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In Lapham's "Playing With Fire" an allusion is made to the fictional realm Mordor. This realm is found in the Lord of The Rings Series by J.R.R. Tolkien. This allusion supports the downfall of education. Mordor is a realm known for its evilness. This reference creates a comparison that points to education as much darker.

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In "Playing With Fire," one allusion that the author makes repeatedly throughout the texting is comparing education to cash value assets; consistently stating that our education system isn't to educate and learn from others, but to obtain cash. "Students don't go to school to acquire the wisdom of Solomon. They go to school to acquire a cash value and improve their lot."
The author also talks about how the money going into our educational system is going into commodities and not necessities.

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An allusion Lapham makes in "Playing with Fire" is referring to Hannibal's elephants. Hannibal's elephants were famous for being used to fight wars such as War of Trebia. I think Lapham used this to support his rhetorical purpose because a lot of Hannibal's elephants died in the harsh conditions, which can be used to describe the students in the school system. A lot of them died before the few successful ones survived.

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An allusion Lewis H. Lapham author of "Playing with Fire" uses, is when he talks about the school system in the United States. Lapham talks about how a student regardless of who they are should be taught the same as every other student. All students should be taught the same no matter who they are. "schools must teach everything to everybody." The author also says, "Even more wonderful they must entertain the fiction that everybody can learn to write" In my opinion, this allusion supports the Rhetorical purpose where the author expresses his ideas on the American schools and the American school systems and how they should teach any student regardless of who they are in any grade level.

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In "Playing with fire" the author uses allusion to get the readers to grasp that education is something that differentiates with each student, not everyone works at the same pace or is at the same level intellectually. For example how Lapham says "Like everybody else in the country old enough to have flunked a math quiz, I can wish that
test scores grew on trees; but schools serve the political and economic order in which they
operate, and whether they deserve a passing or a failing grade begs the prior question asking
what it is they’re supposed to teach." which confirms that the education system has failed many, because teachers just teach to teach, not to really make sure everyone understands the material.

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Lewis H. Lapham makes an allusion to the works of the philosopher Plato to show an example of a once thought of curriculum for students. He referenced the quote where Plato argues that poetry should not be taught as it would “give a distorted image of
the nature of the gods and heroes”. Lapham uses Plato's argument to exemplify that circumstances and time have an effect on what education is thought of as.

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Ajani Wade                                                                                                 In "Playing with Fire"  one allusion Lapham makes in when he is talking about how everybody has flunked a math quiz. He says " Like everybody else in the country old enough to have flunked a math quiz, I can wish that test scores grew on trees; but schools serve the political and economic order in which they operate, and whether they deserve a passing or a failing grade begs the prior question asking what it is they’re supposed to teach". This is referring to the saying that is, I wish money grew on trees. This relates to the rhetorical purpose because the author is stating that he wished school was easier so that he could get good grades and not struggle.          

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Ajani Wade                                                                                                 In "Playing with Fire"  one allusion Lapham makes in when he is talking about how everybody has flunked a math quiz. He says " Like everybody else in the country old enough to have flunked a math quiz, I can wish that test scores grew on trees; but schools serve the political and economic order in which they operate, and whether they deserve a passing or a failing grade begs the prior question asking what it is they’re supposed to teach". This is referring to the saying that is, I wish money grew on trees. This relates to the rhetorical purpose because the author is stating that he wished school was easier so that he could get good grades and not struggle.          

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"Playing with Fire" is an article where Lapham critiques practices of the modern education system through referencing various significant events, literary works, historical figures, etc. to demonstrate his claims. Lapham illuminates the illogical practices littered throughout most public school's curriculum when he expresses that schools "...must entertain the fiction that everybody can learn to write as well as Jefferson or to think as clearly as René Descartes."(para. 11) His mention of commonly taught historical figures and their works, serves to expand upon his argument that students are individuals and not all will be interested or even able to write and think like Jefferson or Descartes. This allusion further serves to comment on how the school's refusal to properly address the individual learning abilities of each student will stunt their learning and development. Moreover, when schools force every student to learn the same subjects and be judged identically on how well they've retained the knowledge it facilitates an environment of quantity work not one of quality learning.

