of reading over paper and ink—but it sense of community” that we get by campus has its contingent of iPhone seeing our friends walking around seems to conflict with our particular and laptop users, and students with with Apollonius tucked under their type of community. Books are ubiqui- arms, underlining passages from headphones in their ears as they tous here because Johnnies still value Theatetus, turning the crinkly pages walk to class. I belong to all those groups, and I do not think any of of a book. In the face of a growing the book as a sacred object; we apthose things are wholly bad, though preciate the sensory experience that number of institutions turning to they may prevent some potential online education, and people turncomes with reading a bound book. conversations on the Quad. ing to iPads and Kindles for their In fact, the only detrimental technology that I have seen reading needs, books deserve a holdout, a place where their inching its way onto campus is the electronic reader. The existence is not threatened by these very temporal technolotechnology is not intrinsically harmful—one could prefer that gies. While Ms. Meade’s copy of Paradise Lost might be fallway of reading over paper and ink—but it seems to conflict ing apart before her eyes, at least she can nostalgically look with our particular type of community. Books are ubiquitous through—and perhaps laugh at—her marginalia, and recall her here because Johnnies still value the book as a sacred object; hours staying up in the library slaving over that copy of Milwe appreciate the sensory experience that comes with reading ton. That will not be the case for those of us who opt to employ a bound book. an e-reader for the purposes of St. John’s. The technology will In the Fall 2010 issue of The College, St. John’s’ alumni mag- be replaced shortly, and they will be left with nothing but the azine, Melissa Meade, A’86, fervently argues for the validity dissatisfaction that their convenience was for naught. ! of e-readers at St. John’s. Meade claims that there are good translations available on the Amazon Kindle store (though she cites only poetry) and that as long as these e-reader texts have the line numbers we so often need, then we should embrace them. She sayss that her old, worn-out edition of Paradise Lost ! Painter Bob from 1985 contains “awful paper, lousy printing, [and] undeci!"#$%$&''()%(&*)%+#,'%$-,,'./$%0.'*,%&*10 pherable notes (one of the very few times I ever wrote in the 2*$%&'0%+"#$%,#10%+3%*1%*-4-$+%*5*6'1#147 margins).” But it makes sense that her paperback copy from 8"'.'%*%9-.1#14%0'$#.'7%:10$%#+$%)'*.1#14%+3%6135; 25 years ago is in disarray: Nobody denies that a poorly bound 235%+"'%"'&&7%#1%*%('.$317%5"3%<&*#,$%+3%6135%13+"#147 book will crumble. But almost to her argument’s detriment, =*1%'*<"%53.0%$'',%$3%<31$+*1+7%*10%+'',#14%5#+"%+.-+"> she then praises her “six-volume complete works of Milton, ?10%"357%<*1%+"'%$+-0'1+7%+"*+%@%135%"*A'%9'<3,' bound in black Moroccan leather, published in London, 1801.” ?0,#+%+3%+"'%+.-+"%3B%+"'%0'*B%9 %*10%0-,9 Her six-volume Milton set from two centuries ago is still C'+7%$+#&&%9'%-1B'++'.'0%B.3,%&#B'$%$+#D#14%B'*.>% around, since it has been treated well. And it is special to her. !"*+%#1%+'10#14%+"'%,#10%+3%*%$'&B%$'*.<"#14%)'*. In the same issue, Greenfield Library’s catalogue librarian, E#4"+%+34'+"'.%5'%.#$'%#1%+"#$%53.&0%3B%#0'*$>% Michael Waller, offers a counter-argument, citing a scene faF#6'%A#$#31$7%3B%+"3-4"+$7%.'D'<+'0%+".3-4"%,#..3.$ miliar to most: “A few days before St. John’s’ fall semester beG*<6%31%3-.$'&A'$7%+3%39$'.A'7%"35%5'%<"*14' gins, many of us notice the copies of Don Quixote or War and H3.%9'++'.7%3.%53.$'7%#1%+"#$%&*93.%3B%&3A'III Peace on the tables of downtown Annapolis coffee shops or 8#&&%@%4#A'%#+%,)%9'$+7%+#&&%'*<"%+#'7%B3.,$%*%9310 apartment stoops. While this sight fosters a peculiar sense of J#4"+%"'.'%31%'*.+"7%*10%('."*($7%5'&&III9')310III community, seeing these great books held open with a heavy “ 2"3$-,4$),$/',56