Honoring Jacques Barzun

Jacques Barzun
was born in Créteil, France
on 30 November 1907

My notion about any artist is that we honor him best by reading him, by playing his music, by seeing his plays or by looking at his pictures. We don’t need to fall all over ourselves with adjectives and epithets. Let’s play him more.
— Jacques Barzun, in an interview with John C. Tibbetts

in the offices of Scribner’s in 1987 as the two discuss what became the radio series The World of Robert Schumann.

Note from Jacques Barzun

“I want the many well-wishers — friends and strangers who have greeted me on my recent birthday — to know that I have been greatly moved by these kind messages. I thank everyone for these expressions of good will, which I regret that I cannot acknowledge individually.”

-JB
 

Isaac Waisberg

Dear Mr. Wong,

I was looking for articles by Jacques Barzun in an online database and came across this letter which appeared in the Spectator in March 6, 1964:

SIR,---You wondered how a 'PhD in Cornish' can have been awarded to a candidate at Columbia University. The language being 'virtually extinct... who, then, examined him?' It suffices to ask how the thing is done when a PhD is taken in Latin, Sanskrit, or Hittite---all more than virtually extinct. The degree that aroused your skepticism was actually in Linguistics; the dissertation bore upon a twelfth-century Cornish-Latin lexicon, and was titled 'The Old Cornish Vocabulary.' With it and some nationalistic fire, it should be possible to have a great literary revival, a sovereign State, a Parliament, and an atomic pile.

JACQUES BARZUN

I thought you might like it.

Regards,
Isaac W.
ibergus

Mr. Clarity

To improve the clarity of your writing (almost effortlessly!), spend at least ten minutes a day reading aloud from writers who write clearly, such as Jacques Barzun.

— Clear writing with Mr. Clarity, 17 Aug 2009


Mr. Barzun’s book Simple & Direct was the greatest inspiration in my writing career. During the last three decades, I have read it over and over and have recommended it to numerous young writers.

— Joe Roy, who is Mr. Clarity

Orchestral Fantasy for Jacques Barzun

Gordon Rumson has made an orchestral version of his Fantasy for Jacques Barzun.

Once Upon a Tweet

Once lived next door to Vincent D'Onofrio's sister AND helped set up Jacques Barzun's first PC. #lameclaimstofame

— shutupwierdo

Romans of the Decadence

A photo taken at the Musée d'Orsay

Jonathan Alter

"Education is the dullest of subjects," Jacques Barzun wrote in the very first sentence of his astonishingly fresh 1945 classic, Teacher in America. Barzun despised the idea of "professional educators" who focus on "methods" instead of subject matter. He loved teachers, but knew they "are born, not made," and that most teachers' colleges teach the wrong stuff.

Cut to 2009, when Barack Obama thinks education is the most exciting of subjects. Even so, Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, get Barzun. They understand that the key to fixing education is better teaching, and the key to better teaching is figuring out who can teach and who can't.

— Jonathan Alter, Peanut-Butter Politics: Education funding is a sticky issue, Newweek. web June 6, 2009, print June 15, 2009

This is not quite right. Barzun also says that born teachers are rarer than born poets. Since many more teachers are needed than are born, teachers who know and cannot teach should be taught how to teach.