Acknowledging Giants to Stand on Their Shoulders | Tracy Lee Simmons

On this episode of Anchored, Soren is joined by Tracy Lee Simmons, journalist and author of books such as Climbing Parnassus and his most recent release On Being Civilized. The two discuss the popularity of and inspiration behind Climbing Parnassus as well as how it would be received had it been released today. They also discuss the importance of intellectual humility in approaching the humanities and the merits of starting with facts, names, and dates as stepping stones to understanding how a mind works. Finally, the two talk about his recent video with Memoria Press in connection to the difficulties of defining classical education. 

Transcript

Soren Schwab (CLT) (00:00.987)
Welcome back to the Anchored Podcast, the official podcast of the Classic Learning Test. My name is Soren Schwab, VP of Partnerships here at CLT, and today we're joined by Tracy Lee Simmons. Tracy Lee Simmons is a writer and a journalist who has written widely for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Sun, the Weekly Standard, New Criterion, Crisis, along with other newspapers and magazines, including the Classical Teacher Magazine. He served as Associate Editor.

for national review under William F. Buckley Jr. and is the author of Climbing Parnassus, a best -selling case for classical education in America that won a choice award for outstanding academic title in 2002. He holds a master's degree in classics from Oxford and was the founding director of the Dow Program in American journalism at Hillsdale College. He was also the recipient of the 2005 prestigious Paideia Prize award given by the Searcy Institute.

for lifetime contribution to classical education. And it is such an honor to have him on the show today. Tracy, welcome.

tracy simmons (01:08.354)
So it's good to see you, Sauron. Thank you.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (01:10.618)
Absolutely. I'm excited for this conversation. But as we always do, we're going to start the Anchored podcast by talking about our guests' own educational background. Now, I know you don't like talking about yourself, but share a little bit about your own academic journey. What kind of schools did you attend? Were you classically trained, even K -12, or did that begin in your undergraduate and graduate years?

tracy simmons (01:34.402)
Well, it began much earlier than that. I started Latin early and then Greek soon after, but that was mainly on a teacher's recommendation and help. And so it wasn't actually a proper course. So I pretty much did that on my own and stayed pretty much on my own until I went to college and then did classics and history and philosophy.

and on through graduate school, which I did in the UK. So that's, and I did all of that, of course, because I was thinking about becoming a lawyer. So I thought that, and I didn't have to worry about being practical in classics because I was gonna go to law school. So no one worried about that. And then I decided not to do that and decided to become a writer instead.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (02:18.107)
Yeah.

tracy simmons (02:34.338)
So even though I've done some academia, I consider myself more of a writer because even when I was an undergraduate and a graduate student, my goal was really to get out and write. I thought that's what my talent set was. I didn't particularly want a life in the classroom, as nice as that sounded in some ways. But the odd thing is is that I eventually

Soren Schwab (CLT) (02:47.995)
Mm -hmm.

tracy simmons (03:03.458)
got back into the classroom, particularly at Hillsdale, but at some other places too. But my main work has been that of a writer and a journalist.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (03:16.187)
Right and and uh and a defender. Um, I think that's what you are are known for a defender of many things and and I'm sure a lot of our listeners that are immersed in this classical education tradition Have heard your name know about you know of you from a book that i'm holding in my hand for those of you who are watching the video climbing parnasus, um, which is uh, Almost like a classical education bible. I would say without being sacrilegious a new apologia for greek

and Latin, what prompted you to write this book and what was its initial and has been its reception over the years?

tracy simmons (03:56.578)
Well, the direct cause was an encouragement from Bill Buckley, who was my boss and friend. We were actually sailing, and we were crossing Long Island Sound. And we were talking about all of this, which was the substance of the book. And it was much on my mind. I must have been working on an article. And he said, after.

