The Mission San Gabriel Arc\u00e1ngel is visible from my high school.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some years ago, when Hillary Clinton published her book It Takes a Village<\/em>, many conservatives hotly denounced the title, which purportedly came from an African proverb holding that \u201cit takes a village to raise a child.\u201d \u00a0They saw the title \u2014 correctly, for all I know \u2014 as a call for greater government involvement in childrearing.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I certainly understand objecting to that.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, although I\u2019m a very serious conservative and not even remotely an admirer of Hillary Clinton, I didn\u2019t join in the chorus decrying the book\u2019s title. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Because I\u2019m convinced that it does<\/em>\u00a0\u201ctake a village to raise a child\u201d \u2014 or, at a minimum, that it\u2019s much easier to raise a child if your village is helping you to do it.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Consider Western society today, where, on many centrally important matters (e.g., faith, family, chastity, and on and on) our \u201cvillage\u201d is substantially hostile to the values that we as adults wish to transmit to our children and grandchildren. \u00a0Wouldn\u2019t it be nicer, and easier, to have the society around us supporting our values rather than mocking and denigrating them and seeking to seduce us and our posterity into abandoning them?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The answer seems obvious to me.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s also true that, many times, others can teach children things that \u2014 for a multitude of reasons \u2014 the parents can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the pivotal characters in my past is my old Scoutmaster, George Schmidt. \u00a0From him, I came to love mountains and backpacking and, in certain crucial ways that I might not have learned otherwise, to value substantial achievement over show. \u00a0Could my father have taught me the same things? \u00a0Probably. \u00a0But I expect that he appreciated Mr. Schmidt\u2019s support.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another is my San Gabriel High School German teacher, Lenore Smith. \u00a0Miss Smith, which is what we called her in those long-ago and primitive days, was \u00a0probably quite young when I met her as a thirteen-year-old high school freshman. \u00a0(All<\/em> adults seemed immeasurably \u2014 almost undifferentiatedly \u2014 old to me then.) \u00a0She already had undergraduate and graduate degrees in German and piano performance, and she took one year off while I was in high school to work on yet another master\u2019s degree (in German linguistics) at the Universit\u00e4t Heidelberg.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of her practices, in her third- and fourth-year classes, was to reward her advanced students with actual substance<\/em>, rather than with more interminably dull language drills. \u00a0So, one year, we concentrated on German music (e.g., Bach, Mozart, Telemann, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Strauss 1 and Strauss 2, Sch\u00f6nberg, and so forth). \u00a0And, in the other year, we looked at German art and architecture. \u00a0It was in this class that I first really came to know such terms as Romantisch<\/em>, Klassisch<\/em>,\u00a0Barock<\/em>, Rokoko<\/em>, and Bauhaus<\/em>, and such figures as\u00a0Albrecht D\u00fcrer (d. 1528), Gustav Klimt (d. 1918), Paul Klee (d. 1940), Lyonel Feininger (d. 1956), Walter Gropius (d. 1969), and Oskar Kokoschka\u00a0(d. 1980).<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t come from a family where classical music was played or German expressionism discussed, so Miss Smith really opened my eyes (and my ears) to a whole new world. \u00a0I discussed these subjects in then-halting German before I could discuss them in English. \u00a0I\u2019ve loved classical music ever since, and D\u00fcrer, Klimt, and Feininger, in particular, have long been favorite artists of mine. \u00a0I\u2019m forever grateful to Lenore Smith, and in her debt.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I think that I saw her only once after graduating from high school. \u00a0She invited a few of us to come for dinner to her condo, which, as you might expect, was centered on a concert grand piano and crammed with books, art, and musical scores. \u00a0Ever since, she has partially embodied to me what a genuinely cultivated person looks like.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, despite several attempts over the years, I\u2019ve been unable to find her again. \u00a0She apparently left San Gabriel High School not too long thereafter \u2014 she was, at that dinner party, already lamenting the decline in interest in studying German, and was having to teaching remedial English and history courses (where, she said, she came under heavy pressure to give passing grades to students who needed to have the final exams read to them) \u2014 and I can find no trace of her.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I would love to tell her, if she\u2019s still around, what an enormous, life-transforming impact she had on me.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Seaside, Oregon<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Some years ago, when Hillary Clinton published her book It Takes a Village, many conservatives hotly denounced the title, which purportedly came from an African proverb holding that \u201cit takes a village to raise a child.\u201d \u00a0They saw the title \u2014 correctly, for all I know \u2014 as a call for greater government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2247,936,2253,2241,2244,2250,2232,2238,2235],"class_list":["post-64332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-daniel-peterson","tag-german","tag-high-school","tag-lenore-smith","tag-music","tag-parenting","tag-san-gabriel","tag-teachers"],"yoast_head":"\n
In my view, it DOES take a village.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\" Some years ago, when Hillary Clinton published her book It Takes a Village, many conservatives hotly denounced the title, which purportedly\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In my view, it DOES take a village.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\" Some years ago, when Hillary Clinton published her book It Takes a Village, many conservatives hotly denounced the title, which purportedly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sic et Non\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-08-28T23:08:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-09-05T15:52:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/files\/2017\/08\/800px-Mission_San_Gabriel_4-15-05_6611.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html\",\"name\":\"In my view, it DOES take a village.\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-08-28T23:08:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-09-05T15:52:44+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\"},\"description\":\" Some years ago, when Hillary Clinton published her book It Takes a Village, many conservatives hotly denounced the title, which purportedly\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"In my view, it DOES take a village.\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/\",\"name\":\"Sic et Non\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\",\"name\":\"Dan Peterson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dan Peterson\"},\"description\":\"\\\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\\\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"In my view, it DOES take a village.","description":" Some years ago, when Hillary Clinton published her book It Takes a Village, many conservatives hotly denounced the title, which purportedly","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"In my view, it DOES take a village.","og_description":" Some years ago, when Hillary Clinton published her book It Takes a Village, many conservatives hotly denounced the title, which purportedly","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html","og_site_name":"Sic et Non","article_published_time":"2018-08-28T23:08:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-09-05T15:52:44+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/files\/2017\/08\/800px-Mission_San_Gabriel_4-15-05_6611.jpg"}],"author":"Dan Peterson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dan Peterson","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html","name":"In my view, it DOES take a village.","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-08-28T23:08:56+00:00","dateModified":"2018-09-05T15:52:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045"},"description":" Some years ago, when Hillary Clinton published her book It Takes a Village, many conservatives hotly denounced the title, which purportedly","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/in-my-view-it-does-take-a-village.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"In my view, it DOES take a village."}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/","name":"Sic et Non","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045","name":"Dan Peterson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dan Peterson"},"description":"\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"The](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/08\/800px-Mission_San_Gabriel_4-15-05_6611.jpg\")
<\/a>