HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cl@lgc.com (Cameron Laird)
Subject: Educational cultures (was: The British Lost!)
Organization: Landmark Graphics Corporation
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 15:37:55 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.093742.88551@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au> phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Stephen Harker) writes:
			.
			.
			.
>	Similar claims are made for the British system, when it is good it is
>very good, but when it is poor it is very poor.  This seems to be particularly
>true of the late 19th and early 20th century when nothing like the German
>technical and trade training existed.  The number of Nobel prizes only shows
>something about the high end of the system.  Some comments I have read from
>British sources suggest that these problems still exist to some extent today. 
>Also I must say that the Scottish system was said to be better than the
>English!  I don't know much about the Japanese system, but thought it had a
>good technical element.
			.
			.
			.
I hope someone can introduce some better-grounded
historical data to this thread.  In any case, com-
ments on this rumor I've heard mongered interest
me:  the 19th (let's say) century Scottish primary
educational system was superior to, or different
from, the English one, only epiphenomenally.  That
is, church (kirk) and familial attitudes in Scot-
land were more likely to encourage youngsters to
believe in the efficacy of education; as a conse-
quence, students in the north put more of
themselves into their schooling.  Objectively,
fewer material resources were available for edu-
cation in Scotland than in England or even Wales.
Anyone know more definitely?
--

Cameron Laird				+1 713-579-4613
cl@lgc.com (cl%lgc.com@uunet.uu.net)	+1 713-996-8546 
claird@Neosoft.com
Newsgroups: soc.history
From: steinar@faust.solan.unit.no (Cindy Kandolf)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: 50 years ago: The Teachers' Movement in Norway
Date: 11 Apr 92 16:35:02 GMT
Distribution: soc
Organization: Flodnak, Inc., Trondheim, Norway

From _Adresseavisen_, a daily newspaper published in Trondheim, Norway.
Translation by the undersigned, who warns the reader i may have goofed
up a bit.  Article appeared on page 7 of the 8 April 1992 edition.
[My comments.]

"King Harald Unveils Monument to the Teachers' Movement"

LILLEHAMMER: King Harald unveiled a memorial stone Tuesday at
Joerstadmoen as a memorial to the Norwegian teachers who in 1942
refused to introduce National Socialistic [i.e. Nazi] ideology into
Norwegian schools.  The attempt at the Nazification of 14,000 teachers
was a fiasco, and Quisling had to give up his plans for a "Riksting" -
a new national assembly based on the labor organizations.

The stone was erected at Joerstadmoen near Lillehammer because it was
here that the major group of the 1,100 teachers who were arrested on
the 20th of March were interned before they were transported to prison
camps around the country.  500 teachers were sent to forced labor in
Kirkenes [far northern Norway].  The memorial - four meters in height
and carved in grey granite - was carved by Oeyvind Sigvartsen and
Oddmund Rauberget in a workshop belonging to Sigvartsen Stonework AS
in Oslo.  Around the stone's face is carved a border of barbed wire
which is meant to symbolize the attempt to "chain" the teachers.

King Harald, in his speech during the unveiling ceremony, emphasized
that the teachers' resistance in 1942 in many ways had a decisive
meaning for morale during the German occupation during World War II.

"This strenthened our national self-consciousness and had great
meaning for Norway's reputation as one of the Allied nations.  We do
not raise this stone to memorialize the teachers' resistance only to
memorialize Norwegian pride and ability to hold out, but also so that
the young people of our day will understand the meaning of moral
strength in times of critical change," said the King in his speech.

Forty six of the teachers who were sent to Kirkenes were present at
the unveiling Tuesday.  7 April 1942 was the day the teachers said
their definite no, and chose imprisonment instead.  During the
ceremony there were speeches by, among others, the leaders of the
organizations which erected the monument.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Cindy Kandolf
 cindy@solan.unit.no
 Trondheim, Norway
Newsgroups: soc.history
From: welty@cabot.balltown.cma.COM (richard welty)
Subject: Re: Battle of Shiloh
Organization: New York State Institute for Sebastian Cabot Studies
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 17:38:42 GMT

In article <1992Apr6.174231.25042@odin.corp.sgi.com> zursch@whizkid.corp.sgi.com (Jeff Zurschmeide) writes:
...
>The point is, Shiloh may be the first major battle where the Union held
>the field at the end, but I'd hardly say that it was a turning point
>in the sense that Gettysburg was.

hmmm.  i'd argue that Vicksburg was more important than Gettysburg;
Lee got his army away from Gettysburg, but the army in Vicksburg
surrendered.