You know, after a long conversation, once we were anchored and after probably the second scotch, he said, well, why don't you write this up, make it a book. And here's the deal, you write the book, I'll write the forward, which I thought was a disproportionate deal, but I went ahead and wrote it anyway. But another answer to your good question as to why I wrote it, and I still come back to this, is I wrote it because no one else did.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (04:42.395)
I'm not gonna...

tracy simmons (04:55.906)
I was waiting in a sense for some great classical scholar to come along and write something such as R .W. Livingston did 100 years ago, which we can talk about later. But no one did. And I thought, well, I did classics. So I guess that's credential of a kind. But also I was a writer, I was a journalist, and I wanted to write something for the general public. I didn't want to write something

for other classicists. I've never wanted to do that. They have their own clubs and that's fine. I wanted to write for the public. And so I sat down to write that. It came fairly quickly after a good deal of rereading some of the old sources. And I wanted to write something fresh.

And I wanted to be a little direct in it. And I thought I could do that because I thought there would be about 40 people who would read it, probably including family. And so I didn't have to be too diplomatic. So I wrote a fairly non -diplomatic book where I tried to tell some truths as I saw them. And of course, this book came out 20 years ago. So.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (05:59.675)
Yeah.

tracy simmons (06:18.85)
There were certain things I'd probably say a little differently now. But you ask about its reception, it got very lucky when it first came out. Washington Post gave it an immediate review. And Washington Times and the major magazines that I've written for, Weekly Standard, National Review, they all had reviews.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (06:28.987)
Mm -hmm.

tracy simmons (06:46.146)
Um, and then I did a round of radio shows, which was what you did before podcasts came along. And, um, and, and so, um, it's not a tribute necessarily to the quality of the book, but it got a nice launch, which, uh, a lot of such books do not get. One other thing is that when I was shopping around the idea, um, you mentioned that the, uh, subtitle is a new.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (06:51.515)
Right. All right.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (07:01.115)
Mm -hmm.

tracy simmons (07:16.162)
Apologia for Greek and Latin. I think it was one major publisher. It might have been Simon and Schuster or perhaps HarperCollins. They were somewhat interested in the idea, but one editor told me that under no circumstances could the words Greek and Latin appear on the cover of the book, because that would be a turnoff to too many people. And, you know, had it...

Had I believed that that would have been the only problem, I probably would have gone with it. But again, I wanted to simply write about what I wanted to write about. I didn't want to write a manifesto for classical education. I didn't feel qualified to do that. Take somebody much smarter than I am to make the full case for it. I just wanted to make a case for learning the languages themselves, but also the... And there's no way to do that without talking about the...

Soren Schwab (CLT) (07:48.955)
Yeah.

tracy simmons (08:14.05)
cultural importance of those cultures.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (08:15.547)
Right. Yeah, yeah, it is and it is accessible. And so if folks that see this and maybe they don't have a background in Greek or Latin yet might be maybe intimidated, it is very accessible. Like you said, it is more written for the public, not just for the scholar. And it really stands. Right, right. You know, when I go to conferences and I talk to folks, it really has become and that's why I'm thinking the ongoing impact of the book, too, it

tracy simmons (08:33.57)
No, no, no knowledge is assumed.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (08:45.531)
it seems evergreen and along the lines of norms and nobility and the liberal arts tradition. There's several books that I think folks that are new to classical education are recommended and certainly Climbing Parnassus is one of them. Now, this is of course hypothetical, but I wonder if you publish this book this year, what the reception would be and, you know, in this...

very political climate where now even classical education is certainly politicized. If it would get the same reception as it does today, again, just a hypothesis, but I doubt it would. Would that be your opinion too or?

tracy simmons (09:28.226)
Well, going back to what I just said about the luck in early reviews.

National Review would review it, but the Washington Post would not review it. And some of the other major papers would not review it now. Remember, I mean, I've written for the Washington Post. I wrote a lot for the Washington Post, even for the New York Times. But I doubt I would be welcome at either place now, just because of the political climate. Now I've not tried to, and I've remained friends with some of the editors at these places. But...

