FINDING OUR WORDS: Words That Made America
FINDING OUR WORDS: Words That Made America is a collection of some of the most inspiring words spoken by American leaders since our founding, with every speech launched with a prefacing essay by Tracy Lee Simmons, acclaimed journalist and author of Climbing Parnassus, a popular case for classical education in America. In the essays, Simmons shows how each speech fits into the broad mosaic of the American story. Commerce with these words offers us one path back to citizenship, decency, and good sense.
FOR ALL AGES: Finding Our Words: Words that Made America is for advanced readers to enjoy in leisure learning and for education at all levels. The book may be used exclusively or in conjunction with other works for the study of language arts, U.S. history, civics, statesmanship, and elocution. Included is a "Letter to the Reader" by Mount Titano Media founder Allison Ellis, which offers guidance for reading this and all great books with students at any age.
Why Mount Titano Media?
-
HISTORICAL
Jewels That Sparkle For Ever
Of Horace’s work The Princess, Alfred, Lord Tennyson writes: “Jewels five-words long, that on the stretched forefinger of all Time / Sparkle for ever.”
The pen is mightier than the sword, and great words are a treasure more precious than diamonds and pearls. Collections of the greatest words of Western Civilization are our rich inheritance, and we have only to open the right books to claim it.
-
ORDERED
Order versus Discontinuity
In his work, Teaching and Research in History Today, Jacques Barzun describes lectures on history delivered before World War II, writing: “They might be dull or brilliant in diction and delivery, but they imparted facts in organized form.” Modern classes and textbooks are too often a mass of dryasdust discontinuity. Children & adults learn best, not with jumbled collections of facts & uninformed discourse, but rather through fine storytelling comprised of sound materials and brilliant diction—all well-ordered.
-
BEAUTIFUL
Well-ordered Beauty
In Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1818 translation of The Symposium written in 385-370 BC, Plato instructs, "For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms…out of that he should create fair thoughts.” Constant engagement with well-ordered beauty begets well-ordered beauty.
