I would not go to a college without a pool.
12
Man, this is one expensive way to learn how to think, etc. ! What a luxury. I would have been bored to death with such hifalutin erudition. And what on Earth is up with the lack of female contributions, etc ... ? By the way, students and parents, don't forget to thank the college plumber for keeping the toilets flushing.
6
Oh How I’d love to go back to school here. What a gift is right.
41
In my next life, I hope to go to St Johns.
27
It's a great concept for some students and a needed niche in the educational process. Why the letters bemoaning the flaws? They do far more right than wrong...
Thanks Frank, nice peice.
39
Since our society is hurtling backwards into a world of religious wars, secret courts and torture, perhaps acquiring a 17th century education puts you ahead of the curve.
40
This reminds me very much of the Core Curriculum at Columbia University.
13
Reading the classics and going to the source is never time wasted. Never let anyone else tell you what or how to think without investigating for yourself- exactly why I hate newspaper endorsements of candidates.
The dismissal of so much classic material as unworthy because it was written by a "bunch of old dead white men" is as offensive as any other form of discrimination. Much of what is right about the modern world and what has allowed the rise to equality of women and other long repressed people groups came from the enlightenment and the thoughts of these "old dead white men".
33
More colleges should have this program.
10
Frank, Really appreciate your column on St. John’s. But there is also another Great Books school that I think is even more attuned to what you like about St. John’s. Shimer College, now part of North Central College in Naperville, Ill. Shimer was once part of the University of Chicago, where the Great Books program started under Robert Maynard Hutchins, Adler et al. Shimer’s curriculum is slightly looser than St. John’s; you read more modern stuff outside the “Canon.” But they both practice Socratic method pedagogy and are wonderful liberal arts schools. I know. I attended and graduated from Shimer 1967-71. It had served me extremely well. All of academia talks about how to teach critical thing skills. These school actually do that. Cheers, Robin Ashton, Shimer College B.A., 1971
12
A liberal arts education like this could be provided in a MOOC for a small fraction of the cost.
2
Lucky that I had College to get me through such classics, as described in this article in the Humanities Department
at California State University Fullerton
4
What a great school !
Critical thinking, actual knowledge - what a concept.
Imagine, graduates able to think independently and use rational logic to problem solve.
Love it !!!
15
If I can be very persuasive I will have 1-3 grandchildren attend this "educational institution".
This college sounds like a breath of fresh air.
5
I am an English professor at a large research university. This piece made me cry.
37
There is an even more contrarian (Junior) College in California's High Sierra -- "Deep Springs." It is very small FREE and habitually sends its graduates to the very best universities to pursue their education. Check it out!
13
By the way, I myself didn't go to St. John's. Attended one, ah, fairly lefty state university, and one Ivy League joint generally considered to be a hotbed of radicalism...worse than that, in the department I worked in. Then it was off to what I'd call, "theory camps," which I assure you weren't run by Dinesh d'Souza.
But I assure the "civ is a-fallin," crowd that my knowledge of the classics and "Western culture," didn't suffer. I mean, have YOU read "Dream of the Rood," in Old English even stumblingly, not to mention George Foxe and both the 1805 and 1855 versions of "The Prelude?"
Though I do suspect I'd have understood hearing Derrida better if I'd been able to put up with more Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger than I did.
Point is, St. John's sounds pretty interesting. But so does Deep Springs College--and don't be quite so smugly sure that us lib'ruls ain't read nothin'.
4
Want another college to explore - look into Antioch College and see what they offer in the same vein.
4
With no practical training, who is going to hire these grads? If you think this educational approach has value, I'd say go the whole hog and study at Deep Springs college. You'll come out both an expert on Nietzsche and able to repair a tractor. And it's only 2 years.
10
The study of the ancients is critical to understanding human values that have stood the test of time.... for all persons. Socrates motto was "know thyself." Only through philosophical discourse is that possible, not the book kind per se (although important) but the real-time exchange of ideas and beliefs that underscore and allow one to question their very personhood. Socrates positioned himself as the outsider, the female, the non-conformer. He is the modern lesbian of color, standing on the outside, looking in, questioning, and knowing it is she who dignifies humanity, not those who have temporal power with which they seek to restrict the rights of others.
10
But what about their careers on Wall Street? Isn’t that the point of higher ed in the United States?
11
For those who criticize the approach and the subject matter, I would guess that the students are more cognizant of the literary contributions of women and minority writers than many students who go to colleges with a wider selection. I have met so many graduates of colleges and universities who are totally ignorant of anything intellectual no matter the origin.
9
Wonderful curriculum, but surely the voices of women and people of color could be added.
14
What this college is doing is laudable, but I do wish universities would redefine philosophy to extend beyond western philosophy. In this day and age, the idea that reading and therefore reifying the importance of dead white guys counts as a well-rounded education is inadequate at best and reproduces unconsciously the dangerous superiority complex of the West over the Rest.
11
Terrific place to study politics, philosophy and classics. I have degrees from Princeton, Harvard and MIT (no kidding) but I would love to have studied at St. Johns as well. St. John's is the liberal arts at their very best. It's just that it doesn't prepare you for a career in engineering or science. And yes, you can learn to write well and think clearly at a number of other fine institutions.
For those who quibble about tuition, I earn the tuition for all three back every year. If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
13
As a National Merit Scholar with superb grades and near perfect Board scores, my son had been admitted to all the top tier schools in the country with plenty of scholarship offers but one visit to St. Johns prompted him to drop out of high school after his junior year and apply to St. Johns which is where he went and from which he graduated. After a stint as a stock broker, he went and got an MA in Eastern Classics from St. Johns, an MA in theology from the Univ. of Chicago, an MA in philosphy from Oxford Univ. and a PhD. in analytic philosophy from Princeton. He taught at UNC Chapel Hill for a while but is now at USC on a post doctorate. The mistake I made was telling him when he was very young that as long as he wanted to go to school, I would pay for it. Some wonder what good is a 'Great Books' education. I think the answer is that it is absolutely useless but of infinite worth. I myself didn't go to St. Johns but graduated with a degree in Classics from NYU. And what did I do with that? I became an extremely successful corporate tax lawyer both in public and private practice. To this day, practitioners pour over my published handiwork written during my time in the Chief Counsel's Office for transactional guidance. And law students read law books that contain excerpts from my published law review articles. Spending one's formative years learning timeless things that will enable one to think for oneself is a precious endeavor. Not a bad education, that.
79
It is never too late to attend St. John's!
I first came to the Graduate Institute's Liberal Arts program after disabilities prevented me from continuing my career as a senior Special Forces officer. There I found great intellectual stimulation and challenge, textual beauty, and a shared pursuit of excellence with a very diverse and highly switched on group of students and tutors. I was used to working with the world's best and I felt right at home, albeit with a much more peaceful focus, and I liked that.
Plus I've made lifetime friends from 18 - 80!
I'll be back to finish the Eastern Classics program just as soon as I get physically able again because I love what we do there. So, no matter your age, don't hesitate to join a truly life-changing and permanently life-enriching experience.
As for diversity, I came from a couple of decades in one of the most successfully diverse organizations in America and felt no difference. Just for one slight example, Homer alone gives an education on what happens to women in war that cannot be equaled.
So, see you on campus!
Tim Whalen
M.A.L.A., St. John's College
Candidate in The Eastern Classics, SJC,
Colonel, (Retired), U.S. Army Special Forces
46
Sorry, but this sounds kind of backward-looking & regressive to me. It would be one thing if all this emphasis on classics was balanced with study of contemporary literature, sciences, technology... but this article at least does not indicate that.
3
Dear Mr. Bruni,
Thank you for highlighting the merits of the St. John's education!" It is really one of the last bastions of free and respectful discourse. However, I must disagree with you when you say "The degree to which “the program” omits the intellectual contributions of women and people of color troubles me." . The program already includes the greatest of female writers, e.g., George Eliot, Jane Austen...Toni Morrison, Booker T. Washington...But, unlike other schools, we knew that these authors were chosen based on their merits, not to affirm/pander to the identity group of students. George Eliot and Booker T Washington are two of my favorite authors. Read them both many times. I even liked Toni Morrison in her mysterious and quirky ways. My Ivy league educated colleagues have no idea how great and beautiful these female and non-White writers are, because their classes focused on the political implications (by 3rd rate thinkers) of their race and gender, rather than on the merits of their actual work. The program already has room for special topics, e.g., female and non-Western writers in the third year "preceptorial" and in informal reading groups with faculty and students. I joined a number of these. In many years, people read the works of Gandhi...Ralph Ellison. If you want to read something seriously with others, St. John's is the place to be--no matter the topic.
17
In other words, St. John's students read for the wisdom that the authors can impart, given their particular experiences as women or black or whatever. In the case of former slave Booker T Washington, I came to appreciate the experience of a self-made man, one who started financially and intellectually from nothing. We don't read to be flattered for the genital and pigmentation group we happen to belong to.
5
I'm all for it, including the part about leaving 21st century micro-politics out of it. There are thousands of colleges that offer programs replete with the works of women and minorities, and more power to them. But teaching the foundations of western civilisation, whether you like who wrote it or not, is critically endangered, by political pressure from both ends of the spectrum.
I know someone whose PhD is in tourism guiding. I'm not making this up. Someone occupied a seat in a classroom, and took the time of professors, administrators and assistants... for this? There are myriad other examples of weird specialisations that are designed to be easy A's. Thank god St John's takes development of the mind seriously.
18
An inspiring editorial. Popular thinking demands you throw out the canon. Expand the canon! Add the classic and religious texts of China, for example, as I assume this college does. This education will teach students to think rigorously, to study the texts that are the basis of Western civilization, to debate, analyze, exchange ideas. We read the classics because they withstood the test of time. As Maya Angelou has. As Edith Wharton has. As James Baldwin has. But the process has to be selective. Build on the canon. Create thinkers. Otherwise education becomes more fast food...worth nothing over time.
