A free mind is necessary for our personal happiness, for living a good life, the life suited to our nature. Fifty years ago I shook the hand of our president, signed the College Register, and sat where you freshmen are sitting today, awaiting the happy start of a four-year adventure into the books and conversation [...]
Both free thinking and innovation depend on having the imagination to see alternate ways of being, to envision worlds that we do not yet see before us, to reconsider what is there, and to conceive what could be there in its place. As the president of an American college with a distinctive approach to liberal [...]
Music pervades our lives and always has. It has taken you outside of yourselves and taken you deep within. It has been associated with things divine. There comes a time in every year when I find myself saying to a friend or a prospective student that this is a very musical College [Convocation, St. John’s [...]
At this celebratory time of year, when sparks of magic dance on the cold night air, let us wonder about the worlds we want to live in, and give thanks for the miracle of imagination. Making choices about life depends critically on the ability to imagine possibilities. Speaking as an advocate for liberal education, I [...]
On Veterans Day, we honor our surviving warriors. We rightly give thanks to those who have sacrificed their personal peace for the survival of the nation. And we rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the pledge “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” War endures. The oldest [...]
The body of Socrates may be gone but the Real Socrates has stayed with Phaedo, his friends and with all of us who will take up a life devoted to philosophy. I am grateful for the opportunity to have reflected on the life of Socrates as I wrote this evening’s lecture. Of course, it’s not [...]
Your world needs you; it needs your desire to understand it, your openness to what it has to teach you, your acceptance of its imperfections, and your sincere wish and best efforts to be useful to it because you care for it as it has cared for you, however unconscious that care may have been. [...]
The demise of imitation has been devastating for personal growth. It used to be a commonplace that successful people need to have extraordinary “heroes” whom they admire and try to emulate. But the historical disciplines in the twentieth century waged something of a war against the very idea of the hero. Imitation, like so many [...]
The figure of the universally benevolent man seems in many circles to have taken a back seat to the stunted, self-centered Economic Man. We ought to ask ourselves: Are we losing a nuanced sense of self-interest rightly understood? I have been reminiscing a lot lately, probably a sign of my age. But I recently came to [...]
The mysteries of the human heart, and of the soul within you, are every bit as wondrous as the mysteries of the political and the natural worlds. And so you have asked questions of the world, in part because it is your nature to wish to know, in part because you wish to know your [...]
Eva Brann seems to have a refreshing effect on all who meet her. This must have something to do with her openness to the world in all its manifestations, her spritely and generous spirit, her mischievous love of play, and her gift of friendship. Today, she still looks like she is experiencing a giddy delight [...]
Join The Imaginative Conservative's Winston Elliott as he talks with Christopher Nelson, president of St. John's College, about his service at St John’s, and about the unique kind of liberal arts education offered there. President Nelson discusses the mission of St. John's College, the role of the Great Books in their classes, and explains the [...]
A forthcoming book called Lesson Plan throws cold water on the fear that student debt may stunt the lives of college graduates. […]
Reading is critical to our freedom and our happiness. Is it possible to be fully plugged in and at the same time to be absorbed by the greatest books ever written? Some educators are beginning to worry that the wired generation is going to give up serious reading altogether. Judging from our experience here at [...]