>Leading up to Gettysburg, you had 
>battles like Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and after Gettysburg
>it was all downhill,

what of Antietam?  granting that McClellan pretty much dropped the ball,
giving up an opportunity for a decisive battle due to his evidently
boundless caution, even so, it was a costly battle where the Union
held the field at the end.

> a chase back to Virginia and siege and starvation
>through the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. In
>the West, however, it was more than a year before Grant stood in front
>of Vicksburg, and only then at great cost. After Vicksburg, though, it
>was a chase back across the Confederacy through Chatanooga, Atlanta,
>and Charleston. 

herein lies the basic problem with most Civil War history:  excessive
focus on the East, when the West was the decisive theater.

cheers,
  richard
-- 
richard welty                            518-393-7228
welty@cabot.balltown.cma.com
Newsgroups: soc.history
From: rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Subject: Re: Hemp-less history.  Can you help?
Reply-To: rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 14:10:45 GMT

In article <891034d.1@ace.acadiau.ca>, 891034d@ace.acadiau.ca (PETER F. DEARMAN) writes:
>
>   I'm doing a research paper on the suppression of hemp by the government 
>and similar forces.  I know what a valuable plant hemp is.  What I want to 
>know more about is what sort of decisions and events led to the prohibition 
>of cannabis.  The standard line is that a moralistic society and effective 
>lobby groups combined to make it politically necessary to ban the plant.  I 
>find such a simplistic pluralistic explanation hard to swallow.  Why is it 
>illegal almost everywhere?  Did the pulpwood, petrochemical, gasoline, 
>textile, or pharmaceutical industries have a significant influence?
>    And why is the world's easiest-to-grow source of high quality protein so 
>underutilized in the third world?  This could be (and apparently has been up 
>to colonial times) the world's number one subsistance food source.  Why isn'
>t it?  Who made sure that it isn't?
>    Please help me answer these questions.
Ummmm, I used to know this stuff, but ya know, short term memory loss and all.
I know the citations are around here somewhwere, but I got paranoid one day and
hid them.  Can't remember where.  It was something to do with the sugar
industry.  See, people were subsisting on brownies, and using all the sugar
so that there wasn't enough to go around, so the sugar companies suppressed
hemp production so that they wouldn't have to make more sugar--they were 
already busy enough and didn't feel like making more;]  actually, this is a
very interesting set of questions--I wonder if the board can examine it without
gettingswallowed up in moralism, implicit or explicit.  I am sure there is an
interesting story here, and I hope to learn something from the ensuing thread.
Rich Rath
dpt 'o history
Brandeis University
Newsgroups: soc.history
From: m_lehoul@oz.plymouth.edu (Michael L. Le Houllier)
Subject: Re: US Empire (was: The British Lost!)
Reply-To: m_lehoul@oz.plymouth.edu (Michael L. Le Houllier)
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, N.H.
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 92 19:24:01 GMT

In article <1992Apr3.222311.28359@midway.uchicago.edu> mss2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>4) A minor quibble, but why would we encourage semi-socialist Indonesia
>   to invade the territory of NATO ally Portugal if we were at all
>   competent?  Kissinger was Ford's Secretary of State, not Shultz.

Portugal had given East Timor its independence.  Indonesia went in to
prevent the communists from taking over and to forward its aims of
Malay hegemony.

This doesn't go against the above premise.  It's one I wholehearted
agree with.  The United States didn't have anything to do with it.  If
any 'Western' power did, it was Australia, but I don't even find that
likely despite theur understandable fear of a Communist regime so
close to Australia.
>
>--
>Kenneth Hite, LHN, FCS
>hit2@midway.uchicago.edu
>  "I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it, myself."
>(General George Pickett, on being asked why the Confederates lost
> at Gettysburg.)


