The Best of Basil the Great on Reading Literature and Education

How should we engage with literature? Many today would tell us to "Just read"-as if that were enough, as if the act of reading in itself accomplishes some good. It increases vocabulary, they would say. It builds cultural literacy. And if nothing else, it exercises the brain, connecting one synapse to another. "Not so fast!" Basil the Great would protest. It's all true, what they say. But if we collect all the vocabulary in the world, and become culturally literate superstars, and grow mega brains, and yet we lose our souls, what will have we ultimately gained? Far better, he would counsel, if we read with discrimination and with a clear goal in mind. Far better if we focus on what is truly valuable in order to nourish our souls and become better men and women. Far better if we read in order to act-to do and be well. In THE BEST OF BASIL THE GREAT ON READING LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, Basil explains how we may do this, how we may read well, carrying on a tradition of critique and counsel that may be traced back to Plato, if not before. Basil's guidance influenced countless educators and readers in the centuries to come. Writing mid-twentieth century, the scholar of Greek education Werner Jaeger judged that his "famous oration on the study of Greek literature and poetry . . . was the charter of all Christian higher education for centuries to come." We may justly expand Jaeger's conclusion to read simply all higher education.