Category: Letter from the Editor

In 79 A.D., the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in eastern Italy covered nearby towns in ash and completely buried many of them. Accounts of the ancient eruption paint a horrific scene: Volcanic pumice rained from the skies and waves of searing hot gas and debris swept over the nearby landscape. Thousands died where they …

God blesses some of us with vision and with lives of clear purpose and meaning— and to some of us he adds the time and opportunity to accomplish what we have been given to do. The life of Cheryl Lowe, Publisher at Memoria Press and Headmistress of Highlands Latin School, was this kind of life. …

In his new book, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, Anthony Esolen contrasts what Western culture was and what it is now by asking us to imagine a library in an old manor house. The lower half of this library would be stocked with books from modern Europe—”novels, collections of poetry, histories, biographies, travelogues, …

Most people think topsoil is just dirt. But it is far more than that. When people lived closer to the land, they knew this, but now farming is mechanized and we have an industrialized food system. To most people, this all seems just fine. Food is easy to get—and cheap. What else matters? What few …

I was listening to the radio the other day when I heard a story about scientists who were trying to revive the American Chestnut tree. You may never have heard the sad story of the Chestnut, but it is an interesting one. From Maine to Minnesota, the Chestnut once thrived in America. Not only did …

Modern education is all about technique. The prevailing thought is that if only the right “method” could be found, the problems would be solved; if a methodological magic bullet could be employed, all the problems would go away. And since a method is all that is sought, a method is all that is found. Those …

Over the last several years, I have planted a number of trees in my yard. I notice that when I plant a tree, it takes a year or two in order for its root system to become established. Only when this happens does it start growing in earnest. A plant has to grow down before it can grow up. …

    When I was in junior high school, my father began adding on to our house. For the foundation he dug a lot of trenches in the ground, built wood forms to pour the cement in, and hired a cement truck to fill them up. I remember thinking that it seemed like a lot of trouble to take for …

My wife and I live on a little hill on a country lane in Kentucky. From my front porch, which is surrounded by trees and flowers, I can see farmland for twenty miles or so. It is my favorite place to be. And my favorite thing to do is to sit there in my oak …

In a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, Mark Schatzker makes an observation that is at once obvious and seldom thought about: There is a natural connection between the good taste of food and its nutritional value. Decades ago, most foods in stores were locally grown, left on the plant longer, and not only …