Soren Schwab (CLT) (09:38.587)
Yeah. Right.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (09:55.003)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (10:03.707)
Mm -hmm.

tracy simmons (10:05.922)
It's a very different atmosphere 20 years later, quite fraught. And I think the book would have more trouble finding an audience now.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (10:17.883)
Right. Well, let's talk a little bit about, let's get a little bit into the nitty gritty here. What would you say is the difference between learning about our ancestors, like the Greeks and the Romans, and learning from them, learning from our ancestors? And is that something that students that are classically trained maybe are set apart from their non -classically trained peers?

tracy simmons (10:45.346)
Well, it comes down to intention. And this has been a theme of mine. The academic concentration has been, you're going to learn about the Greeks and the Romans. Of course, in a lot of places, you don't learn about them anymore. But say you do. Say you're at a fairly good school. You're going to learn about them, and then you'll be tested on them. And that's pretty much it. The whole idea of the humanities, if you remember why we call it

these studies, the humanities collectively, is they're telling us something about what it means to be human and what it has meant to be human. So when I read Shakespeare, I'm connecting to higher souls than mine. It's not just old language. These people are probably, well, first of all, the writer is smarter than I am. So I get to be the pupil. But I also get to...

enter the lives and the hearts and minds of very different sorts of people. The hope is that that will enhance my humanity too. So if you're going to learn about Homer, say, or Shakespeare, or Virgil, where do you start? Well, you tend to start with facts. And this is what can be tested. You start with those things that can be tested. And those are important things. Remember, we've gone through decades now of this idea of history.

as being denigrated as, oh, it's so much more than facts and dates and so forth. And I always give the David McCullough answer to that, which is history is about more than names and dates, but it's nothing less than names and dates. You have to start with that kind of material and then you move forward from it and you make that knowledge your own.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (12:25.691)
Mm -hmm.

tracy simmons (12:35.554)
And so the distinction in prepositions between learning about and learning from, they're not mutually exclusive, of course. If you're going to learn from Aristotle, you're going to be learning about him as well. But the intention, the purpose of reading him at all, say, the ethics, is to learn how that mind works and to try to connect with the insights that he rendered.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (12:49.179)
Mm -hmm.

tracy simmons (13:05.794)
It doesn't mean you're supposed to agree with them all, but you do start in a place of subservience. I had a friend who's a very good professor, and a student came up to him once and said, before he's writing his essays, he said, is it OK if we disagree with Aristotle in our essay?

And he had the perfect answer. He said, yes, it is OK to disagree with Aristotle. Just remember that it's Aristotle you're disagreeing with. And I think that's a good place to start, meaning that he probably has more insights than you do. So when you disagree, do so carefully, do so humbly, and always speak under correction. But of course, in the modern age, students are encouraged to just simply vomit forth their opinions.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (13:39.355)
Hahaha!

tracy simmons (14:02.178)
before those opinions have been properly formed or even fairly formed. And so they end up walking away, not only not knowing much, but thinking they do know a lot because some teachers have told them they know a lot of things. They've been certified, they've made a bunch of A's, so they think they're ready to enter the arena.

with any of these people. And most of us are not. I'm still not ready to do that. And so we can look at these old writers as people to learn from. And I think unless we return to that idea that that is the main reason we go to them, I think the humanities are going to continue to struggle. But if academics within, say teachers,

Soren Schwab (CLT) (14:37.659)
Right.

tracy simmons (15:00.834)
professors within say five years started teaching with that idea in mind, which is at the end of every lesson, end of every day. What have I learned from Aristotle? What have I learned from Jane Austen? What has she been able to tell me about human nature that I was not aware of or only vaguely aware of? And that's the thing that should go into at least your mental journal, not the fact that you know the dates of her birth and her death.