-- 
 Michael Le Houllier           *  John 3:16  * Nov 12, 1991 - Dili      
 (m_lehoul@oz.plymouth.edu.us) *  Remember: June 4, 1989 - Beijing
 Go BLUE JAYS   1-0   at Tigers Monday (4-2), Wednesday and Thursday
 End the strike.  Get back on the ice.  Get the playoffs going.
Newsgroups: soc.history
From: sheng@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (Xiafang Sheng)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: test
Date: 9 Apr 92 06:54:25 GMT
Organization: MONASH UNIVERSITY

just test...
From: daniel@cs.kun.nl (Daniel Tuijnman)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: 1302 - a boring year
Summary: Battle of the Golden Spurs
Date: 15 Apr 92 20:25:34 GMT
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands

In article <1992Apr15.151553.17638@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> aryk@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (a.j.s. nusbacher) writes:
>If I'm not mistaken, the Battle of Courtrai was fought in 1302.  This was one
>of the first major actions of the High Middle Ages in which foot-soldiers armed
>with pike stood up to a force of knights.  In this case it was a force of
>Flemish burghers standing up to an army of French knights.  

That's right. The battle was fought near the city of Kortrijk (Courtrai
in french), and is better known as "the Battle of the Golden Spurts" for
the vast amount of knights armoury which the Flemish burghers captured
from the French.

Besides the military significance of the battle mentioned, it was an
important event in political and economic history. Flanders was by then
a very prosperous region through the trade and industry of especially
cloth. In fact, Flanders was the only region in the French kingdom which
earned money, and the king was dependent for his income on the Flemish
taxes.

The king raised taxes, Flanders refused to pay, and the king took
captive the Flemish count.

The citizens of the cities, which by then had already gained
considerable influence over the government of their county, were unhappy
with this French oppression. The most important guilds from Bruges, 
the weavers under the leadership of De Koninck, and the butchers led by 
Breydel, organized the rebellion and threw out the French garrisons. 
The subsequent invading army was then defeated at Kortrijk.

A -- rather romantic -- account of these events, intertwined with a love
story about the son of the count, was written end 19th century by 
Hendrik Conscience in his novel "De Leeuw van Vlaanderen" ("The Lion of 
Flanders"), and some years ago the Dutch and Belgian TV made a series  
based on this.

The Battle of the Golden Spurs is, in fact, one of the earliest episodes
in the struggle of the Low Lands for government control by the emerging
cities and for free trade -- which eventually culminates, against
another oppressor, in the uprising and the founding of the Dutch
Republic.

-- 
Daniel Tuijnman
daniel@cs.kun.nl
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: Educational cultures (was: The British Lost!)
Date: 15 Apr 92 14:59:27 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

cl@lgc.com (Cameron Laird) wrote:
> comments on this rumor I've heard mongered interest me:  the 19th (let's
> say) century Scottish primary educational system was superior to, or
> different from, the English one, only epiphenomenally.  That is, church
> (kirk) and familial attitudes in Scotland were more likely to encourage
> youngsters to believe in the efficacy of education; as a consequence,
> students in the north put more of themselves into their schooling.
> Objectively, fewer material resources were available for education in
> Scotland than in England or even Wales.

I'm not going to venture an opinion as I don't know this stuff very well,
but I can point you to the work of someone who's spent decades
investigating it: George Davie of Edinburgh University.  He's got two books
in print on the history and cultural background of the Scottish educational
system: "The Democratic Intellect" and "The Crisis of the Democratic
Intellect" (both from Polygon Press, George Square, Edinburgh).  A later
book of essays, "The Scottish Enlightenment", adds some extra notes, though
it's mostly about Scottish common-sense philosophy.

