Soulcraft.

I don't remember ever noticing the word "soulcraft" before today, when I saw it in a David Brooks column. Writing about "the cultural transformation" that could be achieved through the Democrats' $4 trillion in spending, he declared: "Statecraft is soulcraft." I blogged that — with disapproval — here. 

But what is "soulcraft"? If "statecraft" makes sense, it must mean the work of the state, so shouldn't "soulcraft" mean the work of the soul? But, in context, it seems to mean the state's work is to work on the soul. I think he's saying that the state ought to engage in massive spending with the aim of shaping the soul of the people who live under the power of the state, and the lack of parallelism in the use of the ending "-craft" is disturbing.

I try to think of other "-craft" words. "Witchcraft" is the work of witches, not the shaping of witches. It's done by witches, not to witches. It fits with "statecraft," not "soulcraft."

In the comments to my post, Lloyd W. Robertson and Peter Spieker independently bring up George Will, and Quaestor writes: 

American history question of the day.

In which American presidential election were the major party candidates the least well-educated?

I have an idea of what the answer might be but don't know for sure. Trump famously said "I love the poorly educated"...



... but what does the label mean and who gets it? For the purposes of my question, I would consider the level of education reached, the quality of the educational institutions, and the difficulty and sophistication of the program pursued.

IN THE COMMENTS: Lloyd W. Robertson said:

I think you have to speak of different eras. Before 1900, it would have seemed ridiculous to expect an Ivy League education or something similar; there were lawyers, but as traditionalguy points out, that didn't necessarily involve what we would call formal education. John Quinicy Adams was almost unbelievably well educated in the "classics," with a lot of help from "amateurs" who were themselves well educated (including in law). Polk graduated with Honors from UNC Chapel Hill. Without more checking, I would just say that was very unusual at the time.

In the 20th century you have more "Ivy League" presidents, often with a gentleman's C average. Hoover was a brilliant engineer, an early Stanford grad, and surely one of the four or five highest IQ presidents (despite being remembered for his failure in the Depression). He made a reputation for finding ore where others had failed, working in many countries, making his way through obscure documents in many languages, hiring and organizing work crews, transportation, food distribution, etc. Johnson vs. Goldwater in 1964 may indeed set the standard for "little higher/formal education" for both major party candidates.

Johnson/Goldwater was indeed the idea I had when I wrote the post.

Anyway, to make the question work, let's begin at 1900. That was William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan. (1896 was also William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan, so we could just as well say let's begin in 1896, but it would make no difference.) WJB graduated from college and law school (Union Law College, known today as Northwestern University School of Law), so 1900 is not the right answer to my question. As for McKinley, he went to Allegheny College for one year and then went back home "after becoming ill and depressed."

I thought of the question this morning because I happened to be reading about Barry Goldwater, and I was surprised to see how little education he had:

After he did poorly as a freshman in high school, Goldwater's parents sent him to Staunton Military Academy in Virginia... He graduated from the academy in 1928 and enrolled the University of Arizona. Goldwater dropped out of college after one year...

As for LBJ, he went to college, but (constrained by poverty) an undistinguished place, Southwest Texas State Teachers College.