8
A good school, a great school even, but one for the elite. It is my sorrow that I simply cannot afford it. Oh, well.
4
If memory serves, the original St John's College's attrition rate is 50%. At least it was.
4
This is exactly the wrong way to teach a scientific theory like relativity. The enduring content of a theory has nothing to do with how its discoverer wrote it. It's determined by the discussions and experiments by which it's verified and refined.
Science is social, but it's not a social construct. It's an extraction from, and translation of, the world outside humanity. The only way to make this clear to a world that seems to have forgotten it is to go through the entire winding road and messy process by which it actually works.
1
"The enduring content of a theory has nothing to do with how its discoverer wrote it."
Who better to explain relativity than Einstein himself? Make some practical suggestions instead of just criticizing.
"It's determined by the discussions and experiments by which it's verified and refined."
Einstein discusses experiments in "Relativity: The Special and the General Theory", which appears to be the book mentioned in the OpEd.
And the 100th Anniversary Edition from the Princeton University Press has additional commentaries and background material.
BTW, both St. John's campuses have a library and a bookstore.
6
"... the discussions and experiments by which it's verified and refined."
The St. John's reading list has numerous science classics that describe experiments or observations, including:
* Galileo: Two New Sciences
* Harvey: Motion of the Heart and Blood
* Lavoisier: Elements of Chemistry
* Pascal: Treatise on the Equilibrium of Liquids
The reading list also includes Francis Bacon's "Novum Organum" (1620), which could be considered an early work on the scientific method:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Organum
9
What a great column and a great college! A breath of fresh air in these stifling times of using college as a fateful stepping stone to a moneyed career! I've had interactions with high school students - juniors and seniors - and they look at some classes as a "fill out the resume and look good for (insert name of university here)". They are treating high school and college as fulfilling certain "codes" - and it's the fault, not of these students, but the colleges for winnowing candidates to the standards of how much sports, community service, languages, etc. they take - no matter that they're just doing it for admission. I question whether today any universities train students to ask questions, think critically and set values and ethics as important guidance for their lives. Bravo, Frank and St. John's - would be wonderful if there were more like both of you!
8
The approach sounds like Deep Springs College, which I visited but didn't apply for, and the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University, which I ultimately attended. A broad-ranging, carefully curated, intense education in "Western Civilization" -- including its flaws and fracture lines -- has stood me very well in life as a lawyer, activist and CEO.
I am now in my 40's and often have to evaluate interns and job applicants. It seems to me that the ability to write well and think laterally are very rare indeed. Yet those are the essential foundations for success in most professions. I'm grateful I had the good fortune to land in a program that fostered these fundamentals.
12
I think it's worth noting that St. John's has a 29-7 winning record against its across-the-street rival U.S. Naval Academy in the annual Annapolis Cup Croquet Match, an event that attracts thousands of spectators each Spring.
14
I learned of St. John's years too late to go there as an undergraduate. I've made a point of visiting the campus in Annapolis. I think its "program" sounds great. If its graduates are as intellectually nimble as I suspect they truly are, they'll be able to fill in some of the gaps in their readings for themselves.
8
I graduated from the U of Chicago during the Hutchins administration. The curriculum then sounds very much like St. John's--original material, intense discussions, small classes. The aim was to give the students the tools to think for themselves, whatever the topic. I loved it then and feel it has influenced my entire life since.
Making the curriculum more inclusive of women and people of (any) color should not be difficult--just add or substitute some material. The educational aims will remain.
11
As an academic philosopher, I can see that the St. Johns conception (as expressed here) is regressive, outdated, and saddening.
We should bring cross-disciplinary rigor to the general studies curriculum in the university, ideally dividing universities into self-sufficient colleges (like U.C. at Santa Cruz—or Oxbridge). But St. Johns evidently denies self-selected brights the resources and wealth of exploration that a university provides.
Undergraduates deserve great teaching, but that can be made a focus by university leadership (though no one gets tenure by being a great teacher, except at small colleges). The tutorial model is expensive (small student-to-master ratio), but universities could afford, if they chose. Making undergraduates get less exposure to full professors than to graduate students on their way to research careers is disgraceful. Who dares to think of an academic career in terms of love of teaching!
We should need to appreciate that the St. Johns experience expresses a potential that could—and should—be part of every university experience. What’s sorely lacking in American undergraduate education is leadership.
1
@gary e. davis The people that set up the program at SJC back in the '30's were coming out of U. of Chicago, and looked for a place where they could have a smaller community of learning. All smaller colleges "deny self selected brights the resources and wealth of exploration that a University provides." As a SJC alumna, I attended a larger university (Cornell) after I graduated. Teaching undergraduates there who identify themselves with the grade they earn, and not the curiosity and questioning of learning, was disheartening. -- The idea of universities shifting to a tutorial system is great, but unlikely given the CEOs who are in charge of bringing money into their universities. Big classes, bring big money. Patents and Business Schools also bring in the money. The liberal arts, and one-on-one teaching are given short shrift.
9
"But St. Johns evidently denies self-selected brights the resources and wealth of exploration that a university provides."
Both campuses have a library, a bookstore, and laboratories. They also have invited lecturers and student groups. That sounds like a "university" to me.
See the St. John's web site at sjc.edu. And see the numerous videos on Youtube.
5
Wow. Leaving aside the cost, what an impressive school.
One of the things I wish I'd had in my own university studies was a more rigorous curriculum in the liberal arts and the Western canon (I'm a person of color who also values the literary and philosophical traditions of the West - one can be both).
Though I'm generally satisfied with my education - in the mid to late 90s - my school, like most others, was more career-training than a well-rounded education. I've since managed to somewhat catch up on such authors and thinkers, but often wish I'd been steered to them in a greater way in my university years. It would be to our country's great benefit for our schools to turn out more well-rounded, literal, critical thinkers than simply more legions of highly specialized technicians.
18
Though not a student, I spent a week in July taking a seminar on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics through their Summer Classic program.
So what was the seminar like? Discussion around a large wooden table for two hours, each day Monday through Friday, going chapter by chapter. We were 16 to 18 students and two "tutors", what the College calls their faculty. In this seminar, the tutors were Judith Adam and Warren Winiarksi -- yes, the same 89 year old wine maker mentioned in the article, a 1955 graduate who so generously donates to the College.
Assumed is that everyone has done the reading, and that no one, including the tutors, fully understands it. The point of the discussion is to find some clarification, though my clarification is apt to be different than yours. I spent most of my time listening to others, but when I spoke I knew I would need to be articulate. There is abiding politeness and respect, yet one must argue convincingly, supporting one's claims by citing relevant passages in the text.
Some commenters have lamented the College's reliance on dead white authors. That's a fair point. However, reading the Great Books often has unanticipated results. My scathing disdain of Plato's Republic, a book I studied in Summer Classic years ago, rekindled my appreciation for the liberal, democratic values I find in the Declaration of Independence. It's OK to agree, disagree, or even detest any of the Great Books, so long as you can argue why.
23
@Paul Laub
Just an edit of my comment -- I should have written "Summer Classics" (plural), not "Summer Classic".
2
This is good, but St. Johns is not the only school with the right attitude towards education. Reed college in Portland, for example, emphasizes the classics. Maybe they don't read them in Greek, but they get a good education, and there's no sports competition with other schools either.
6
I went to Oxford, where we used to say that going to Cambridge is a good second choice. I am beginning to think Oxford is now the good second choice, and Cambridge third.
16
St. John’s was the only school I applied to because I felt unprepared for life’s big questions and already felt life getting out of control. There, got to spend my time entirely focused on the Great Books with remarkable friends and teachers. Now 25 years later as an economics professor, my intellectual life still revolves around the questions and the answers I found there. The St. John’s program is not for everyone, but for people like me who cannot live an orderly life without guiding principles that they must work out on their own in the company of those great thinkers before us, there is no alternative.
35
How refreshing!
I often imagine hitting the lottery and going back to college to get a genuine, full time, old school, Classical education. This is the place I'd go.
Imagine getting a real education, rather than the indoctrination into fashionable philistinism that so many young college students get today. Rather than reducing such great minds as Homer, Kant and Copernicus to the status of "dead white males," they are properly seen as intellectual builders of our current civilization - the very one where non-white, non-dead males have been able to flourish.
13
This is heartening. For many years I was sympathetic to diverse voices in the canon and still am (full disclosure, I teach at a small liberal arts college - Ancient Greek and Roman history). But with the advent of Trump I am ready to go full Elizabethan - let's start kids on Latin at 5 and only have that for the curriculum. Let them read great texts about great but flawed men and women, from great but flawed civilizations.
Rant and rave til you are blue in the face against Greek, Roman, and Christian culture as elitist, sexist, and exclusive. But the patrimony of those flawed cultures is, in the end, diverse liberal democracy and democratic republics. Progressive radicals from Martin Luther King to Gloria Steinem are the products of these ancient flawed societies.
And the texts are fabulous - there is nothing like Homer, Tacitus (Thomas Jefferson's favorite author), Thucydides, or Vergil, except for maybe Shakespeare (whose favorite author was the sportive yet tragic Ovid).
Yes, gladiators and slavery were horrible, and I would not want to belong to such a society. But what will the future say of us - rich and glutted with information, yet doing nothing to, e.g., provide health care or access to food and a living wage for all, meanwhile bombing poor countries and locking kids up?
Dark times demand great texts, and it is no coincidence that rebirth of classics gave us a Renaissance and Enlightenment.
37
@Sallust I have been learning ancient Greek with my oldest child for nearly 5 years. (He is almost 15.) Additionally my 9 year old and I have been learning Latin together for over a year now.
