Oracle of the Humanities: Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard

By |2023-11-13T20:13:35-06:00November 13th, 2023|Categories: American Republic, Democracy, Education, History, Humanities, Literature, Michael J. Connolly, Senior Contributors|

Charles Eliot Norton is unknown today outside historians of literature or education, but between Fort Sumter and Teddy Roosevelt he dominated Anglo-American literature and Harvard lecture halls. Beginning with optimism, in the years following Appomattox his perspective darkened into fears that American democracy encouraged selfishness, corruption, and the hatred of excellence. In the 1890s, Harvard [...]

Poetry & Politics?

By |2023-10-25T05:58:29-05:00October 24th, 2023|Categories: Dante, Featured, Glenn Arbery, Humanities, Liberal Arts, Poetry, Timeless Essays, William Shakespeare, Wyoming Catholic College|

Great poetry can come from deep engagement with the problems of politics, but it is especially moving to see how exile—often the consequence of that engagement—subtly becomes the symbol of the condition of fallen man. Students at Wyoming Catholic College memorize many poems in the four years of the humanities curriculum, but few of the [...]

Intending the Unintended

By |2023-09-13T19:06:58-05:00September 13th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Glenn Arbery, Humanities, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays, Wyoming Catholic College|

What is the intention of a Great Books education? Does it need to make the student feel at every moment as though there were a palpable design upon him? I ask because making things “intentional” seems to have become something of a buzzword, even in spiritual matters. Guided tours can be a wonderful thing. I [...]

The Crisis of the Humanities & Prospects for Revival

By |2023-09-08T17:56:44-05:00September 8th, 2023|Categories: Featured, Humanities, Liberal Learning, Russell Kirk|

The crisis in the humanities that we see today does not concern numbers so much as belief. A society dedicated to empiricism and utilitarianism is a society that does not recognize the superiority of philosophic knowledge, or the importance of the aesthetic. It is now a year-and-a-half since I had the opportunity to visit the [...]

Immediacy: The Ways of Humanity

By |2023-08-24T18:04:24-05:00August 24th, 2023|Categories: E.B., Eva Brann, Humanities, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, St. John's College, Time, Timeless Essays, Wisdom|

Opposition to greatness comes from the kind of irrational irritation that made the Athenians ostracize Aristides because they were tired of hearing him called "the Just," or from egalitarian resentment, or from fear of the demands things of quality make on us. I want to steal four minutes of my talking time to speak of [...]

Greek to Us: The Death of Classical Education & Its Consequences

By |2023-07-26T15:39:37-05:00July 26th, 2023|Categories: Christian Kopff, Classical Education, Classical Learning, Classics, Humanities, Liberal Learning, Timeless Essays|Tags: |

Classical Education as practiced in the United States over the past 30 years is the most up-to-date, cutting edge development in K-12 education. It is also the oldest, most tried-and-true alternative on today’s educational scene. America needs the Classical Tradition. In 1999 the A&E cable network broadcast a list of “The 100 Most Influential People [...]

The Crisis of the Intellectual Life

By |2022-11-06T15:45:29-06:00November 6th, 2022|Categories: Aristotle, Featured, Humanities, Liberal Learning, Plato, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

The removal of intellectual life from the world, the withdrawn person’s independence from contests over wealth or status, provides or reveals a dignity that can’t be ranked or traded. This dignity, along with the universality of the objects of the intellect—that is, that they are available to everyone—is what opens up space for real communion. [...]

The Paradox of Courage

By |2022-11-01T14:49:54-05:00November 1st, 2022|Categories: Character, Education, Glenn Arbery, Great Books, History, Humanities, Timeless Essays, Virtue|

What does courage actually look like? Why is it that many who can face mortal dangers in battle lack the other virtues? How do you account for a man like Cicero, whose voice trembled at the beginning of every speech and who never distinguished himself in battle, yet who stood up to Catiline and saved [...]

What Makes a Good Historian?

By |2022-10-18T08:33:56-05:00October 17th, 2022|Categories: History, Humanities, Liberal Learning, Michael J. Connolly, Senior Contributors|

The pursuit of ideological history always ends with the installation of a new elite, a new ruling class, a new set of exploiters. Instead, historians should practice good history and humane learning, avoid the temptations of ideology and “relevance,” and defend the universities. In 1969, the American Historical Association broke down into hostile wings, one [...]

The Intrepid Soul: Why We Need the Classics and Humanities

By |2022-07-20T18:19:14-05:00July 20th, 2022|Categories: Classics, Coronavirus, Culture, Education, Humanities, Modernity, Timeless Essays|

To justify the Classics and Humanities, some have tried to argue that they remain a practical option for students, couching their praise in terms readily amenable to the outcome-focused mentalities of today’s high-achieving students. But does reducing the Classics and Humanities to a series of “practical” stepping-stones do the subjects any justice? Colleges and universities [...]

Fit for the World

By |2022-05-14T11:07:02-05:00May 14th, 2022|Categories: Antigone, Apology, Graduation, Great Books, Humanities, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Plato, Socrates, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

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. [...]

Noe’s Classical Ark

By |2023-08-20T14:12:55-05:00July 6th, 2021|Categories: Classical Education, David Deavel, Education, Humanities, Liberal Arts, Senior Contributors|

Wicked foolishness continues apace on the higher academic earth. The flood is sweeping away institution after institution. Yet at least one righteous man is gathering together verbal creatures of every kind—masculine, feminine, and neuter— into an ark and waiting for the flood waters to recede. First, the wicked foolishness. Almost a year ago, my fellow [...]

Heart and Mind

By |2021-07-02T14:31:06-05:00June 12th, 2021|Categories: Classical Education, Classical Learning, Glenn Arbery, Graduation, Humanities, Liberal Arts, Love, Wyoming Catholic College|

Paying attention to the guidance of the heart is no guarantee of prudent action, as Mark Antony and Cleopatra demonstrate with grand style, but there is something nobler in giving the heart its whole due than in bypassing its counsel and resorting to mere calculation. According to the 17th century mathematician and Catholic apologist Blaise [...]

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