But once again, those aren't mutually exclusive. You start with facts, but then you go on to possess those facts in your own way.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (15:39.515)
Yeah, yeah, it's really, really interesting. And I guess the idea of standing on the shoulders of giants, right, it implies humbly acknowledging that they are giants. And it takes a certain intellectual humility that I'm not sure we're instilling in our students anymore. So.

tracy simmons (15:46.914)
Right.

tracy simmons (15:53.986)
Right.

tracy simmons (16:01.314)
Right, and I don't think there's any way to learn well if you don't start from a place of humility. I really don't, because it simply becomes an exercise in ego, and with an unformed ego at that. And look, we're all tempted to do that, I am too. We're all tempted to do it, but I think that's part of character formation.

you know, knowing when to stand down. And, you know, I'm not disagreeing with Aristotle at this place because I understand him. I may be disagreeing because I don't quite get his point. So instead of immediately saying, well, I think he's wrong here. Well, make sure you've done a lot of prep work before you come to that place.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (16:44.411)
Mm -hmm.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (16:48.571)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (16:56.059)
Yeah, I remember I used to, well, I studied more American literature in my college years and I was, you know, you put yourself in the camp of I'm an American lit guy and you know, Charles Dickens, I just don't like Charles Dickens. I just don't like Charles Dickens. It took me many, many years to realize that's a problem with me, not with Charles Dickens, right? I need to read him better and better understand him because like you said, folks much wiser than I am, smarter than I am have deemed him worthy and great.

tracy simmons (17:14.786)
Right. Right.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (17:24.699)
So the fact that I don't like him is actually my problem that I need to fix, but it took me a long time.

tracy simmons (17:27.138)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, that's a very good insight. One of the problems with many students, this has been true for a long time, is that they equate, I don't like this with, this is no good. I mean, it's quite possible not to like something and yet believe it's good. I don't care for the music of Rachmaninoff.

I never have. That's a problem with me. Why do I know that? How do I know that? Because so many people who know music better than I do think he's one of the greats. And I acknowledge him as one of the greats, technically and so forth. It's just that I don't particularly enjoy the music, but I've not shelved him forever. I'm always ready to listen to something again. And so even...

Soren Schwab (CLT) (18:23.931)
just to be reminded.

tracy simmons (18:25.41)
Even in middle age, you're allowed and you should be giving things second chances. So you'll find students saying, I heard one within the last year say something like, the great Gatsby's no good. Speaking of American literature, I don't know what to do with a comment like that. I think he was saying he didn't like

The novel, okay. I regret that because it's a great novel, but nonetheless, I think his soul was bent because he really believed that because he didn't like it, the book is not any good. And I don't know what kind of tunnel vision you have to have in order to come out in public and say something like that. So bless him, but I do hope he returns to it and maybe he will.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (19:24.891)
I think I've taught that student many, many times. And oftentimes, it was not even the reason was not even the book. The reason was the character of Gatsby. I just don't like the book because I don't like the character. And to get to the point, well, maybe that's what Fitzgerald intended. That's a whole other conversation. So.

tracy simmons (19:40.13)
Right.

tracy simmons (19:45.154)
Right, right, right. And of course, we bring different selves to things we read as we go through life. The self I would bring to, I've not read the book in 10 years or so, but the self I would bring to it now is different from the self I brought to it at the age of 20. So it's not exhausted after reading it once or twice.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (20:07.035)
very much so.

tracy simmons (20:12.706)
Now, I think C .S. Lewis used to say that you haven't read anything unless you've read it at least twice. Now, if people were to apply that to the books in their library, how many books have you actually read, meaning read more than once, people's libraries would become very small. Then again, some people would still have considerable libraries. But I'm a great advocate of returning to things.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (20:31.419)
very much.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (20:37.083)
Indeed.

tracy simmons (20:41.954)
that you've loved, but also returning to some things that you didn't quite get when you read them the first time.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (20:48.475)
Yeah. Let's switch gears a little bit and we're gonna put this in our show notes. Memoria Press has recently released a video featuring you. And it's, we talked a little bit in the pre -conversation of the podcast, just how, what a wonderful production it is, how well done the video is. And it's already made the rounds kind of in the classical circles. In the...