We have wonderful, 20-something tutor whom we fondly refer to as the Hermione Granger of Classics. Her passion is to teach young people both languages and also their histories, both the good and bad.
This experience I am having with my children is also providing me with a second education. I have to study very hard to keep up with them but its been lots of fun.
Hope this shines some light yr way.
4
Planting a plug for my Alma Mater at University of Missouri, Saint Louis, and in particular the Pierre Laclede Honors College there. Very similar setup to what's described in the article; it too focuses on a small liberal arts style education within the framework (and affordability) of a public college. The focus is on writing and discussion, no matter the topic of the class you choose.
4
I went to and received my undergraduate degree at St. John's, Santa Fe campus, in the nineties. The general idea was sound, but I don't think the founders contended with having to hear a baked kid try to unpack Hegel's Phenomenology of The Spirit at the discussion table, or the fire-hose pace of dense readings one had to deal with on a weekly basis. The lack of traditional frats or college teams also made for a rather grim atmosphere of fellowship when not in class, little packs of students scurrying off with their bongs on the dark mountainside campus. The school also wasn't particularly good at job placement, leaving one at loose-ends by graduation with Plato and friends one's only company. I would much rather have taken some of the school's graduate program as an adult with a more goal-oriented degree already under my belt; as a person in my twenties I'm afraid it was a fatal error in judgement.
14
You’re making me cry. I seriously considered St. John’s as a high school senior. I would up going somewhere else, where I got a wonderful education. But I still wonder what might have been, had I made a different choice.
5
I suspect, by and large, most of the graduates of St. Johns are progressive, contemporary and immensely critical of the failures of our modern condition. They are learning to be critical, not to worship whiteness.
11
As someone who had an college education mired chin deep in identity politics, I have come to regret it, in all its moral and cultural relativism. There is nothing wrong with embracing the foundations of western civilization. Actually, it might be the only thing that saves civilization.
11
Actually, what you somehow missed is that the foundations of "Western culture," are many and diverse, and the term is itself somewhat silly. As for "saving civilization," well, maybe let's get one first, then fret over saving it.
2
Hi Frank, this is Lisa Pullen. I was delighted to see this piece about St. John’s! Such a wonderful school and i a wonderful town to boot! Our son had almost decided to attend when he was accepted into Reed last spring. Reed is a similar school that has shunned sports, has small classes and encourages critical thinking but has modernized its curriculum a bit and has recently taken steps to broaden its curriculum. I wish more people knew about St. John’s, a place where you can truly develop your mind. We were blown away by the teaching, the campus and the people who run the school, as well as its students, who truly are “intellectually courageous”. By the way, it was great to see you last spring! I hope you are doing well!
7
If you are refereeing to Reed in Oregon these two schools could not be further apart. Reed has done away with western civilization while St Johns embraces it. Is this a joke?
3
I’m President of the St. John’s College Alumni Association and one of my non-Johnny friends said: “What a great article. He really captures what St. John’s is all about. At least what I know from what you’ve told me...” To reinforce what some of my fellow alumni have already commented, my fearlessness and curiosity to try new things and sense of ease in the tantalizing grey zone of ambiguity enabled me to make some interesting life choices. I owe much of this to the intellectual grounding I got at St. John’s. Observations regarding the boundaries of the undergraduate program are mostly true---it is a focus on the Western canon and doesn’t claim to be otherwise. While I wish we had more time there as undergrads to go beyond the Western canon, no one should limit their learning to a four-year stretch. Having honed skills like critical thinking, dialogue and collaborative learning, I explored different ideas as a Harvard Law student, attorney, co-founder of a nonprofit organization, international development practitioner in the Balkans for a dozen years during the wars and finally circling back to the US where I am general counsel of a humanitarian NGO. I applied to only one college and found a home at St. John’s. Now I devote time and treasure to advancing the college so that other lucky people can find their way to Annapolis or Santa Fe too.
23
I was taken with your comment and I urge you to try blogging your ideas about how your life in a non profit organization and linking your experiences with time. Thank you. I think medical doctors need that as a premed requirement. More souls might stay alive. I was laughed off in my hometown for volunteering, warned not to inform about the faked research.
3
Thank you for highlighting this wonderful school. I have known at least one graduate through his professional life as an architect and teacher. He has never stopped learning and he brings his students into that way of thinking, too, through a program called Spirit of Place/Spirit of Design.
It was my dream college long ago but not to be. I hope St. John's persists. We need it.
6
One of my sons graduated from the Annapolis campus 2 1/2 years ago and I am so happy he chose St. John’s. It was the perfect place for him but it is definitely not for everyone. He received an unparalleled education and emerged a thinking, questioning, literate, revolutionary Machiavellian guy. Yes, it was costly, but so incredibly worth it. It was mentioned, but these students also are required to take music, chorus, even waltzing lessons! Yes, the program is rigorous but it is also liberating for young people who don’t want to be spoon-fed others’ ideas and forced to regurgitate them. Of course, the question most of us parents had was “what can they do with the degree?” The answer is almost anything. My son received fully-paid admission to a major university to get his Ph.D. In mathematics. Graduates of St. John’s are doctors, lawyers, editors, writers, business owners, teachers - you name it. Thanks to Frank Bruni for spotlighting this extraordinary college.
14
I am envious. I studied engineering at two major public universities. I came away with much pride, particularly after my masters, but feeling I failed in what really counted: my understanding of humanities and the value of psychology. Here I am forty years later, just retired, and wonder what I could have done better. Sure I have free time to ponder life but I wish I had split my studies and spent at least two years at St. John's. The UoTX at Austin has a program called Plan II which is closest to what is described in this article and my son was fortunate to have graduated from it. Age brings so much wisdom and thoughts of what if...
7
I spent a little over 2 years at St. Johns in Santa Fe nearly 40 years ago. They were incredibly exciting years, tough and stimulating. I was not one that listened to others readily. St. Johns does its best to challenge that characteristic in students. The program of common books is designed to help people learn the art of dialogue, something that is sorely lacking in humanity generally.
Those who feel critical of the white male European material, I would mention that the folk at St. Johns are well aware of that limitation. But would you suggest that Homer is a poor poet because he was (we think) a white male? Is Euclid's Geometry somehow weak because of his sex? Should students not read Dante because he was an European male?
The curriculum is simply a starting point for dialogue. If anyone has a better suggestion of where to start that process than Homer's Illiad and Odyssey, feel free to offer the author. Homer is chosen for the simple reasons that his poems are both astonishing and profound, and are the foundations of the culture. The idea is not to exclude other writers, but rather to be sure to include the best we know of. And to learn how to have deep dialogue with one another.
Just imagine how our political world would be altered, if a sizeable portion of the population learned to listen with interest and understanding to the person that appears to be "other". At its core, this is the vision offered by St. Johns.
21
@exPat88
Well put.
It is an amazing place, and an amazing education.
Wow! Why have I never heard of this school? Why is there no public disussion of the significance of their curriculum strategy? I have always believed that a good undergraduate education provided lifelong furniture for the mind instead of vocational training. I am delighted to hear that others are making the good fight for a classical education.
7
One anecdote about St. John’s in Annapolis made me smile: Johnnies and Middies from the Naval Academy play each other in intramural sports. I’ll wager they learn from each other, too.
I consider this a priceless example of the breadth and depth of American society.
7
@PaulB67
When I was in the Graduate Institute in the early 00’s, there were several midshipmen also in the program! It’s an absolutely invigorating place.
1
I am embarrassed. I never heard of St John's College. Initially I thought that the article was referring to Syt John's University. Having read the article, I wish that I attended St John's instead of my large public university. I had a good education and a lot of fun living in a fraternity. But St John's sounds like an extraordinary a great educational experience. College students could use a little less fun and maybe more Greek and Thucydides.
5
"... in life, is there any catharsis in revenge? Any resolution in death? Does grief end or just pause? Do wars?"
Keynes tells us that in the long run we are all dead. So what of this life? What are we here to learn, and to pass on?
Your question about revenge resonates with me.
We have all been hurt by others. How should we react? Do we try to hurt them as well, equally or even more so? That is the lesson being taught by our current president. It is a brutish, atavistic, and ultimately ephemeral one.
But if we can take our rage and learn to channel it not into wanton destruction but rather into sympathy and compassion for others, to better understand ourselves and to learn from our mistakes and to try not to repeat them, then we are making genuine progress.
That's a truly difficult lesson to learn. But it's a lesson that stands the test of time, a lesson of permanence. That's what the classics are all about, isn't it?
8
I keep hearing that college educations are too expensive. So I looked into the cost of my education today.
2 years in community college. About $9,000 per year.
2 years at an average state school (in state), within commuting distance. About $13,000 per year.
So $44,000 total. Even if this is 100% debt financed (although I worked 30 hours ler week for most of my 4 years), this seems affordable, assuming one majors in something that will get them a job. The world may not need philosophers or film studies majors, but it still needs CPAs and pharmacists.
So it is not the college education that is “crushing” people with debt. It is the college experience that is crushing them. Got it.
6
The beauty of SJC is that the works studied are not what define the education, but rather the deep intellectual journey one goes through. When you study these books, you do not feel that they are ignoring diversity or gender, but in fact creating an opportunity to apply these timeless principles and questions to our modern world. Thanks to Mr. Bruni for sharing the relevance of this great institution at a time when it is needed most.
Anant Vashi - Santa Fe 1996
12
St. John's reminds me of my English grammar school, which I attended in the 50's and 60's. In order to attend university after grammar school, many courses, such as Latin, were compulsory.
1
From this contrary to that contrary, first take a priceless, no cost meditative walk. Then, with that support and in balance, go intellectual.
