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Comment by slay2k | Hacker News Reader

Awesome read, though Jefferson seems to have suffered from the "these are facts because I said so" type of thinking. Here are some relevant quotes:

  "Sitting up late at night is injurious to the health, and not useful to the mind."

  "Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind."

  "As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. [snip] Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks. [snip] Walking is the best possible exercise."

That last one leaves me pondering what he's talking about, since he doesn't appear to be referring to hunting, unless it's the long-relaxing-walks-while-hunting kind..

Aside from that, I'm curious how much of the reading list will be doable these days without a solid grasp of Greek or Latin or French ? I kind of wanna give it a shot.

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Re: hunting

There are basically three methods of hunting. One is to sit quietly and wait for the animals you are interested in shooting to come by; the second is to try and sneak up on them (stalking); and the third is to go out and make noise to flush them out so you can shoot them. This last method is what's used for things like rabbits, squirrels, and birds (although for different reasons -- rabbits and birds typically need to be flushed out from their hiding spots and squirrels will just freeze in place a lot of the time when they hear something, which makes them really easy to shoot). Jefferson is probably referring to this type of hunting, which can often resemble a relaxing walk in the woods with one's dog.

>long-relaxing-walks-while-hunting kind

yep. bird hunting i think.

Yeah this used to be pretty common, especially for schoolchildren for at least 100 years after Jefferson's time to "walk" home while hunting.

Crazy. To what end, food on the table ?

This would also imply the children took guns to school. Am I the only one who finds this rather insane ? Also, if you happen to have any links on the matter I'd appreciate it.

I have no links, but I can tell you what I heard from my grandfather. Basically, yes, they took guns to school. Everyone did. It wasn't considered abnormal at all. They never had any problems with school shootings either. I guess if everyone has a gun, you'd end up dead pretty fast if you tried to start anything. After school, they'd go hunting and try to shoot something for dinner that night. If they couldn't get anything, their family might go without dinner that night.

I believe he lived in a fairly rural area though. I assume things were different in the cities.

My high school in the suburban south in the 1980s, people had gunracks in their trucks, often with guns on them. They couldn't come inside the building, but the guns in trucks were considered culturally untouchable at the time.

Thanks to all three of you for the insights.

It's amazing how strange something can appear when interpreted in a different social or cultural context.

I for one find your (former) ignorance of the widespread nature of gunplay in America strange. Were you raised in a bubble?

You would not find it insane if you had spent a lot of time in the southern USA.

For a "guns-in-school" story just Google "University of Virginia John Davis shot".

The TL;DR; is that on November 12, 1840, a rowdy bunch of college students were drinking and shooting (as usual), and rode up to a professor and shot him. While tragic, this eventually paved the way for really, really entertaining college admissions tours that often feature a full re-enactment of the scene.

> To what end, food on the table ?

Yes. People don't usually shoot rabbits, birds, and squirrels for self defense, you know. :-)

"Aside from that, I'm curious how much of the reading list will be doable these days without a solid grasp of Greek or Latin or French ?"

A whole hell of a lot. You could probably download better than 90% from gutenberg.org, though I am not qualified to say how good or bad the translations are. If you want paper, your local Borders probably has 40 percent or more on its shelves. At least, they always seem to have about a foot or more of Herodotus (Landmark, histories, excerpts).

A university library will probably have all those things on their shelves, if you have access to one.

from what i've been reading, sitting / staying up late is injurious, actually.

3rd shift workers have increased mortality\risk of cancer, largely due to Vitamin D deficiency. I agree Jefferson's statement is accurate.

Nowadays we know vitamin D exists so you can take a supplement or consciously eat certain foods (oily fish such as sardines http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/01/alton-browns-sardine-avoc...)

> Aside from that, I'm curious how much of the reading list will be doable these days without a solid grasp of Greek or Latin or French ? I kind of wanna give it a shot.

No doubt it's all been translated (and is probably available for free online).

"...reading every thing in the original and not in translations"

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