In the video, and we're going to talk about Sir Richard Livingston here in a second, but in the video, and I'm going to quote you, you noted that there was once a time when, quote, the words classical education did not need defining because everyone knew what a classical education was, end quote. How did this change so much? And again, I called you a defender, right? Defending classical education when maybe that, uh,

was not the case. So what do you think is the best way to educate people on this topic that has been, that seemingly has been lost, this treasure of classical education?

tracy simmons (21:55.266)
I'm not quite sure how to answer it. I like to think I'm a defender of all forms of classical education. But I think you were also getting at the idea of why has the definition changed? And there's one simple answer to that, which is that since the 1970s or 80s, we've seen the rise of the classical Christian movement, which is a very good movement.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (22:01.755)
Mm -hmm.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (22:08.827)
Mm -hmm.

tracy simmons (22:22.306)
And I like what they've done. They've been largely a reaction to what's progressively going wrong with public schools and secular schools generally. But they define themselves in reaction instead of embracing what was once considered certifiably classical. And so they allowed themselves over the decades to...

Soren Schwab (CLT) (22:28.411)
Mm -hmm.

tracy simmons (22:49.506)
established their own understandings of what classical education was. So it no longer necessarily involves any of the classical languages. It no longer necessarily involves in some understandings classical literature or classical history itself, which to me is an odd use of the word classical then. But nonetheless, we can still understand it because classical generally understood is that which has been tested by time.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (23:16.283)
Mm -hmm.

tracy simmons (23:16.674)
and that which has been certified by time. So there are, in that sense, you can say almost anything that, any kind of curriculum that respects the past and tries to bring it alive is classical in that way. I wouldn't do that myself, but I think it's defensible.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (23:36.859)
Yeah, yeah. When you grew up, did we refer to the education that you received as a classical education? Sometimes we like to joke, you know, classical education or as it was previously known, education before the world has gone mad. It seems now we kind of need this adjective, right, to almost like with milk and raw milk and organic milk, like, wait,

tracy simmons (23:56.578)
Right.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (24:06.715)
Why is it not just milk, right? Pure milk. Have you seen, I mean, is that, have we changed as classical educators? Has education changed so much that we now feel like we need to clarify what we mean? Because I think when people now hear of just education, when you grew up, the definition would have been very different. I don't think, you know, you've probably heard 21st century skills and job placement and college and career readiness.

and all these things that are now kind of considered the purpose of education. What are your thoughts on that?

tracy simmons (24:43.49)
Well, I'm not that old. And so the understanding of education generally has not changed all my life, which is, you know, most people in the world think you go to school in order to get a job. Well, you hope that vocational and avocational possibilities arise from school in some way or other, either directly or indirectly. So that's not an illegitimate concern, but...

Soren Schwab (CLT) (24:45.179)
That's right.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (25:13.083)
is it?

tracy simmons (25:13.122)
But it's not a historical concern really of education. Everyone else would be trained or apprenticed. Those are the people you would say are off for the jobs. The people who are going for education are going for a kind of intellectual formation. So as to broaden their minds, one hopes their characters, and they would probably be part of the...

you know, the influential classes, what we used to call the clericy. So the statesmen, the clergy, the people who really set opinion through time. Now, people who set opinion now are on TikTok, I suppose. And isn't that a new word we use, influencers? Well, we don't know where these influencers came from. We don't know how they themselves were formed.

