y first introduction to John Ruskin was in an undergraduate class in Victorian Prose, where we read excerpts from The Stones of Venice and Modern Painters. I was intrigued, but I was most taken that term with Thomas Carlyle, whose Past and Present made a deep impression on me. I was excited by Carlyle’s energy and outrage, by his dramatic use of language and his withering denunciations. I wrote my term paper on Carlyle, to my professor’s surprise—apparently most students found him cranky and nearly impenetrable. This interest in Carlyle surely foreshadowed my later enthusiasm for Ruskin—I clearly had an early affinity for wise and indignant sages.
Yet I didn’t follow up my undergraduate introduction to Ruskin right away. I wrote my MA thesis on Anthony Trollope (the same Trollope who describes Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies as ‘rodomontade’!), working with Trollope scholar N. John Hall, who became a friend. I entered my PhD program at the Graduate Center/City University of New York thinking that I’d eventually write a dissertation on Trollope. But then I began reading Ruskin in earnest, and suddenly I was hooked. His power of thought and language towered over anything I’d read before. And because Ruskin’s mind ranged so widely, there is much to read. He wrote about art and architecture, political economy, social reform, geology, botany, mythology, etymology, education, history and natural history. He rejected the dominant ideologies of his time—utilitarianism, laissez faire, political economy, capitalism, democracy, industrialism—even though it meant that he was often scorned as a crank. I was drawn to his indignation, his restless dissatisfaction with the status quo, his willingness to speak his mind and damn the torpedoes, but also to his insight, his vision, his sensitivity to nature, his great love and knowledge of art and culture, his perception of connections between things, people, and ideas. I could go on—anyone familiar with Ruskin will likely relate in one way or another to what I’ve described (and those who haven’t yet read him have much to look forward to). Reading Ruskin I experienced innumerable moments of sudden insight and recognition; my margins filled up with excited notations and responses. It wasn’t that Ruskin’s writing simply confirmed or expanded familiar ideas. Rather, he challenged me to look at my ideas and at the world from another perspective. It wasn’t long before I had decided to write my dissertation on Ruskin. My focus was Ruskin’s educational philosophy and it proved the first in a number of projects on Ruskin and education, including my book, Ruskin’s Educational Ideals, published by Ashgate in 2011. I’ve been reading Ruskin, and writing about him, for twenty years now. I have learned—and continue to learn—more from him than I could ever tally.
Yet in addition to inspiration and insight, Ruskin has also brought me more tangible gifts, in the form of what one Ruskin scholar has called “friends in Ruskin.” I have found the Ruskin community to be unfailingly welcoming, generous and encouraging. Over the years, I have made lasting connections, and some treasured friendships, with other Ruskin scholars. This has been both life-changing and life-enhancing. These friends and colleagues have taught me a great deal and have without doubt helped to make me a better scholar, writer, and person.
Reading Ruskin one begins to feel one knows him. Of course one can never know him as his contemporaries, his family, and friends did, but his writing is so alive, so intimate, so human, that he becomes—at least he has for me—a vital and vivid, an essential, presence.
Most students of Ruskin, however, reach a point at which writing and speaking are no longer enough—we want to act. It is nearly impossible to read Ruskin without at some point feeling the urge to punch the air in exhilaration, roll up one’s sleeves, and head out into the streets or the fields. For Ruskin’s writing is in fact a call to service—a call to do your part in changing the world, even if only your small piece of it. I began to realize that I needed to be doing as well as writing. The challenge then became what to do? I realized that my teaching is the primary way to put Ruskin’s ideas into practice. In addition to the traditional literature courses that I teach, I have created syllabi built around readings that address the question of the way we live now, what we value, and how we should live. During the course of a term, students read, write about, and discuss our relationship to the natural world, the conditions and aims of our work, the role of the market, and the strength of our communities. We talk about our society’s growing disconnection from nature and what drives it. We consider the ever-growing reach of the market into our lives and talk about the challenges facing education today. My hope is that my students might leave my classes having learned to see the world differently, with a new understanding of value and with an ability to question to status quo.
I also actively promote and practice Ruskin’s principles through my work for the Guild of St George. At present, I am the North American Development Director, working with other North American Companions to develop the Guild’s presence and effectiveness in the US. Along with these colleagues, I have organized several symposia, co-sponsored by the Guild, at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, CA. These events are intended to introduce Ruskin’s ideas to a general audience and to increase knowledge of his work in America. They have been stimulating and well-attended and we plan to hold more of them. The North American Guild has established two growing centers of activity: on the East Coast at the Roycroft Community in East Aurora, NY, and on the West Coast in Los Angeles, in collaboration with the Ruskin Art Club of Los Angeles. I also participate in Guild events and initiatives in the UK, such as a symposium on Ruskin and education at Toynbee Hall and a day-long event in London on Ruskin and the environment, co-sponsored by the Guild and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). I continue to deliver talks and lectures at various Ruskin-related events, both in the US and abroad, and to publish articles and essays, always with the goal of introducing new readers to Ruskin and demonstrating the ways in which his ideas might productively inform modern debates—about art, nature, economics, education, labor, and more.
Ruskin rejected materialism, competition, the industrial degradation of both the natural world and human lives, and the fragmentation of communities and values. There is so much we might learn from him, and his ideas are particularly resonant today. “You do not educate a man by telling him what he knew not,” he assures us, “but by making him what he was not.” I believe that Ruskin offers to show us how to begin.
Last modified 22 March 2019