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One allusion used in Playing with Fire is his reference to the quote he placed at the beginning of the text. He references "Plutarch’s hypothesis at the head of this essay", which was "The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled". This not only served the purpose to start the essay off and set the tone, but was also a statement that allowed him to connect a different allusion, or the "experiments of Ralph Waldo Emerson", followed by a different quote. The actual quote alluded to was a very accurate quote for the point that the author is trying to make throughout the text- it says that the mind isn't something that can be filled the same way for every person, but something that should be nurtured and allowed to think on its own and be creative, in contrast with what the author says the American education system is doing.

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In "Playing with Fire," Lapham alludes frequently to the Founding Fathers. This supports his rhetorical purpose by bringing to mind historical figures who had a profound impact on the way America, and by extension, its education system, formed. We view the Founding Fathers as wise and enlightened, and their beliefs are the basis for much of American democracy, so alluding to their views on education and how those can be applied to the education system. By doing this, he invites the reader to think about the way American ideals, political, economical, and social, affect the education system, both good and bad. He uses the Founding Fathers in two ways, both to show how our education system has strain from their ideals, but also to show how in some ways, the system is based on flawed ideas.

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One allusion Lapham makes in "Playing With Fire" is when he begins discussing  President Woodrow Wilson and his instatement of the Espionage Act. He writes: "Addressing a meeting of the New York City High School Teachers Association in 1909, Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, set forth the requirements of America’s newborn industrial civilization. 'We want one class of persons to have a liberal education,'” Further putting forth that the education system is corrupt and meant to extinguish most of the fire of the human mind at a young age, as he then follows up with a quote from John Dewey in 1916: " that what was great about America was the greatness of its gross domestic product, not the greatness of its love of liberty."

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In the article "Playing with Fire" by Lewis H Lapham he compares the education system to the idea of  decomcary. We believe that what makes us great is our love for liberty but what it truly is, is our gross rate. Rockefeller was on the party which built our school systems and truly all that mattered was that we were n schools long enough so our parents could work. and not only that but so one day we could work in the same factories as they did. Later on he compares the schools t a fried chicken franchise (which I enjoyed) if everything is made so we do not sussed then whats the point? if everything is made so we can work and spend our how lives doing simple tasks instead of our minds finding that creative spark that keeps us going then theirs nothing else but that our whole lives.

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In “Playing With Fire”, Lapham refers to multiple historical figures, various works of fiction, and many works of literature that are considered life changing. Many of those mentioned are philosophers such as Voltaire and Plato. Towards the end of his essay, he mentions Marquis de Condorcet, a French philosopher, fleeing from officers of the guillotine to write about human nature and it’s future perfections. Lapham uses this as a cause of perfection, which to him is “. . . Mr. Mulholland at the blackboard . . . up against Hannibal’s elephants and Cleopatra’s barge, defending the frontiers of the American republic with a badly wounded piece of chalk.” He believes that philosophers would be proud of the teachers and professors that teach with passion, causing their students to latch on to every word they say, thus learning more information than with a boring or uninterested teacher. To him, if all teachers were as passionate as his history teacher was all those years ago, the large percentages of incorrect information, mostly from history, would be taught correctly.

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An allusion that Lapham makes in "Playing with Fire" is when he listed various names such as Ezra Cornell, Andrew W. Mellon, Andrew Carnegie, etc. and called them the newly ordained ministers of industry and finance. Many readers read these names and recognize all of them because of the colleges that are named after these men. Also, these colleges are deemed as highly respected and they're all well-known because of their distinguished status. This allusion supports his thesis because by naming the names of these highly-renowned people who all have highly-renowned colleges named after he is making it known that none of them are really that important in education. Other than founding a college they haven't done anything to better the education system and stimulate students' minds. For example, Ezra Cornell was a businessman, not an educator. He knew little about how important education is for a young mind and how it has to be interesting and lively so that it can really process yet Cornell University is practically royalty. Lapham's thesis is all about how the education system has fallen apart and it's all about how to get you to a place where you make a lot of money and can contribute to the economy instead of stimulating our minds and making it interesting to learn.