I very seriously considered St. Johns in Annapolis when I was finishing high school. By that point I was very into the classics and found almost every aspect of the liberal arts to be endlessly fascinating.
Two considerations kept me from applying:
1. I had a specific topic I wanted to study in-depth: physics.
2. As a teen I'd also become interested in eastern classics, a canon that was entirely missing at St. Johns.
But all that said, I was sorely tempted.
3
As a parent of a Johny, I had some reservations when my son chose SJC over some other blue-chip universities. I wondered if he would be adequately prepared for a career or vocation.
Now, my son is completing his graduate studies at a well-regarded university in erudite studies I cannot comprehend. My fears were unfounded. I applaud SJC and its commitment to education, rather than training. SJC eshews the current educational trend of chasing indicators of achievement (test scores, grades) and concentrates on the substance of critical thinking and civil discourse. This is not a frivolous or luxurious type of education... it is the essential education to navigate the complexities of modern society.
25
Thank you, Frank Bruni, for shining a light on St. John's College and stirring up a lively discussion of the aims of higher education.
I chose St. John's partly because I knew I was weak in mathematics. I hoped that the four years of required math at SJC would make me better at math and give me the confidence to use it later in life. It worked. But, in the process, I also came to love the sheer beauty of mathematics.
Looking back, I realize how lucky we were to experience the pure pleasure of reading, studying and discussing important works in all areas of the program -- mathematics, natural sciences, philosophy, literature, political science, theology, etc. The pleasure, of course, followed the pain. It was a kind of painful joy to throw yourself at the mercy of the class and let your classmates help you untangle the knot you couldn't get past. Questions, questions -- always leading the way to better understanding.
How did this prepare me for the work world? Oddly, after graduating with a sense of deep humility (can we ever really know anything?) I found before long that I had earned a great gift at SJC. I was not afraid. I did not fear tackling difficult-to-understand things. Studying, asking questions, listening, thinking and asking more questions would eventually yield results. This was a bright light that made my life more cheerful and rewarding.
Thanks for the education, St. John's, tutors and classmates of the Annapolis Class of 1972!
17
I had been brought up thinking that the Most Contrarian College in America was Reed College with St. John's being a close second.
5
One of the main reasons college cost so much today is the change in its educational programs from the traditional arts and sciences to vocational programs. These programs are more expensive because they are equipment intensive, and cetifiable faculty are scarcer and the competition with the non-education employer is higher. Moreover, the there are more majors with less overlap and appeal to students who do not major in a related fields. Class sizes are far smaller as a consequence and more expensive to offer. It is questionable whether these programs are a better way of preparing students for anything but entry level technical positions.
2
I would think that a lot of grandparents would like to see their grandchildren receive the kind of education they received, back in the day, when a well rounded education was actually a thing.
3
My daughter attends St.Johns, she has attended private parochial schools her entire life. Yet I have never seen her so excited and open to learning, and developing. This is a magical place. That trains students into finding the path and direction they are heading. The campus is beautiful, and the staff is amazing . The school itself has fantastic relationships with other institutions to assist students in post graduate direction. We could not have made a better choice
9
Mr. Bruni needs to get out more. Close attention to original text, emphasis on analysis and "higher order thinking" -- that all happens daily at many liberal arts colleges across this country. Those schools, however, aren't reflexively bound to the original Western cannon just because that's where [they think] our civilization started. They're wise enough to introduce other good ideas when they find them, say, in the minds of women and people of color. Intellectual curiosity about new ideas, along with flexibility and adaptability: These also are important tools that good colleges impart. Let's not confuse rigor with rigor mortis.
6
I had to beg my engineer-father to let me go to St. John's College. He wanted me to have a degree where I was assured a job afterwards. He liked the idea of a nursing degree. He remembered well his mother taking in washing to make ends meet when he was young. -- But I was in love with the program-- philosophy, theology, literature, mathematics. And a community where the students wanted to learn! No grades, no one sitting in the back of a lecture hall wishing they were somewhere else. I visited as a perspective and my heart sang. I gave up 30 credit hours from the community college (pre nursing); it was the best decision I ever made.
In the end, my father was happy with SJC. He even came to the parent/student seminars held once a year, and said after one "So that's why people read Shakespeare!"
21
Sounds like a great program for molding actual thinking humans, but ancient Greece was one of the most entrenched misogynistic cultures ever, anywhere. So I think the "degree to which 'the program' omits the intellectual contributions of women and people of color" should more than trouble you. The approach is right, the material totally wrong.
113
@Morgan
Well, maybe not totally wrong, but seems like it could use some updating and a little more diversity in it's material and still teach those points.
4
@Morgan The most important principles remain the same, despite their flaws.
3
@Morgan, St. John's provides a reading list of all the materials studied. It might be best to look at that before deciding if the material is "totally wrong."
11
I thought teaching people how to think had gone out of vogue. It's nice to see I'm mistaken.
8
But can they figure out the airspeed of a laden swallow?
4
The ghost of Harold Bloom says I told you so.
Bruni presented no evidence that SJC's Western canon (as it reflects Harold Bloom) better prepares a sample of top high school students for life in America than equally selective liberal arts colleges, top elite universities, or top honors programs within state universities -- all of which have wider curricula than SJC.
Furthermore he did not address whether SJC's approach is a laudable one among many, or is the best possible approach to higher education overall. Perhaps SJC is best suited to those students who want a classical education, while other institutions may better serve students with other goals and personal affinities.
2
My two finest students came to me out of this program...one a transfer at Junior level, the other a graduate, taking a course..."just for fun." I will never forget both my amusement and bemusement when the transfer appeared at my office door with a question about the reading list:
"You haven't indicated what translation you want for OEDIPUS REX. I have two in English, and I've read it in the original Greek..."
The other student received my substantial professional library upon my retirement. There was never a question about who would appreciate, use, and actually READ it.
10
Santa Fe sounds quite interesting. I would like to have heard more about "The degree to which “the program” omits the intellectual contributions of women and people of color troubles me."
Education is complex. Mine, many years ago at UCLA, included my major in engineering - all aspects of engineering, at the time - and a lot of other classes that I found interesting. I had the freedom to do that because I could work during summers to support myself, and had no real need to compress my education into four years, and could live at home. Not everyone has those choices. A large part of my education there was extracurricular: The Bruin Mountaineers, a raggedy bunch of hikers, climbers, and not a few others along for the ride. I'm sad that the organization did not survive - students graduate - but the need for cooperation, being reliable yourself, but having imagination and using it were among the many things I learned there.
I am frankly very disappointed, though, at the current costs of almost any college or university, and at the debt that many students incur in the process of getting an education. We would all be richer as a country if education were as nearly free as it was when I was in school.
4
I'm quite happy to have been an alum of this institution in an era where higher education is centered around career aspirations. I currently work in higher education and I can definitely attest that most students see higher education as a means to an end. I will be attending my 5 year reunion in Annapolis and can't wait to see the beautiful campus again.
Some remarks on the opinions of this article--I do agree that the price is high. I could barely afford to attend the college even with the generous grant money they award students and an EFC of 0. One time, I was told by a staff member in the business office that I shouldn't go to a college I can't afford after trying to defer a $500 balance. During my four years, I amassed tens of thousands of dollars in debt attending the institution...I am glad that they are decreasing the cost of attendance and I hope they are still providing the same degree of aid. Knowing all this, would I do it again? Definitely.
I understand the author's concern with diversity. There are certainly great books from other cultures and great writers who are not "white male". However, we have to realize that a four year program can only cover so much. The founders of the Great Books tradition attest that adding the Eastern classics, for example, would approximately double the time necessary for completion.
I'm glad to have attended this college. It helped me find myself and I attribute my professional success to what I learned from SJC.
6
I was tempted by it when I was a senior in high school, but I think I just chickened out.
There are many similarities of the St John's program with those of the traditional and typical Yeshiva, where Jewish students study texts starting with the Bible, which is at least 2,500 years old in the Hebrew (along with Aramaic), then continue to texts written through the Babylonian (Jeremiah), then Persian (Esther), then Greek (Maccabees), then Roman periods (Mishnah) and then the post Roman periods (Talmud, Zohar) to the present (Tanya).
3
The whining about old white men in the curriculum of St. John's College is pathetic. What this program does is teach young people to think by challenging them with the great thinkers of world history. People who have made an impact, mostly positive, on every life over the last few thousand years.
14
Mr Bruni asserts that more institutions should adopt aspects of St John's approach of educating for the entirety of life -- where educational goals are inclusive of future profession, social, family, and civic engagements.
He provides no data that St John's does any of these things better than other elite 4 year institutions, or indeed better than having no college at all.
To support his assertion he needs to at least: (1) define operational metrics of "better preparation for life", (ie earned wealth, critical thinking, ability to learn unfamiliar material, ability to hold ambiguity, etc); (2) eliminate confounding variables (student ability and prior education, family wealth, level of parental education and professional achievement, etc); (3) determine the response over time (how long do the effects of a St John's-type education persist 5,10, 20 years after graduation, as compared to others entering similar professions).
It is unfair of me to demand rigorous data from an opinion editorial, but perhaps some opinion pieces advocating social change *should* begin acknowledging objective evidence. Of course not every opinion piece need do so, and I do appreciate the subjective experience of St John's that Bruni describes here. He may have made his point better if he had stayed short of advocating that other schools adopt similar curricula. Essays arguing without evidence on how best to teach critical thinking do not bolster the case for the importance of critical thinking!
3
@Hope: How can anybody specify what such "rigorous data" would look like in a non-question-begging way? It seems to me that your demand for it is naive.
I guess you're not a St. John's alum. As Aristotle tells us, "Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts.... We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true and with premisses of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs."