They might be very entertaining, and they might, in fact, be influencing. But whether they're influencing for the good is another matter. Now, I think classical education, what I tried to do with climbing Parnassus is try to reestablish the moorings within the classical world. The idea not being that only classical things are worth knowing. It's simply that the classics were

part of the foundation of all other education. So if you have read some Greek play, you don't even have to have known or learned Greek or anything like that. But if you've learned some Greek plays, your reading of Shakespeare is gonna be different. And if you've read any kind of Greek literature at all, your reading of say American literature is going to be different because you're bringing a different self. It's a broader self, but it's gonna be...

your take on all of it. It's not as though you're simply signing off on someone's view of everything. It's going to be your view. But the difficulty is, with classical education, this is why it's been unpopular for generations, is that it starts with servitude. All good education does, and not just education in letters and numbers. My big

tracy simmons (27:40.834)
Sport growing up was was swimming. I was a swimmer when you first learned to swim Everything is a line of thou shalt nots. Don't do this. Don't do it this way Because it's kind of life or death and so and here are the way Here's how you do the strokes and then the coach is is Going to show you what you're doing wrong constantly showing you what you're doing wrong

put you into practice, and then say at a certain point, you're ready to swim on your own. Notice how my lifelong love of swimming, and I still do when I can, started with servitude. And it started with someone telling me everything I was doing wrong. Well, we don't like that. It makes us feel bad for some reason. I don't know why it makes us feel bad, because it feels good to be corrected, because you can kind of clean it up, whatever you're talking about.

So perhaps the self -esteem movement has had a deleterious effect on our idea of classical education. But I certainly like the idea of the languages themselves, or at least one of them, having a central role to play in education. And that's what makes it classical.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (28:59.515)
I mentioned Sir Richard Livingston before and he wrote this wonderful book that was certainly influential on you, A Defense of Classical Education. And again, I mentioned that video with Memorial Press and you talked more about this little book there, but why don't you give our listeners kind of a brief introduction to this book, how you came across it and kind of the impact that it's had on you and on classical education.

tracy simmons (29:24.194)
Well, this is the new edition. And anyone can get it through Memoria Press online. I don't think it's available on Amazon, but you can go through Memoria Press. I think memoriapress .com, I guess. Or org. I never know the difference anymore. And he was an Oxford man. He was born in the

Soren Schwab (CLT) (29:30.971)
Mm -hmm.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (29:44.155)
One of the two, yeah.

tracy simmons (29:53.89)
I guess the mid late 19th century, and became a classical don or instructor, teacher at Oxford. And during World War I, when the world was exploding and realigning itself, he wrote this little book called A Defense of Classical Education, understanding the old idea of Greece and Rome, Greek and Latin.

but also some ancillary subjects that go along with it. And so during the war, which is the strangest thing to have done, and say in 1916, this was the year of the Psalm. And he wrote and published this book defending what is, what was seen by many people at the time as a highly aristocratic sort of education. But his point was, not everyone,

is made for classical education any more than everyone's made to be an NBA player. But some people are, and the people who are should have the opportunities to pursue it. So this book, as I say, was published in 1916, and I came across it sometime in the 80s. And I didn't know anything about him. I didn't know anything about the book. It was just sitting next to me.

to another book I was looking for, I think. And I took it down and I read it. And it stuck with me. The whole idea that he's defending something that 100 years before, almost at the time, people needed reminding about. Because I think he saw a time coming when,

it would need a new defense. Defending classical education in the second decade of the 20th century probably didn't seem all that necessary to a lot of people in positions of authority at the time. But I think he saw the age coming when it would need defending. As far as I know, the book had only one edition.

tracy simmons (32:16.514)
And so it didn't really make the rounds, but it did get into some libraries, which is how I found it. And of course, I discussed it briefly in climbing parnasses. And Memorial Press decided that they would put out their own edition, which thrilled me. They asked me to write the introduction, and I was happy to do that. And that's essentially the...

the video people will see. It's simply me giving the introduction, although there are a few baubles and ornaments in it. I mean, it's not simply a straight on reading. They made a little film of it.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (32:56.603)
Yeah, yeah, and like I said, very well produced and I ordered it. I have not even heard of Livingston before. I mean, I remember the reference in climbing.

tracy simmons (33:04.834)
Most people have not. I'll say that the only people I know who had heard of him, and this is the only way I had just heard the name before then, is that he was a very good translator. And I remember having a copy of his translation of Thucydides without realizing it was he who had done it. But I remember liking the translation very much. And he did some nice translations of the...