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In the text "Playing with Fire", Lapham references "Useful Ignorance"; which is an essay by Henry David Thoreau. This supports his arguments made in the essay because useful ignorance is about how sometimes, knowledge, in this case the kind that is drilled into students heads at school, is sometimes detrimental to a person. While on the other hand, sometimes ignorance can benefit someone, and allow there creativity to flow.

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In "Playing with Fire," Lapham lists off the names of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Ezra Cornell, James B. Duke, and other "newly ordained ministers of finance," as he put it. Readers will recognize the last names of these wealthy businessmen because of the numerous colleges named after them, which are all considered very prestigious. However, none of the men who founded the universities were educators. Cornelius Vanderbilt was not an educator, he was a businessman who worked in the railroad and shipping industries. This supports Lapham's argument that the American education system has turned into something that only prepares students for jobs that stimulate industry instead of stimulating minds with liberal arts subjects.

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At the end of the first paragraph of Playing With Fire Lapham references "the mists of Mordor." Mordor is the fictional land from the books the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings that is the stronghold of the evil sorcerer Sauron. The land of Mordor is an ever expanding waste where the only living things are evil monsters. By referencing Mordor, Lapham implies that some people believe that our schools are shifting away from the progressive, inventive, education system that we wish to see in our country and more towards a bleak lifeless environment similar to Mordor. By using this extreme reference, that the majority of people would disagree with, Lapham highlights the issue with this claim. While our education system does have its flaws it is not a complete failure or a detriment to society so there is no need to radically change it. Lapham reasons that the argument for humanities to be removed from education is just as absurd as the argument that our school system is becoming more like Mordor. In this way, the allusion supports Lapham's claim that the humanities should continue to be taught in school because they are beneficial to society even if people are unable to measure their benefit.

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In "Playing with Fire," Lewis H. Lapham alludes to the event of World War I, specifically the Espionage Act. He writes, "Wilson as president of the United States in 1917 deleted the civics lesson with his promulgation of the Espionage Act, which marked as criminal any word or action unaligned with the imperative of 'the national defense.'" He alludes to this event in history because it helps develop an idea prevalent throughout the text. The education system is corrupt so that those higher up can benefit from it. It is an example of a U.S president altering education so that the war can look better because it help's his image. So how does this help develop his thesis? It serves to aid his thesis because the example proves the education system profit's off students, further inflating the political economy.

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An allusion that the author use in "Playing with the Fire" is where he talks about the American School system and how students no matter who they are should all be teached the same way in anything. As Lewis quotes, "Under the rules of Egalitarian procedure, the schools must teach everything to everybody. Even more wonderful, they must entertain the fiction  that everybody can learn to write as well as Jefferson or to think as clearly as René Descartes." this allusion supports his Rhetorical purpose to where he expresses his ideal on what the American School system can do to students and how they teach students in each grade level.

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The author of "Playing With Fire" uses allusion to represent his thesis by using desired jobs at well known companies such as Disney and Goldman Sachs.  Lapham states, "If the kids know how to run
the computers, work up the punch lines for Disney or Goldman Sachs, figure the exchange
rates between the euro and the yen, what does it matter if they don’t know who won either
the Revolutionary or the Civil War"?  He uses this example to support his idea that a "successful" career is possible without the extraneus knowledge traditional education provides..

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All throughout "Playing with Fire" Lapman includes multiple references to many different texts and writers- Plato, Thomas Jefferson, and Castiglione among others who all show how often the school system and learning in general have been questioned and how much school systems have changed now. He includes "John Milton believed “the end of  learning” to be the knowledge and love of God," proving just how many ways learning has been interpreted in the past. We obviously don't use this ideology in public schools, because that simply doesn't apply to everyone's different interpretations of school, learning, and beliefs in general. This reference again helps Lapam prove his main point.