1
Just a side note. Mark Roosevelt was hired a number of years ago as the first president of the new incarnation of Antioch College, (after it was split from the University and nearly disappeared) and from all reports he helped to put it on a very firm footage. (They gave free tuition for the first few years!) I'm not surprised that he's landed at St. John. Good for him. And good for St. John.
1
I often think about a response my grad advisor made when I told her that the more research I did the less I thought I knew. Oh that feeling will never go away she said. She’s right and it’s remained a good feeling.
9
I teach in the Honors College at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, a public, four-year institution. While our focus here is more flexible than the program at St. Johns, students go through a multiple semester program of reading the classics, plus additions that include more female and non-white, non-western voices, and for a fraction of the cost. To say that is not in any way to knock what St. Johns is doing (which is fantastic), but rather to remind people that many less-expensive public universities offer at least some version of this close reading, deep thinking, and work in the art of being comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty, two great universal truths about life. Students just need to look for it.
9
Lowering tuition is great. So is a liberal arts education, in my opinion. (That said, I feel that Mr. Bruni's commentary regarding the lack of diversity reflected in the St. John's curriculum really undersells the depth of that problem.)
But the fact of the matter is that with a curriculum that prides itself on the impractical, St. John's is going to continue catering to privileged students. Working-class families in today's economy--especially immigrant families--want to ensure that their children are getting an education that will prepare them for a paycheck. Preparation for grad school is great, but waiting until a student is 24 years old (or older, for Ph.D.s) to start earning a living wage is simply not an option for many people living in this country.
With a student body of under 1000 students, St. John's is certainly not going to prevent these students from accessing an education elsewhere. But I'd be curious to know how many members of that student body actually come from families where there isn't already a substantial financial safety net in place. Talk about a problem with diversity!
7
I have the pleasure and honor of being married to a St John's graduate. She is as thoughtful a person as I know.
8
As a Reed College alumnus, I can attest to the lifelong value of an undergraduate education that focuses on the Western canon. At Reed (in my day), in a course known colloquially as "Hum 110" we read and discussed Aristotle, Aeschylus, Hesiod, Herodotus, Homer, Plato, and Thucydides, among others...it changed my life.
9
I had an almost identical curriculum in college. Little rewarded in academia generally. Like all education, it’s what you make it.
That said, more kids learning ancient history and philosophy is a great thing because it’s been lacking for too long, and we’re seeing the results.
9
St. John's produces thinkers who can navigate life with ease. They write well, speak articulately, and think critically. We need more schools like this. There is a private school in Annapolis, the Key School, that was founded by professors from St. John's in the 1950s, and provides the same type of extraordinary liberal arts education for students K-12. Students that graduate from Key move forward in life with an amazing, and increasingly rare, set of skills.
6
Nearly thirty years ago I considered my St. John's College master's degree to be mainly indulgent -- a gift to myself -- not "practical." But in fact, it's where I learned how to learn. I didn't realize at the time that this was the key thing happening, but I've realized it ever since.
12
To all the relatives who ask what you're going to do with a liberal arts education, the accurate answer is "be educated".
I've known two Johnnies. One went on to clerk on the Supreme Court and now teaches, the other has devoted her life to caring for the dying.
On the other hand, I know two people who went to schools where they studied a single subject for three solid years, which was all it took for a B.A. One did English (especially medieval) and is now a financial consultant to large institutions and makes eye-watering sums of money. The other did philosophy and manages a group of code-mongers and is also doing very well, thank you. (Neither went to grad school.)
7
I applaud the unapologetic focus on the real sources, be they the classics or other original writers. A student cannot know what he or she needs to put in their curriculum, so St. John's College approach makes a lot of sense. So great to see a picture of the Loebs volumes with the Greek classics.
8
That's fine for some, and many will rave about it. For me I'd much prefer a big wide-ranging research university and to find my own way to success.
3
Right on. Our daughter went to Graduate School at St John’s. It’s fantastic. It’s also been referred to as the most intellectual college in America.
7
I would like to add something here with all of the debating over what kind of an education is the most useful in preparing you for life and/or getting a good job, etc. I am somewhat concerned about all of this "concern about" getting you "ready" for something. Learning starts at birth and continues through various means over time and then you die. Survival is important as anyone in a tribe in the heart of the Amazon can attest to.
But "being" is the one thing you have regardless of your intellect. Don't let "civilization" rob you of your own uniqueness and your own path and journey. The world is starving for more educated people, don't get me wrong. But "seeing" the world AS IT IS must be a part of getting an undistorted version of "the truth". Neither the church or the classroom (or "the "net") can make you see what you really already "know". Start with understanding and appreciating the vastness of all the things you don't know.
4
Imagine our fearless president sitting in class among these students. They would have a good chuckle listening to him boast about how he's a Wharton grad.
8
Oh, God help me.
I was a "Johnnie".
It's nothing even close to the educational utopia you think it is. The reason the class sizes are so small is because the attrition rate is so high.
It is believed that professors - "tutors" - are capable of teaching every subject adequately well. That means that your Greek tutor would rather be teaching Euclidian geometry and vice versa. This may have been 30 years ago, but many of us were subjected to emotional, psychological and sexual torment and harassment by our tutors. They get tenure easily in spite of being lackluster at their jobs. Most of them were stuck in the past, high on ego, and got away with murder because there is no oversight. I was bullied relentlessly by a tutor who wanted me to fail, to the point where I suffered major depression. There was no one to turn to. I dropped out, moved on to a less incestuous and healthier institution. Please, please, don't idealize this place.
Maybe it's changed, but I doubt it.
14
Wow! Can this 70+ gal start over?
12
Reminds me a lot of Reed College in Portland Oregon.
2
My son and daughter-in-law both graduated from Reed, and yes, they did get thst kind of education.
2
Wow, I have making my way through the comments and could not be more impressed.
3
The last reading for senior year is traditionally one of Jane Austen's novels, because, I think, they embody the life of the mind in the tiny maelstrom of everyday activity. But SJC students also read Sappho's poetry in the original and extracts from Marie Curie's paper on the discovery and extraction of uranium.
I wonder how many of the people who major at universities in Women's Studies have read the two latter.
5
How many people majoring in any subject except ancient Greek can read Sappho in the original? I'm willing to bet that those majoring and minority in Women's Studies will have at least read her in translation and will also have considered and read about the role women have played in science both historically and now. I'm also pretty sure one can't say the same for business and engineering majors.
I graduated from the college in 1985. After all that Western canon, I read lots of books outside the canon, and found a broad perspective on the world. The stubborn attraction of the ideas that have created the civilization we live in cannot be marginalized, but they do need a wider context.
5
St John's academic philosophy is highly commendable but not unique in the USA. Columbia's freshman year core curriculum and Yale's Directed Studies program have a lot in common with it. I wish more universities offered a similar option.
7
I went to the St. John's Graduate Institute in Annapolis and it was the purest, most intoxicatingly wonderful learning experience of my life. When I later entered a doctoral program in psychology, I was dismayed at how little "thinking" it involved...just a lot of memorization and regurgitation. Memorization has its place--you need to know the content--but it was disheartening to see how removed almost everyone (professors and students) were from rigorous or original thought.
7
The St. John’s curriculum is founded on a comparatively small collection of books that every student studies and discusses over a four year period. This collection was chosen because these books raise enduring questions that all human beings — whether explicitly or implicitly — will contend with as they live their lives. Such questions as: What is good and what is bad? What should be loved and what hated? Why do I live? And what am I? What is life? What is death? What is the power that governs all?
Students learn very early in the program that the books that make up the St. John’s curriculum, books that together they read and struggle with, provide no final answers to these questions — in spite of what some their authors sometimes claim. Rather these books provide some of the best answers that we know of and in their failure to provide final answers may inspire even better answers in a future we will never know.
The other thing that should be considered is that St. John’s was founded by scholars who were very disappointed in a trend they saw in higher education — namely separating the humanities from the maths and sciences. So they saw their little college as an attempt to revive the search for what it means to be educated. When St. John’s works no student leaves thinking that they have been educated at St. John’s. Rather they leave with the thought that St. John’s was the beginning of their education.
12
Fascinating column; I am grateful.
7
Thank you, Frank Bruni. By 9 a.m., I'd received four emails from friends directing me to your column, which I faithfully read anyhow. Still, it was nice to know that your message had reached some in my little circle.
As an older student, I graduated in 2012 with a master's from St. John's Graduate Institute in Santa Fe. It was so rigorous that I was initially intimidated, especially being a few decades older than most of the others. I never quit marveling at the intellectual capacity of my fellow students. But what always struck me was their civility.
The Program, as it is called, forced me to choose between "math and science" and "philosophy and religion." Having received my bachelor's in philosophy, I gathered my courage and signed up for math and science. That truly is the only choice you have in SJC's graduate school—you can choose four of the five programs. I wrote my final preceptorial paper on Einstein's theory of relativity and titled it "Relativity Lite," because I didn't REALLY understand the math so intrinsic to the theory. But because of our discussions, I understood—at least a little better—the concept of space-time relativity.
I hope students of tomorrow will recognize the value in an education that teaches them to think—and to filter information through the lens of age-old wisdom.
10
While I understand the value of this approach in the humanities, I would question how appropriate it is in the sciences. Sure, it would certainly be enlightening to read Einstein in the original, but not if it comes at the expense of reading contemporary accounts of how theoretical and experimental work has evolved since, which it has.
Science is not about reverence for the prophets of the past. It is about inventiveness and creativity in the present and future.
