The need for a body of common knowledge and common reference does not disappear when a society is largely pluralistic, as ours has become. On the contrary, it grows more necessary, so that people of different origins and occupation may quickly find familiar ground and, as we say, speak a common language. It not only saves time and embarrassment, but it also ensures a kind of mutual confidence and good will. One is not addressing an alien, blank as a stone wall, but a responsive creature whose mind is filled with the same images, memories, and vocabulary as oneself.

Jacques Barzun (1907-2012) French-American historian, educator, polymath

“Of What Use the Classics Today?,” Lecture, St. John’s College (1987-07-17)
    (Source)

Collected in Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning (1991).