These last weeks I have been coaching students of all stripes and watching many of them graduate or count down the days, or sometimes both. Those who display the most obvious anticipation tend to make me recall strains from Thomas Augustine Arne's 18th-century masque, Comus, with the libretto written by John Milton.
Here's the text to "Air from Comus":
Preach not me your musty rules,
Ye drones that mould in idle cells,
The heart is wiser than the schools,
The senses always reason well.
If short my span I less can spare
to pass a single pleasure by:
An hour is long if lost in care;
They only live,
They only live,
They only live who life enjoy
Fast forward from 1738 to 2011 and we find that the ups and downs of social codes, formal education, and incorruptibility are still being hotly debated by songwriters. In 1972, Alice Cooper offered us "Well we got no class - and we got no principles/principals - we ain't got no innocence". I'm not licensed to print the whole lyric to "School's Out", but here's a fun link to it - don't let the first 10 seconds throw you:
Congratulations Class of 2011! And Good Summer to all! Hey do they still make those "burning schoolhouse" firecrackers?