Soren Schwab (CLT) (33:17.403)
Hmm.

tracy simmons (33:34.306)
Plato and so forth. I'll just say this too, that as a classical scholar, Livingston was more interested in classical education than in classical scholarship. Most classicists are interested in the scholarship, which is fine, very good. They can do it and they should be doing it. But a lot of them are not interested in classical education. That is how people coming up behind them are going to be formed in order to take over from them when the time comes.

But another point to make, of course, is that classical education is not about creating classical scholars. It's about creating educated men and women. That's it. Classical scholars can take care of themselves. Classical scholarship can take care of itself. But educated men and women are what we need. And with all this vituperating about, as I say, democracy,

Soren Schwab (CLT) (34:16.507)
Mm -hmm. Right.

tracy simmons (34:33.378)
Well, this is the way, if you want a healthy democratic republic, you're going to start with education and you're going to make it real again, not something simply about feelings.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (34:46.843)
Right. And I wish, Tracy, we had a lot more time to chat because I can pick your brain on a lot of things. I do want to mention to our audience, we don't have time to dig in, but you published another wonderful book called On Being Civilized just this past year, is that correct? On Being Civilized.

tracy simmons (35:01.73)
That's right, on being civilized. It's simply a collection of articles and essays and book reviews that together share a common theme, which is the idea of civilization itself. That's also Memorial Press.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (35:17.275)
Yeah, yeah, so we'll put that in the show notes as well and And and had great reviews including my former Hillsdale College president Larry Arndt who spoke really highly of the book So if that does not enough of an endorsement then I don't know what so so to our listeners go and purchase that that book as well But we do we do near the end of this podcast and and I'm gonna ask you the question that I ask every guest And we have a lot of learned men On this podcast and you are no exception. So this question is probably difficult

For you to answer maybe it's not you tell me but is there one book Tracy or one text in particular that you can point to that has been most impactful in your life and why

tracy simmons (35:58.978)
Oh Lord have mercy.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (36:00.155)
hahahaha

tracy simmons (36:02.562)
Hmm.

tracy simmons (36:06.306)
Outside of classical education and classical literature, because I don't want to immediately go there, I would say this is an odd answer, but Proust, The Remembrance of Times Past, or however you want to translate that title, all six volumes, I've only gone through them twice. But they've stayed with me. If I were to say one book that is with one volume, it'd be

Soren Schwab (CLT) (36:27.611)
Only.

tracy simmons (36:36.066)
probably be Brian said revisited.

which is the book I always return to. I probably read it, I used to read it once a year, now it's more like once every couple of years, but I always return to it and it's always fresh.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (36:50.779)
What is it about Brideshead Revisited that captures you? What is it about that book that just captures you? Yeah.

tracy simmons (36:55.138)
What's that?

Oh, the beauty of it, the beauty of the language. I'm interested in the story, I'm interested in the characterizations, I'm interested in the plotting, those things that tend to hit you earlier on in your life. But the older you get, if you love language, the more you're struck by the language itself. And so I noticed that every time I read it, I read it more slowly.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (37:21.691)
Yeah.

tracy simmons (37:23.106)
because I'm savoring every line and wishing I could do that too.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (37:28.411)
Well, wonderful. Tracy Lee Simmons, this has been such a delight and honor to have this conversation with you again. We're here with Tracy Lee Simmons, author, writer, defender of classical education, good friend, good person. And we're just so grateful for everything that you're doing to promote this education that we so passionately believe in. And so we really appreciate you joining Anchor today. Thank you, sir.

tracy simmons (37:53.89)
Delighted to be with you. Thank you.