Re: CHAT: American vs European educational standards

Quoting John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

> BP Jonsson scripsit:
>
> >   Then of course there was and is the Capitol Hill in Rome!
>
> The American Republic was, of course, consciously modeled on the Roman
> one in many such ways, including calling the upper house of our legislature
> the Senate, and even (etymologically correctly) setting a higher age
> qualification than for the House.
Right.  The Founding Fathers, far from being the icons of
democracy that they are often made out to be, held in great
fear the power of faction, and so, like the Roman Republic,
ensured that although all members of federal institutions were
ultimately chosen by the People, there would be all sorts of
intermediary mechanisms in place to make popular pressure for
change difficult. The clearest example is the Electoral College,
quite similar to the Comitia Tributa or the Comitia Centuriata in
structure.  Also, when debates were held about the heraldric
symbols that the federation should have, Greek was pointedly
rejected in favor of Latin for mottos, since Greek was held to
have too much "popular" baggage. (Hebrew was also suggested, but
had no support among the secularists.)

(All this worry about the people was not *entirely* unfounded,
since Shays' Rebelllion had only just been quelled in Massachusetts
when the Constitutional Convention was convened in Philadelphia.)

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Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637