----------
 Dick Veit quoted himself (_Discovering English Grammar_):

> Our arguments are based on notions of value that have nothing to do with
> immediate utility, nothing to do with developing marketable skills or
> increasing our incomes.  Instead we see these subjects as important areas
> of knowledge, connected in important ways with the meaning of being
human,
> with beauty, and even with the nature of truth itself.  Our minds, we
feel,
> are more fully developed, our knowledge more richly completed, through
our
> contact with these studies.  It is an argument based on insight,
subjective
> experience, aesthetics, and certain philosophical assumptions, rather
than
> on practical consequences.
..............
>It is its own reward.  We need look no further to justify its existence."


Thank you for these words!

I am reminded, when I read words like these, of a student of mine who
joined the chess club I run.  He was easily distracted in class, full of
youthful energy (the usual term is "raging hormones"), but once he
discovered that he could learn to play better chess by examining the theory
of the game, he was focused, calm, and attentive.  He now beats me at the
game as often as I beat him! But chess has no practical application -
unless you can be one of the lucky few to write a syndicated chess column.
Like the study of grammar or music theory, its appeal is "subjective" and
"aesthetic."  It also gave at least one student of mine a learning
experience that he MAY transfer to other disciplines.

PED