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In the article "Playing with Fire", Lewis H. Lapham alludes to the phrase "'build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door" which is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson when Lapham writes, "The mission statement accorded with the American regard for the intellect as a means of
building a better mousetrap—the power of the imagination not to be trusted unless securely
fixed to a scientific project or a financial speculation, if in its artistic expression it remains
purely decorative." Lapham uses this allusion to show that the American education philosophy is to only build on our knowledge to make improvements to things we have in life that can make us more wealthy rather than using your brain for arts. Lapham uses this to support his thesis that the American education is just creating people to help the economy or create more wealth and to make the system more purposeful for Americans it should have more studies that give us more beneficial traits through humanities.

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One allusion Lewis Lapham used in Playing with Fire was, "Students don’t go to school to acquire the wisdom of Solomon." He uses this allusion to show that people do not go to school to learn about the important things in life. Students go to get money. The Wisdom of Solomon was a book that connected wisdom and God and was supposed to help people live a better life. The author refers to this as something worthy of learning, unlike learning how to make money. Lapham refers to the students as silkworms, which can turn a profit, compared to moths, who do not add any power or wealth to the country.

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In "Playing with Fire," Lapham alludes to the timeless proverb "money doesn't grow on trees" by replacing money with good test scores ("I can wish that
test scores grew on trees;"). Lapham uses this allusion to convey that he too struggled with school and wished it was a lot easier to succeed but also notes that it is completely the school's job to teach the students the necessary things to achieve academic excellence.

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In "Playing with Fire"  one allusion the author uses is when he says "To conceive of an education as a commodity (as if it were a polo pony or an Armani suit) is to construe the idea of democracy as the freedom of a market instead of a freedom of the mind."  This allusion supports Lapham's rhetorical purpose because I think he meant if we cant think of education as something expensive or something that makes us look good but we need to act like and make it so that it will benefit us in the long run.

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In “Playing With Fire” by Lewis B. Lapham, he makes an allusion early in the article referencing information that he has collected, “No respondent is ever at a loss for a telling anecdote or an illuminating statistic—forty million functional illiterates in the country unable to read a road sign or a restaurant menu, one fifth of the adults polled unaware that the earth revolves around the sun, 28 percent of the nation’s college seniors believing that the American Revolution was won at the Battle of Gettysburg, the Oklahoma high school girl who thought that the Holocaust was a Jewish religious holiday.” This allusion supports the author’s rhetorical purpose by showing how the American Education System has failed many Americans.

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An allusion that can be depicted from Lapham's "Playing with Fire" passage is when he states, "Even more wonderful, they must entertain the fiction that everybody can
learn to write as well as Jefferson or to think as clearly as René Descartes." This refers to Thomas Jefferson because he was an ideal writer and an expert in the field of knowledge and learning. It also refers to René Descartes as he was a mathematician and scientist. He uses this allusion to exaggerate how children learn different from one another and don't have the same performance levels. This meaning that the education system, according to the egalitarian procedure, has to teach the students as though they do learn and work the same as each other. The author is basically saying that not all students will work and learn as though they are geniuses such as Jefferson or Descartes, so the education system should not assume that they do so.

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In the essay "Playing with Fire," Lewis Lapham makes and allusion to the Beatles and their song "A Hard Day's Night." The Beatles were an English rock band that originated in Liverpool in 1957, but were active from the 1960s to the 1970s. The song that Lapham references was released on the soundtrack of the film of the same name. This reinforces Lapham's thesis since the Beatles is a famous band and "A Hard Day's Night" is too, the audience can understand the point that "it doesn’t matter how or when the mind achieves the spark of ignition," it can even be found while listening to this song that they likely know.

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In "Playing With Fire," Lewis H Lapham makes an allusion to the professors of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment at Duke and Stanford's disassociation with Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe and Voltaire. Voltaire and Goethe are widely known to have been publicly racist, supporting cultural backsliding. Lapham uses this allusion by connecting it back to the many obstacles in inner-city school districts. Lapham's use of the allusion plays into his belief that the managers of America's money worry more about foreign affairs and an increasing GDP rather than investing in the public education system, to be able to give those less fortunate the education they deserve. I believe Lapham mentions this in his article to highlight the long imbedded racial inequality in education that widens the gap in the standardization of schools, proving that our society does not care enough about "the quality of the domestic" to reengineer it.