Henry Lieberman
Research Scientist
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab
10
I taught applied ethics and bio-medical ethics at Rutgers University for 9 years. I certainly have a deep love for the Western canon and I am willing to give two cheers for St Johns. What concerns me , in addition to the euro-centrism of the curriculum, is that it seems to police a division between science and the humanities. What most philosophers do is not to simply ponder the works of Kant but to use cognitive science as a lens to use in re-addressing many of the issues that he posed. When I hear that the students read Copernicus I wonder if they have the opportunity to be exposed to the current debate regarding dark matter and energy. As citizens we are confronted with questions that call not just for the conceptual sensitivity that comes from reading the canon, as important as that is, but we also need some sense of where our most effective means of questioning the universe have gotten us to. What is our position on euthanasia for those in a persistent vegetative state? There is a great deal that Aristotle may tell us about the character of humanity but shouldn't we also know what neuroscience has to say regarding sentience in people that appear non-responsive?
8
My daughter is a recent graduate of The George Washington University which provided her with the very same benefits described here, but went on to offer so much more, including the ability to explore beyond prescribed lines. It seems like a disturbing contradiction to so narrowly focus the scope of one’s thinking in order to achieve more expansive thought. Amongst that narrowness my daughter would have been deprived of so much, including the views and philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir.
Rather than brushing aside the shortcomings of this particular humanities focused college, we should instead be acknowledging the enormous value that humanities itself has in developing our abilities for nuanced thinking. The long trending lack of regard for its importance to society is reflected in our current political discourse and through people’s inability to consider what it is to stand in another’s shoes.
4
The writer praises St John's emphasis on rigor, education for life, and breadth of curriculum among science and the humanities, but cautions that its exclusively Western classical canon leaves out the work of women and non-Western thought. I wonder if small liberal arts collegesndo not come closer to the balance he seeks than St John's classical program?
As a physics major at such a liberal arts college I read Kant and Baudelaire in non-science courses. At the same time, courses such as "The American Novel" offered books by Toni Morrison, Harriet Jacobs, and Maxine Hong Kingston, along with Melville and Henry James.
Now, it's debatable whether an elitist liberal arts curriculum prepares students better for life than a more specialized vocational education. Nonetheless, such curricula most certainly exist, and while St John's may well serve students wanting a rigorous classical education inthe Western tradition, there are many other liberal arts colleges that dispense with a narrowly classical curriculum but retain a broad and rigorous "education for life" liberal arts focus.
The op-ed writer looks to St John's as remedy for for what he sees as overly vocational and consumer driven curricula, even while acknowledging it may be an overcorrection to desire a classical Western canon for all. He seems to ignore the already existing balance given by small liberal arts schools.
7
The flaw in the St. John type of education is that it does not instill an obvious skill--such as would exist with a engineer who could build a bridge . To think rationally and question skeptically may be an asset in avoiding nonsense but it doesn't help much in getting a job offer to build artificial intelligence. So these are the graduates that would not vote for Trump or his cohorts; that's good for America, but may hurt their families.
3
@shimr No engineer who could build a bridge hasn't been to grad school these days.
6
@shimr You mean like the engineers who built the Tacoma Narrows Bridge?
Great to see so many share Ezra Pound's faith in the Classics. A few lines from Cantico del Sole:
The thought of what America,
The thought of what America,
The thought of what America would be like
If the Classics had a wide circulation
Troubles my sleep.
5
Did not help Pound with his dislike and bias of certain ethnic groups.
6
I wish I was young enough to attend!
Education is not vocational school--it's for helping you solve the problems and challenges of adult life...to be aware of the past (history and culture), more open-minded, humble, and a lifelong learner. This isn't Elite-Talk--it's citizenship.
6
Despite the Europeanness(?), maleness, and whiteness of the curriculum, sign me up.
4
Less pricey colleges, such as state colleges, should follow St. Johns lead. Providing 18 year old students with a happy smorgasbord of courses and majors all too often leads to basement-dwelling adult children who can't seem to do anything with their philosophy or psychology majors. Taking a course or two in philosophy is fine; majoring in it is folly.
1
How fantastic! And how pathetic that this is increasingly not the norm. An education of appreciation rather than resentment. Enthusiasm for learning and a love for the classics as opposed to indoctrination into a movement that demands the politicization of every subject.
The emphasis of "research" has reduced literature professors to data collectors, and the effects are a death of culture in America. And with this death, the cult of celebrity and worship of money have filled the void. Maybe St. John's College will be an example and save the humanities, reversing the growing American ignorance that has brought us to this moment.
4
Great column. The "frosting on the cake" would be a follow up article featuring maybe a dozen graduates looking back.
2
As an alumnus of St. John's College, it's important to note that the college is neither a "classics" program nor a humanities program.
It is a liberal arts program. There's a difference.
St. John's students spend limited time reading the Ancients -- and mostly in translation. And two years of studying Greek barely advances the student to the intermediate level.
There is math class every day for four years and a laboratory science for three years, both which take the student far beyond the humanities as traditionally defined.
To be sure, there are gaps: little history is read and students confront the books absent the historical context.
So what is a liberal arts education?
This is one of the great arguments at St. John's. But he reply "it teaches you how to think" is inadequate -- studying engineering invites the student to do some hard thinking, too.
Instead, a liberal arts education forced me to grapple with transformative ideas -- "the unexamined life is not worth living" -- that upended my notion of how to live. It did not lead to material rewards or an enviable position in society.
Without St. John's College, I likely would have lived a very complacent life in which my conventional notions of being and knowledge, reality and perception, love and beauty, would have gone unchallenged.
This is why St. John’s and liberal education represent such radical ideas. If you take seriously what the college offers, you are likely never to be the same again.
18
I spent a few months living near the Annapolis Campus and visited often. I enjoyed watching the school's only team sport - the annual match between St John's and the Naval Academy --
in CROQUET!
6
Great article, Mr. Bruni. I am the president of Trinity Schools, a national independent school system that was significantly influenced by St. John's College. My own kids, of course, have benefited from a common curriculum, classical reading list, and rigorous discussions. Thank you for bringing "the program" back into view!
3
St. John’s reminds me of Bennington College where tutorials were the norm and most classes contained 20 students. Discussions were animated, ideas developed and then dissected, and thinking outside the box was encouraged. It was a very stimulating atmosphere, and an exciting place to be. My desire for continuous learning was instilled there.
5
I am an alumnus of St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM. I left the college after 2 years as I felt that the education that St. John's provided, while important in helping to establish a strong connection to the classics, was ultimately impractical. On some level, that makes sense, because it is part of their educational mandate to instead instruct students on classical philosophy, religion, and theory. But the lofty ideals don't really translate into the practical realities of everyday existence. One example of how practical realities collided with theoretical concepts was the heavy use of drugs by the students living on campus. When I attended the college in 1979-1981, the campus was drenched in drugs - tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, LSD, marijuana, peyote, mushrooms, you name it. The students seemed to be obsessed with achieving a high or maintaining themselves in a psychedelic state. One student in my year had to be removed from the school as she was found in a psychotic state, wandering around the campus wrapped in a towel as a result of taking too many magic mushrooms. I think I decided at that point that I needed to extract myself from this drug-laden campus and try to pursue more practical ambitions in a healthier environment. I left to pursue a science degree and ultimately became a Professor of Medicine in Canada. It's hard to know whether the education at St. John's helped me. I think what it did was to sharpen my focus on what I really wanted to do in my life.
6
@Paige Thank you, Paige. This comment should have been highlighted. When I was there (Annapolis, late 80s) it was sex and cocaine. The curriculum leaves you unfocused. Those who stayed were high on their pseudo-intellectualism more than anything else. It's a breeding ground for narcissism. At the end, you have a big ego and no career path. When I Google Johnnie graduates I knew, none have gone on to anything substantial. Except Linda Tripp. So there you go.
5
@Paige Name me a school in those years where people weren't doing drugs!
5
@Here N.
Linda is married to fellow Johnny Bill Tripp. I see them often here in Baltimore (along with other Johnnies), where we all live. Bill and I were in the same class.
I realize you had a lousy time at St. John's, as you've told us more than once in these comments, but it's just hilarious to see you say, "When I Google Johnnie graduates I knew, none have gone on to anything substantial."
Thanks for the laugh!
2
The emphasis on diversity and women's studies in many comments compounds the mistake in much of our current appraisal of society. Hammering on our differences divides us. Labels divide us.
An education that focuses on studying the classics, along with other contributions to modern thought, and learning to analyze, understand, and articulate ideas about what you have learned, must lead to inclusion of women and people of other races and backgrounds in a worldview—a view of what is fair and equal, and why that is important for all of us.
Decades ago most universities and colleges were degraded into trade schools, places where students enrolled, not to hone their ability to think and understand—to acquire the foundations of an education—but to prepare them to get jobs in hot fields like technology and finance. Instead of broadening their minds, in many cases it crippled them by failing to educate them.
The most hardened racists and misogynists are people who are ignorant, They are men and women who may know how to read and write, but who have never learned to think.
A liberal education is just that: liberating, and should reveal that the answer to life is yes.
7
My position both as a graduate of the College and a person who has attended other institutions of higher learning: The best undergraduate education in the liberal arts requires a foundation of texts and disciplines that fosters an ever-inquiring mind. The key thing being a recognition that all knowledge is one. So it turns out, contrary to some modern educational theories, that what might seem by some to be overly diverse areas of study are, in fact, united and well-worth study.
The biggest gift to me from my own St. John's experience? > A greatly enhanced ability to listen to others while developing a successful approach to problem solving and learning in general. This is a quest that can continue throughout a lifetime, to one's advantage, be it on a spiritual, intellectual, or remunerative level.
For any prospective student who might be reading this: Consider visiting either the Santa Fe or the Annapolis campus. The experience of auditing the classroom experience will help bring your own educational goals into focus with clarity.
