Before the horrors of attempting to teach freshman composition catapulted me into law school, the default choice for those without useful skills, I taught English at a large Midwestern state university. Like most humanities departments in such places, it was devoid of honor or prestige. To present it as a simple analogy, the university had a football team and a basketball team. Academically, we were the chess team or debate club, self-impressed but not important.

We did have one saving grace; we weren’t the economics department.

That department epitomized futility and boredom. It had neither steak nor sizzle. It lacked all charm. We had Shakespeare, poetry, great novels and drama. They had John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman and statistics.

Why, some 50 years after I left teaching, do

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