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In the text "Playing with Fire" Lapham makes an allusion to the event of the Holocaust, "...the Oklahoma high school girl who thought that the Holocaust was a Jewish
religious holiday." He brings this up in order to convey the idea that the education system isn't doing its job of informing students of basic knowledge, and is leaving them severely misinformed about important historical events. This specific allusion can also be seen as using irony as a writing technique; the Holocaust was the farthest thing from a Jewish religious holiday as it killed millions of members of the Jewish religion. Through referring to a widely known historical event in this way, it upholds the thesis that many students are not being educated to where they should be with such common knowledge.

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One allusion Lapham makes in "playing with fire" is how the author, while discussing American society education, references poet John Milton and novelist George Eliot, "the society doesn't count on its statesmen or its movie stars to have read John Milton or George Eliot" this supports the purpose of the article because it is saying that in order succeed in America you don't need to be knowledgeable about literature from the past.

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In the article “Playing With Fire”, Lewis H. Lapham makes an allusion to a book called “Stover at Yale” by saying, “The purpose of the enterprise remains much the same as it was in the good old days when 🤬 Stover was a freshman at Yale finding his way in 1910 to the tables down at

Mory’s,”. The enterprise he’s talking about is the U.S educational system. The point he makes with the allusion is that although we have spent years funneling money into schools, the experience of attending one is still comparable to a book written in the early 1900s, where the main characters are white males and the main plot is about whether or not the protagonist can manage to fit in with the popular kids. The allusion itself implies that funneling money into schools for new equipment and classrooms may not be the best route to fixing the way people view and experience education in America, and that the curriculum itself and the way it’s taught needs to be adjusted.

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In “Playing with Fire,” Lapham writes that “the making of a success in this American life doesn’t presuppose a prior knowledge of Dante’s Divine Comedy.”  This is an allusion to the epic poem by Dante Alighieri titled “The Divine Comedy,” which explores the concept of the afterlife and is considered one of the most important pieces of world literature.  Lapham uses this allusion in order to convey that it is possible to become successful in America without knowledge of things that are typically deemed important in school, such as classic literature.

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one allusion Lewis H. Lapham makes in "Playing with Fire" is how he compares the way that students are taught to making Aristotle work a meaningless job or working the night shift as he puts it. He says this to show the reader that the school system gives students meaningless tasks that will not be beneficial to anyone. Things that will not help society grow or teach students.

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Lewis H. Lapham says, "Students don’t go to school to acquire the wisdom of Solomon." This is an illusion to the Book of Wisdom. The Book of Wisdom argues that the material doesn't matter, and that the pursuit of knowledge is the most important one. This helps Lapham's argument because it adds on to the point that students don't go to school to pursue knowledge. He instead argues that most students attend school just to improve their value to society so that they can later cash this in for the material.

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One allusion Lewis H. Lapham makes in "Playing with Fire" is how he uses an example of when he was in school and had Mr. Mulholland in the 7th grade to show how he can relate to the quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “When
the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes
luminous with manifold allusion.”  He explains that because of Mr. Mulhollands class, he finally enjoyed what he was learning in school. This supports his rhetorical purpose because it gives him more credibility for what he is talking about. With this real life example and allusion the audience can understand part of his point of view.

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In "Playing with Fire, Lewis H. Lapham makes an allusion to John Adams' opinion on imagination and creativity. Adams "associated the arts with monarchy and superstition and hoped they wouldn't be encouraged in the new republic." This allusion supports Lapham's rhetorical purpose because it proves Lapham's point that the educational system serves the political and economic order, and the arts aren't trusted or encouraged.

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One allusion the author uses is the reference to Mordor, a dark and evil location from the Lord of the Rings series (yay). The author uses this little allusion to show the reader how education has take a darker turn over the years, with "sure signs of cultural backsliding into the mists of Mordor".