Didn't realize that you were requesting a course syllabus. I guess it's more fun for you to generalize and that parents and public schools working together, aren't capable of providing an above average education.
Secondly, not every parent possesses the requisite abilities or gumption to realize that there is more to life than work, welfare, and television.
How many times on this board have we complained of the ignorance of the citizenry of this country? Imagine how much worse it would be if some on the board had their way.
Makattak: You should run for Congress. You would be a natural.
So, the schools failed to give these people appreciation, but we should spend money on these failed endeavors.
Secondly, I ask because when most people refer to "classical literature" aren't really meaning classical literature. They are meaning: some Shakespeare, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, some Thoreau, a book by Dickens (usually just one- either Tale of Two Cities or Great Expectations), Huck Finn by Mark Twain, possibly some Hemingway, various short poems and various short stories. I'll guess maybe even "Moby Dick."
They don't include the basics of Western Civilization: Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Beowulf, Virgil, Cicero, Caesar, Aurelius, Dante, Augustus, Aquinas, Milton, Marlowe, Chaucer, etc... (I'm going to stop my historical progression).
In order to understand the more recent works and
appreciate those works (*you know, that whole enrichment idea) people need to know what their allusions mean and what their works build from.
Otherwise, Frankenstein is just an interesting story.