I'd guess that Cameron's right about the epiphenomenality, but maybe not
about attitude being the ultimate explanation: educational achievement has
more to do with social mobility than material resources, and I suspect that
social mobility was quite a bit higher in Scotland than in England until
recent decades.  The underprivileged are quite rationally not going to be
particularly interested in education in a static class system like that of
19th-century England or the present-day US.

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Newsgroups: soc.history
From: geroldf@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl)
Subject: Re: Scandinavian Stone- and bronzeage
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, San Diego Division
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 19:57:40 GMT

d89-jsp@nada.kth.se (Jan Sparrendahl) writes:

>Indications that the nothernmost provinces of Sweden had intence relations 
>to culturs more east during the stone- and bronzeage are growing stronger.

First of all, thanks Jan for translating and entering this article. I found
it very interesting.

Any idea what the climate was like at that time? Colder/warmer/wetter than
now?

One question that comes up whenever considering prehistoric culture is the
often surprising uniformity seen over large geographical areas. Any indication
whether this is due to communication vs. being a result of an influx of
people from a single source?

>The most sensational of the findings was a grave from the hunter stone age. It 
>was found in Manjaerv in AElvsby district. The corpse was soked in red ocher
>and covered with stones. This kind of eastern fashon grave have never before
>been found in Sweden. Close to Onega in Russia there are gravefields with 
>similar 6000 year old graves. 

Any knowledge of physical characteristics i.e. height weight etc?

>At Flatteborg near Mojaerv in the Kalix district there are remains of many
>large houses from the bronze age. The hoses in this settlement are from 1800-
>1500 BC. The are about 40 by 20 meters. According to Mr Klang they are the
>largest of there kind yet found in Sweden.

Any indication whether they were single family vs. communal?

>Some of the finding have been hard to explain. A few large fields of cooking-
>dugouts has puzzled the archaeologists. The fifty very large cooking dugouts 
>containd burned stone in large quantities. They have a diameter of up to four
>meters. There is no information if what they have been used to but they could
>have been used to some large scale cooking like the extracting of oil from
>seals or the cooking seals.

Sounds reasonable.

>In the archipelago the archaeologists have excavated about 100 stone-paved
>labyrinths. The allso found some fishing communitys dating from about 900 AD. 

Hey, think sounds like fun. Labyrinths. Could you describe them? How big?
Turf covered? 100 labyrinths is a lot of labyrinths. Sounds like everybody
had one.

Thanks again Jan, and please keep us updated on what you find.

-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Disclaimer claims dat de claims claimed in dis are de claims of meself,
me, and me alone, so sue us god. I won't tell Bill & Dave if you won't.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=----   Gerold Firl @ ..hplabs!hp-sdd!geroldf
From: fsars@acad3.alaska.edu (Allen R Sparks)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: Israel
Date: 6 Apr 92 21:50:31 GMT
Article-I.D.: acad3.1992Apr6.125031.1
Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks

In article <1992Apr2.055151.2423@ccsd.uts.EDU.AU>, swalker@uts.EDU.AU (S
Walker) writes:
> Can somebody tell me how Israel was formed?. Was the land now known
> as Israel called palestine until about 50 years ago?. Why is there
> such an uproar with these Palestine people?, did they already have 
> their own country and along came the israelis and kicked them out?
> 

Yeah, let's all get our flame-throwers out.  If you're serious, look
it up in an encyclopedia.  It'll give you a better summary than anyone
on this group has time for.  === Al
Newsgroups: soc.history
From: geroldf@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl)
Subject: Re: US Empire (was: The British Lost!)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, San Diego Division
Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1992 00:53:16 GMT

m1b@rayssd.ssd.ray.com (Barone) tries to get back on track:

>This whole thread started because I was comparing the economy of Great
>Britain after WWII and the US economy of today and how the US could
>learn from the British experience.  It then became bogged down because
>of sematics -- that the analogy doesn't hold because the US does not
>have an empire as the British did.  I think we can all agree that, at
>the very least, the US has a world hegemony and all the attendant
>financial burden associated with it.  How does that sound?

