Lombard Lyceum (ePub)

In 1826 Josiah Holbrook created a program of adult education he called the Lyceum. It spread rapidly and in its most active years from 1830 to the 1860s it was an important factor in public education. It was needed then because the population wasnt being provided adequate educational opportunity. Today, in at least in one respect for one critically important segment of society, history is unfortunately being repeated. The education of my grandchildren and everyone elses children and grandchildren is at risk because of a combination of a variety of causes. Those causes include, but are not limited to, attacks upon the tenure system, shrinking school budgets, soaring class sizes, and the proliferation of standardized testing. All of these factors combined have produced a situation in which children will not be instructed on how to think for themselves. This lyceum done in print is an attempt to mitigate the damage from that lost opportunity. This work is titled the Lombard Lyceum because it is written for and directed toward the education of my grandchildren: Douglas, Alex, and Emma. My hope is that through this format I can have an influence on how and how well they are educated. If this volume proves to be of value to others that would be gratifying.