In addition, even if you aren't in position to matriculate in any college or university, go online and look at the site: https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs
4
It is a complete waste of time and money to learn Greek sufficiently to read original texts. Fifty years ago chemistry majors were to be fluent in German. Times have changed and computers have allowed us to have more time to consider more topics in all schools. Perhaps the college could require stone tablet work, too?
4
@Ronald D. Sattler Why I'm glad I studied Ancient Greek:
I learned grammar inside and out by studying ancient greek. I can tear apart a complex sentence and/or paragraph and critique a translation and rewrite it.
I understand the difficulties that lie in the meaning of a word, and how important it is in a discussion to not only define the word, but allow the complexity of the idea show the author's mind and meaning.
8
Oh, if only.... Do the take 65-year-olds?
3
@Jillian Give it a shot. Admission is based mainly on an extensive personal essay. In my day, one classmate was a 62-year-old retired banker.
Graduate Institute takes all ages, students must have prior 4 year degree.
To the American readers who comment that this is still very expensive you might glance north of the border to the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was founded on the island of Manhattan, but in 1783 a band of political refugees took the charter with them when they fled to British North America, leaving the revolutionary rump to rename itself Columbia.
King's runs a program of this kind for all students in their first year, even ones planning to study science. Then students may choose majors either at King's or at neighbouring Dalhousie. The majors offered at King's extend the integrated intellectual history approach for three more years. Tuition for Canadians is c.7000 CAD per annum. My daughter is there and is thriving. I am a professor at a research university in Ontario and deeply wish we would emulate it.
5
My sister attended the SF campus. I suppose I am glad it exists but this kind of curriculum begs so many questions. We are living in the 21st century after all. Great books? Who says so? Why this one and not that one? Read classical texts in the original? Sounds great but come on - to be really proficient in classical Greek or Latin takes years. How many St. Johns' graduates can truly say they know these languages? How many of their tutors can say that? OK let's read some Hegel, also terrific (not in original German of course), but how can you read it in a bubble, without any of the relevant secondary literature? These texts (sorry) do not exist in isolation; a lot of very interesting things have been said about them. That's part of learning too.
If you want to go on and get a PhD after St. Johns you're probably going to be behind your contemporaries. Go on and do comparative literature without any exposure to theory? If you want to go to medical school you have at least two years of basic science to catch up on.
Then there are the political overtones. Remember Allan Bloom? Infamous Trump apologist Michael Anton ("The flight 93 election") has a masters from the Annapolis campus. Does worship of the "Great Books" create Trump voters? Hard to imagine but possible.
I feel like it's a preparation for a life of name-dropping and dilettantism and possibly elitism. Might be better as a high school for gifted kids than a college.
6
I'm a St. John's graduate from Santa Fe. For years I have been a teacher of middle school and high school English. I know my time at St. John's asked me to challenge myself intellectually; this has been the backbone of my teaching strategies all these years. I respect the contents my four years at St. John's more than ever.
St. John's wasn't, however, without its issues. I remember full well lamenting the lack of women writers on the program. I also remember feeling patronized by some of the tutors, and even a few students. "Mansplaining" was rampant in the class and hallways, even when half the classroom was female. But those were different times, thank goodness.
Thank you Mr. Bruni for bringing St. John's into well-deserved limelight!
6
In a more perfect world St .John's would be a beacon and a template.
But, as The Preacher tells us (KJV for convenience...):
" For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." Ecclesiastes 18
I couldn’t be prouder to be a Johnnie. For what it’s worth, women and people of color are often offered in readings for electives. And for those of you reading this article wistfully, please note that SJC offers a MALA, which can be completed over consecutive summers. My two years of graduate school in Santa Fe were two of the best years of my life. Despite the loans I had to take out for my degree: no regrets.
4
A wonderful story about a wonderful institution--especially in this time of PC, safe rooms and violent divisiveness in too many colleges and universities. Our country needs more of them to adapt the essence of St. John's curriculum.
That would be one way to change our current hyper-partisan, splintered culture, something your colleague David Brooks' discussed in his podcast, "America, The cultural revolution we need,"
Perhaps another: Institute debating as part of the curriculum in high school and university English courses. It would (1) force students (and teachers!) to learn about subjects and viewpoints they would normally shun or attack and (2) learn how to discuss and persuade based on facts and reasoning. What a change that would be! Low cost/high value/relatively fast-acting!
2
This is very nice, but not scaleable. It will never be a model for general post-secondary education. Most students don't have the intellect or preparation for this work, and most professors couldn't teach it. It's expensive, and the graduates are really only prepared for graduate school, and a life in the elite. This article is just upscale liberal intellectual porn.
.
I teach engineering at a public university. My students are prepared to be productive members of the middle class upon graduation. They're smart, ask tough questions, and have been taught analytical thought (but no Greek). They will all earn above the US median, starting with their first job. I have a lot of them, and we don't charge that much. Not everyone is going to be an engineer, but in general this sort of education is scaleable, and appropriate for all. We're not just teaching a tiny number of elitists. Come visit the 99% sometime, Frank.
6
@Tom
"My students are prepared to be productive members of the middle class upon graduation." Soon there may not be a middle class...
See https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/business/middle-class-financial-crisi...
3
I cheated my dear parents out of some of their hard earned money at a state school, but I took a number of electives. Ecology, women's studies, Native American Literature, Medieval History, Sociology, Social Psychology, History of the French Revolution, Symphonic Band, Electronic Music Seminar, reading a lot of science fiction novels, Hermann Hesse, Ram Dass, the gospels in the New Testament, and a bunch of other books...
I listened to and discussed politics with friends, along with films and literary topics. This college in the NYT's sounds like a great place, but 4 years is not long enough anyway-covering the great expanse of what one grubby hippie told me with scorn was a lot of useless intellectual nonsense. She had a point, too- one that highlights what many Trump supporters believe- that Obama was an elitist snob, like so many other
"liberals" with high ideals who never worked construction.
Well I mopped a lot of floors and emptied a lot of trash cans in part-time jobs, even tried aluminum recycling for 2 weeks! (came home covered with aluminum dust from head to toe). Plenty of s__ty jobs out there that people HAD to do or not eat... But every word from learned people still linger in my brain, and I don't have time to watch television anymore.
Except for PBS and a show here or there, I don't want what
they're offering, along with commercials consuming 25% of
air time anyway. And more seriously painful is news of another shooting consuming another 25%...
Simply superb article.
1
I once worked with someone who graduated from there. High IQ but still could slip up. Said she'd never lived on an island, but had told me she once lived in Brooklyn. Told her, "You lived on an island. It's part of Long Island." Maybe they should include islands and other geological formations with the more ethereal "The Iliad" and Ancient Greek.
3
I can testify to the value of a St. John's education because I attended St. John's more than 50 years ago and have been applying what I learned there ever since. Early on, I was a lieutenant company commander in the Marine Corps and faced with decisions on how to punish young Marines who misbehaved. At St. John's, we had talked about whether people were bad. Those college discussions did not give me the answer on how to handle every Marine who misbehaved. Rather, those discussions gave me a framework for thinking about military justice. In the last 20 years I have become involved with artificial intelligence and categorization. Now, my freshman readings of Aristotle on categorization are proving invaluable. And so it has been since I left St. John's and its stream of insights and ideas from the Great Books.
4
St John's students are an integral part of the Annapolis community. We recognize them as being thoughtful, individualistic and always ready to discuss an idea, a social problem or just any view about daily life. No stock phrases or canned ideas from their lips. The Annapolis campus provides our community with literary courses, fine arts classes, music and theatre venues and a very fine Mitchell Art Gallery. It is across the street from the US Naval Academy! How different these two colleges are, but one of the biggest draws on the Annapolis calendar is a Spring croquet match between St Johns and the Naval Academy.
We are proud of being home to this wonderful college.
5
Wonderful school, wonderful curriculum! Long may it live.
2
I've only known one alumnus of the Annapolis campus, and without too much effort he persuaded me that it offered the best education of any four-year college in America. For a value-for-dollar education, however, I suspect the WWW offers the best deal there is today. How much can a school like St. John's afford to pay a professor to teach twenty students at a time? How much can a sterling teacher earn when there are tens of thousands of students taking his classes on line? My guess is the latter option will attract the best of the best away from any university.
What saddens me in this account is that the classroom activities, i.e., the immersive learning, the careful facilitation of discussion, the openness to useful digression, the granular close reading, etc., are described as if they are forgotten relics, utterly remarkable for their unfashionable idiosyncrasy. I was fortunate enough to do this kind of work nearly every day as an undergraduate at the (recently much-maligned) Evergreen State College, and as a humanities graduate student at two Washington universities. What's being described here is true education, and the skill-sets in development among these students will prove capaciously relevant and transferable for the rest of their lives, unlike that listicle-based online class that narrowly covers the marketing of online listicle classes.
Still lamentable is the cost. I applaud St. John's for its bold move to lower tuition, but even if grants cover half--50k for a bachelor's degree is too much. The main obstacle to this mode of learning is how expensive it can be to provide, not to mention the intense wave of misguided (and powerfully manipulated) anti-intellectualism presently gripping this and other countries.
As an educator of some twenty years, I would be thrilled to encounter--and on my best teaching days, help to produce--these sorts of highly capable (and employable!) students. Higher education is indeed at a crisis point, but liberal arts schools like SJC and Evergreen are moving in the right direction.
2
When I enrolled at John Carroll University in Cleveland, the new catalog was changed to reduce the semester hours of required philosophy from 18 to 9. While many rejoiced, as the years pass, I find what I learned in philosophy classes enduring. I wish it had been at 18. (I majored in economics) The Jesuit schools had and still have what is known as the Jesuit Core. It has been modified (watered down) over the years but it endures. Requiring all students to take classed in different disciplines is great. I teach part time at a local college in the graduate school and I am always amazed at what my students never learned.
