Why should an adult take time out of his busy schedule to learn classical languages? Latin and ancient Greek unlock the cultural heritage of the West. When it comes to ancient languages, many people seem to believe that there is an incredibly small window of opportunity for learning. I encounter this belief frequently, since I [...]
We modern defenders of the liberal arts have to choose between Socrates’ vision and Cicero’s vision: Are we citizens of a particular soil and a particular place, or are we connected—across time and space—to all good men and God? A few weeks ago, I had the grand privilege of attending a Liberty Fund conference on [...]
What happened? How did institutions of higher education founded with such clear-eyed Christian missions, centered on moral and academic flourishing, go so far astray? There was once a time when religiously affiliated liberal-arts institutions were just that: havens of the time-honored liberal-arts tradition that sought to shape both students’ minds and hearts in accordance with [...]
The disastrous and destructive consequences of reductionist and relativistic education can be seen in multifarious ways, all of which are made manifest in the decay and decomposition of the modern West. We are no longer able to think outside of narcissistic or ideological boxes; we are no longer able to love self-sacrificially. The following is [...]
Poetry offers a unique antidote to the superficiality that dominates American culture. Poetry calls us back to tradition and calls us out of the shallows into the deeper water of human experience. It draws us toward transcendence. It is tempting to decry our age as the worst of times. Anyone who has studied history, however, [...]
The world needs young men who will devote their great energy to meaningful work, who will not follow a whining culture, who will stand out, stand up, and work hard. If you want a meaningful, worthwhile life, you must work hard. This is true for anyone, though my focus here is young men. Our culture [...]
In the long term, the hope is for the Gregory the Great Institute to become a major contributor to the “great conversation,” bringing the wisdom of Christendom to Canada’s beleaguered and floundering culture. We live in exciting times. As a native-born Englishman, I rejoice at the news that St. John Henry Newman is soon to [...]
If a liberal education liberates, one of the constraints from which the student is liberated is the professor. That this occurs from a method exercised by the professor is one of the great powers of Socratic dialectic in the classroom, and one of the paradoxes, perhaps mysteries, of our privileged vocation in the university. Why, [...]
In “How to Keep From Losing Your Mind,” Deal W. Hudson sets out to not merely defend—in a traditional and philosophical sense—Western thought but also to share the beauty of culture and the approach he took as he was writing, namely that of “a mounting sense of joy.” How to Keep From Losing Your Mind: [...]
Free citizens are necessarily invited to follow the Delphic injunction, “know thyself,” that is addressed to all mankind; and their success or failure in responding to this invitation is crucial for the preservation or loss of their liberty. Liberal education is the distinctive educational tradition of the West; so, too, is liberty our distinctive political [...]
Sidney Hook believed the university to be a community of scholars bound together by the ties of civility and intellectual respect, pursuing the truths, the goods, and the beauties—multiple visions which inspire the life of the mind. Those who accept this conception, he believed, must dedicate themselves to help those misguided students and their allies [...]
We are made for the stars but rooted in the soil. We are made to seek spiritual realities, but we must use this world, this visible creation, to do so. How the brief life of a storied liberal arts program changed lives the world over. In 1967, at the age of forty-four, John Senior transferred [...]
The absence of beauty in education robs students of their natural curiosity, intuition, and creativity. Beauty provides direction, order, and harmony. Humans are made to desire and perceive beauty, which itself is the mystery of God. Professor Margarita Mooney of Princeton Theological Seminary and the Scala Foundation is a dear friend and brilliant academic. Five [...]
If federal spending on wealthy institutions of higher learning can’t be trimmed, where could it be trimmed? If any belt-tightening is impossible for these universities, where in the budget would it be possible? Let’s presume for so the moment we can’t keep running up huge budget deficits and continuing to increase the public debt, which [...]