The Rocky Mountain College, or Smarts “The Mountain Man Way” by Mark Hatmaker

 

We will begin with an historical comparison and then offer a possible “Why” and end with a “How” for those who wish to improve their own game.

Readers of Civil War era letters home from presumably young and ill-educated men, and the journals, diaries, and reminiscences of mountain men, ranchers, cowmen, lawmen, circuit riders, miners, et al. reveal a remarkable display of gorgeous evocative prose-and, in many cases poetry. [Many a soldier, explorer, young cowboy would compose in camp or on the trail.]

The language often bordered on the flowery and can be likened to something found in a Victorian novel. Readers of Charles Portis’ well-researched novel True Grit, or the Coen Brothers faithful 2010 adaptation catches some of the flavor of the earthy stateliness of speech and writing even when “in the midst.”

When one reads letter after letter, journal after journal of men and women with little to no “education” producing bracing prose and expressing themselves with a grandeur that rivals the “best” produced today by the “well educated” we must ask ourselves: How did this population of mostly “uneducated” people express themselves with such beauty and such vigor?

Ponder this extract from Colonel John “The Gray Ghost” Mosby’s Mosby’s War Reminiscences [1887]

“The martinets who controlled it were a good deal like the hero of Moliere’s comedy, who complained that the antagonist had wounded him by thrusting in carte, when according to the rule, it should have bee in tierce. I cared nothing for the form of a thrust if it brought blood. I did not play at foils.”

Now, here we have noted guerrilla warrior, some in the Union considered him no better than a lawless bushwhacker, and yet we have a man who even when discussing violence has an easy facility with vocabulary [“martinet” over an easy slang insult say, “clowns in Richmond” or “antagonist” over “enemy” or some other epithet.]

Mosby also assumes that his readers were familiar with the sword-dueling lesson from Moliere’s play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, [The Bourgeois Gentleman] he was likely correct in this assumption.

Compare that with the following similar complaint from a West Point educated warrior. [I leave the name off, we are merely comparing styles and not performance in the field.]

“What do these assclowns away from it all, not understand? We need gloves off—end of story. Period.”

Again, we compare styles not performance, but I would ask the intrigued to read a volume of young “uneducated” men’s letters to home from the Civil War era and then a volume of letters, tweets, or status updates from our recent conflicts from a presumably better educated cadre and ask yourself if you notice a considerable difference.

Let’s go with one more extract. This one is from the Dimsdale’s 1865 The Vigilantes of Montana. It is the true account of rough and ready “take justice into your own hands” times by an eyewitness.

Life in mining camps was Tough with a capital T. The extract I have chosen strikes me as apt, as many see improving language, speaking-writing facility as “putting on airs” whereas those in the midst and at the time simply did not see communication eloquence as a detriment or sign of “weakness.”

“’Putting on style,’ or the assumption of aristocratic airs, is the detestation of everybody. No one but a person lacking sense attempts it. It is neither forgotten nor forgiven, and KILLS a man like a bullet. [Caps in original.] It should also be remembered that no people more admire and respect upright moral conduct, than do the sojourners in mining camps, while at the same time none more thoroughly despise hypocrisy in any shape.”

Rough and ready mining camp—phrases such as “assumption of aristocratic airs” vocabulary such as “sojourners.”

And yet this prose itself was not seen as “assumption of airs,” as it was part and parcel of life, just as Colonel Mosby’s likely correct assumption that, “Y’all remember Moliere’s play, right?”

So, again, where does this general overall level of what we would now consider “high falutin’” prose and expression come from in a time of no organized schooling and lack of easy access to “educational” apps, videos, blogs, podcasts?

The Rocky Mountain College

Let’s look to this mountain man phrase for our education.

To many modern mountain man enthusiasts “Rocky Mountain College” means learning woodcraft and other such outdoor ways.

This is a misunderstanding.

That is not actually the use of the phrase as bandied about by the mountain men themselves. It was a given that you would have your scoutcraft down, that was your livelihood, your life-or-death day in day out.

Rock Mountain College referred to your activities in the long hard winters.

The Mountain Man custom was to read, voraciously, avidly and continuously during the winters. Popular volumes were the works of Shakespeare, Byron, the novels of Walter Scott and Jane Porter, the Bible, any “high falutin’ work” that was big in England or Continental Europe that could make the transition across the Ocean and could be tucked into a pannier, a saddlebag, a “possibles” bag was manna.

When meeting another on the trail, book lending was a treasured privilege and honor.

The Rocky Mountain College reading was often dipping into the same volumes again and again, many is the story of “Hard Men” and “Stalwart Women” who could quote long favored passages from memory.

Informal lending libraries in some “stations” and central homesteads were treasured destinations.

Many an illiterate young man [and many a mature man] would ask to “winter over” with one who could teach them to read.

Reading to the self, reading aloud, and telling many tales [as mountain men loved to do at Rendezvous] in an improvised Baroque manner was the norm.

Rocky Mountain College was auto-didacticism at its finest.

How to Create Your Own Rocky Mountain College

Long-hard winters, many days on the trail, and remote locales created distraction free zones.

Mountain men, miners, “illiterate “cowboys”, homesteader wives, et cetera., they turned to what we now consider the components of a Classic Education as their go-to entertainment.

Distraction-free they settled in for the “hard work” of deciphering the best of literature, science, and philosophy. [Volumes of Darwin, Lyell, Bacon, Seneca, Cicero, and many others all turned up in the hands of the “ill-educated.”]

And to be frank, it likely was not “hard work” to them. It was as refreshing as our palate cleansing browse of Facebook posts, or the leisurely viewing of a new Marvel show.

Rocky Mountain College signals that not only were these self-sufficient hard men and women rough and ready for the adventure of everyday life, they were also very well-read bright and bracing conversationalists and letter writers.

If we want a piece of this Old School well-roundedness, we are wise to create our own version of The Rocky Mountain College.

We must wean ourselves from some of our tech besotted, easy “entertainment ways and lift heavier weights to have souls with more gravity.

We have to create our own “long winters” of fewer distractions, our own remote locations which can often be as simple as turning off a signal.

Of course, the choice is yours as to whether to enroll or not. Tuition is free, by the way.

I do ask this, indulge a simple test.

Read 10 Civil War letters then read 10 Facebook Posts and 10 tweets.

Then ask yourself who is the better-educated?

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