We agree, for example, that cheating, cowardice, and cruelty are wrong. Although it is true that we must debate controversial issues, we must not forget that there exists a core of uncontroversial ethical issues that were settled a long time ago. We must make students aware that there is a standard of ethical ideals that all civilizations worthy of the name have discovered. We must encourage them to read the Bible, Aristotle's Ethics , Shakespeare's King Lear , the Koran, and the Analects of Confucius. We must bring the great books and great ideas back into the core of the curriculum.
American children have a right to their moral heritage.
They should know the Bible. They should be familiar with the moral truths in the tragedies of Shakespeare and in the political ideas of Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln. They should be exposed to the exquisite moral sensibility in the novels of Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Mark Twain, to mention some of my favorites. These great works are their birthright. This is not to say that a good literary, artistic, and philosophical education suffices to create ethical human beings, nor to suggest that teaching the classics will by itself repair the moral ozone layer.