Sounds reasonable. Keep in mind however that the objections to the term
"empire" is really not one of semantics: this is a coping mechanism for
people who believe
	1. Empires are bad. They do not give fair measure for the resources
	   they extract from the satellites, and they do not allow full
	   political representation for non-citizens.
	2. The US is a good country.
Therefore, the US does not have an empire. 

There really isn't much point having a discussion with such people. They're
so concerned with trying to control the perception of who are the "good guys"
and who are the "bad guys" that there is nothing left over for understanding
the processes of history.


Meanwhile, it seems fairly clear that the cost of maintaining the US empire
has done serious damage to the US economy. REmember Eisenhower? Something
like "for every gun that is made, a child goes uneducated?" We may have a
workforce that doesn't know a standard deviation from an interest rate, but
by gawd we got the smartest bombs I ever seen!



hit2@midway.uchicago.edu (kenneth allen hite) writes

>3) Empires, especially of democratic nations, never pay off anyway, which
>   is why, given a choice, democracies slough them off as soon as that
>   becomes obvious.  We haven't been given a choice since 1933 or so.

Haven't been given a choice? Not quite. The obsessive fear of communism
which drove much of the irrational empire-building is a symptom of the
attitude prevalent through much of US industry; an adversarial relationship
with labor and with suppliers. Both Japan and Germany have more of a
partnership between capital and labor. In the case of Germany this dates 
back to Bismarck, and was one of the primary reasons for her commercial
advantage over Britain fin-de-siecle. Britains educational system was 
clearly inferior to Germany's, making it very hard for GB to compete. The
US analogy extends into this area as well.


-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Disclaimer claims dat de claims claimed in dis are de claims of meself,
me, and me alone, so sue us god. I won't tell Bill & Dave if you won't.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=----   Gerold Firl @ ..hplabs!hp-sdd!geroldf
From: coleman@susie.cs.scarolina.edu (Kevin Coleman)
Subject: Re: Roman Numerals, Greek Fractions
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date:  8 Apr 92 16:10:42 GMT


fsars@acad3.alaska.edu (Allen R Sparks) writes:

>In article <1992Apr4.223356.9471@flood.com>, tom@flood.com (Tom Chatt) writes:
>> morna@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Morna J Findlay) writes:
>> | 
>> | Musing last night over the crossword, my S.O. said something along the
>> | lines of "Of course, it was not having fractions that knackered
>> | the Romans". :-)
>> | 
>> | 1. What is the "correct" way to write 49 in Roman Numerals?
>> 
>> Well, LXIX would be my guess, but XXXXIX might also be supportable.

>

It would be XLIX.

--Kevin
From: salter_duke@darwin.ntu.edu.au
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: Canada in the World Wars - & Australia
Date: 13 Apr 92 11:23:13 +0900

> 
> That bring up a question that I've always wondered about. As I
> understand it, Canada was automatically in WWI because of the
> declartion of war by Parliament in London.  After a visit to Canada a
> few years ago (Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City to be exact), I
> bought and read the Pelican History of Canada (anyone have any
> recommendations for a better one?), and I remember it made a big point
> of the fact that Canada waited a week before entering WWII, showing
> some amount of independence from London.
> 
> In the run up to the events of September, 1939, Chamberlain said upon
> returning from Munich that he had saved Britain from becoming involved
> in a war for a distant country over a people about who the British
> knew little (or words to that effect).  But, of course, Czechoslovakia
> is much closer to Britain than to Canada (or Australia or New
> Zealand).  How did Canadians feel in 1939 about getting involved in a
> war brought on mostly by the incompetance of British and French
> politicians?  Was there any inclination in Canada to stay out of World
> War II?
> 

The Australians were told they were joining World War 2 by the Prime
Minister, Robert Menzies, who said in more-or-less these words: "Since
Great Britain has declared war, Australia is now at war."

This is still a live issue in Australia, with the Labor Party accusing
the Liberals, Menzies' party, of tying themselves to Britain.

Linden

-- 
Linden Salter-Duke		email: SALTER_DUKE@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU
Northern Territory University
Darwin, Australia		Snail: Box 40146, Casuarina, NT 0811
Newsgroups: soc.history