5
Here, I wish to re-post a line in Frank Bruni's Wednesday newsletter. "I’m sad. A lavishly blessed nation is squandering its promise and betraying its ideals."
I am born Canadian, having taken US citizenship decades ago to participate fully in the society where I lived, worked and raised my children. I decided to take the chancy plunge.
I did this with eyes wide open and full of optimism even though my preferred Party was out of power at the time. I could accept the Reagan presidency. I did not like it but also did not fear it existentially.
Now my sense is, "Cry, my beloved countries:" the US for what we're doing to ourselves; Canada, for being so close that it can hardly escape the self-inflicted carnage."
I look forward to some mirth again south of that invisibly equidistant point between the Equator and the North Pole, before we bring ourselves irretrievably to ruin. To that end, I plan to vote, to keep on writing, and to urge others to help bring back the country to the ideals whose loss Mr. Bruni laments.
1
“Your work and career are a part of your life,” he said when I met with him and the Santa Fe president, Mark Roosevelt. “Education should prepare you for all of your life."
Unfortunately, it looks like St. John's prepares you for all of your left EXCEPT FOR that most-important work and career part.
1
It was right down the road from where I grew up. So sorry that I did not pay closer attention to the options. It's my idea of education! Based on the comments below, I'm not the only one who would love a 'retake'! Thanks for reminding us what is out there!
1
Frank, why did you have to travel all the way to Santa Fe for this revelation? The same philosophy imbues the teaching at 116th and Broadway of the mandatory undergraduate Core Curriculum at the extraordinary university of which you are a graduate school alum--Columbia!
1
A classical education. What a novel idea!
2
I hope that these and all college students remember to vote in the coming mid-terms. They can register back home or on campus as long as they don't register to vote in both states. For more information:
https://help.vote.org/article/17-i-am-a-college-student-should-i-registe...
3
Note to prospective St John’s parents: as an alumni parent I assure you that your St John’s graduate will emerge with skills that are of enormous value in any job market. He or she will know how to truly think. He or she will know how to articulate thoughts clearly and effectively. He or she will have the courage and self discipline to delve into deeply complex problems with an open mind. And he or she will know how to listen. All this in addition to an in depth knowledge and understanding of the classics. Not bad. And worth it.
6
Still a notch below Trump University.
2
It says a great deal that thepatently obvious is shockingly contrarian
1
Great concept but what about all the middle class and working class kids that need a job after college? I know many affluent, young, bright liberal arts grads of good colleges living at home with mom and dad, unemployable and underemployed. What are the demographics of the St John grads? Maybe they are economically fortunate enough to learn for learnings sake. It’s a great yet unrealistic construct. I would have enjoyed it myself but as I preferred not to drive a cab as my hard working and devoted Dad did , I went to med school
4
@zeffer-- My experience: After graduating from SJC, I took a 3 semester premed program, then worked 4 years on genetic databases, then finally got back to school at Cornell where I studied toxicology. (I decided against med school because I wanted to have children, and med school and residency were just too long-- or I was too old.) I use my education from SJC every day.
2
I visited St. John's when I was applying to colleges. (BTW, thanks for this article. I have exactly one dim memory of visiting Annapolis in my teens, but couldn't remember why or when until now.) Per their requirements for prospective students, I stayed overnight in one of their dorm suites with some students, getting to know my hosts.
We had a very pleasant evening, talking, playing caps (at 18, I was legal in 1982, as were all my hosts), listening to music. We talked about the curriculum, the town, campus life. They admitted the college was very sheltered and that it was easy to lose touch with the outside world. "Next you'll be telling me you don't know that Leonid Brezhnev just died", I joked.
Their jaws dropped. They hadn't.
No, not for me, I decided. Nice concept, very nice people. But definitely not for me.
4
Going to these colleges and taking these classes are all good until you graduate and be faced with the grim reality that learning about Aristotle and Homer is not something employers seek. They want people with programming skills or business management skills, not people's ability to recall history in Greece or works of Aristotle. The sad truth is that so many graduates had not taken the employment and earnings prospect of their degree into account and here we are today where student loan defaults are at an all time high. We need more innovators to solve today's hardest problems with the tools and knowledge that's relevant today, not looking back and memorizing what people had done in the past.
3
Thanks to St. John’s College for continuing this necessary education. It is all too clear that much knowledge has been lost since the fall of these ancient civilizations. We need institutions that teach the art of thinking and reasoning beyond narrow vocations.
5
Ah, the good old days when the opening lectio magistralis of the academic year was given in Latin, and when all science tomes also were in Latin.
And it wasn't that far in the past, a mere 150 years (in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria, Italy).
Also, the total enrollment at all those universities combined was probably around 750 students, more or less in line with St. John's.
Isn't it sad to see that today just one institution is cramming just as many students in one single place?
Of course St. John must have compromised on the quality of teaching, watering down the curriculum and lowering the admissions standards.
Just saying.
2
This sounds like a fantastic college. Education for education's sake.
As a (now retired) mid-level corporate manager, I always required that cover letters accompany the resumé, describing why the applicant felt right for the job.
Invariably, those who wrote well (with original thought, not the form letter they teach in "career" centers) -- were GREAT employees. Eminently trainable.
If all you need is someone to write code all day, fair enough. But in 40 years of corporate life, I found communication abilities to be the most important ingredient to our success.
13
A great education, but even at $35K/year, too dear for the average American.
That said, I wish my grandson would attend this school. His parents spent more sending him to an "elite" Manhattan private school K-8, whose flower are the children of oligarchs. Culture is priceless--and at the Santa Fe campus he could ski at nearby Taos in his spare time!
71
@Carl Ian Schwartz
My understanding is that SJC is committed to making this education accessible via institutional financial aid to any student who desires it.
2
@Carl Ian Schwartz Why ski Taos when you can ski Santa Fe?
3
@Carl Ian Schwartz There is still financial aid and merit scholarships!
1
We are formed by these ideas, but we are also formed by our technology, and in particular by social media, which involves a change in our reality of similar depth to the change from an oral to a written culture, from Homer to Socrates. Applying these ideas to our modern reality demands that we step beyond and develop them in new ways that were unforeseen by the creators of these ideas (who were generally not into the science fiction sort of speculation). If Hegel does not encounter William Gibson, something vital will be missing.
3
I first heard about St John's college in A WSJ article "The Suicide of the Liberal Arts" in 2015.
Later Mr Roth President of Wesleyan College opined on Richard Heffner's PBS Program that "But they’re also figures who insist that a liberal education must preserve the great works of the past."
The idea of a liberal education as defined by Mr Roth is apparently lost in the Wesleyan "Departments, Programs, Colleges, and Centers" as specialized "Studies" seem to be the educational flavor, not only of Wesleyan but almost all colleges and universities, today.
African American Studies Program
American Studies
Center for the Humanities
Classical Studies
College of East Asian Studies
College of Letters
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
German Studies
Graduate Liberal Studies Program
Jewish and Israel Studies
Latin American Studies Program
Medieval Studies Program
Middle Eastern Studies
Philosophy
Romance Languages and Literatures (French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese)
Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Social, Cultural,
College of Integrative Sciences
and Critical Theory
South Asian Studies
Study of Education
University Studies
Which of the Studies programs "preserve the great works of the past" so that all graduates receive a truly "liberal education"?
1
John Henry Newman in the early 19th century wrote a book about the benefits of a “liberal” education over a “servile” one. As stated by others, this is a tradition that has served the wealthy White Patriarchy well. The movie, “The Social Network” also comes to mind in regard to the disruption of this type of education Harvard has offered to these elite legacy students in order to sustain and grow their ilk.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of sifting through these classics and connecting with these ancient ideas. However, it’s a genteel and somewhat unrealistic pursuit in this age of choking student debt.
Hey, just read them on your own, curled up in bed with a glass of wine (my guilty pleasure).
4
I hope that the existence of this college and it’s curriculum is not new to Mr. Bruni. If it is, he must live in a tiny bubble that doesn’t extend beyond the NY metro area. I live in Indiana. This is not news to anyone I know.
Like Twain’s death, the demise of the “Classics”—the Canon of Western civilization—has been exaggerated. St. John’s, Reed College in Portland, and a modest number of small liberal arts colleges nationwide continue to insist that a knowledge of human history and wisdom, coupled with the education of humankind in the skills of analysis and judgment are the basis of the educated mind.
For these colleges, job training is a subordinate mission. These colleges are, in a sense, the modern continuation of the core ideas of the European Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant’s famous epigram , Sapere Aude !, expresses succinctly the mission of these colleges: “Dare to know. Have the courage to use your own understanding”.
5
Hmm. No athletic program? What a concept. Education is the focus? How unusual. In fact, how European. The college I graduated from, Franklin University, in Columbus, OH was / is an urban campus focused on business, engineering, accounting and Public Administration. It too, had no athletic programs. No million dollar coaches and athletic scholarships. I might not have been much exposed to the classics but I received an excellent education and training for a career that served me well in four different career disciplines.
I think we could use a little more of this, frankly. In higher education, we often seem to have the tail wagging the dog.
2
Hillsdale College in MI is more "contrarian" that St. Johns. Hillsdale will not accept any funding from any government source---Federal, State, or Local.
Why? Hillsdale's charter of 1844 establishes racial colorblindness and gender equality as its admitting and operational priority. When government sought to intervene in Hillsdale's mission of total equality, in the late 1970s, Hillsdale refused. Hillsdale does not concern itself with demographic representation. Instead, it is open to all qualified applicants--regardless of demographic classification.
This, of course, is insufficient for Government busy bodies. The Government doesn't seem to care that Hillsdale was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The Government doesn't seem to care the Hillsdale was the second college in USA to grant a degree to a female. The Government insists that Hillsdale College become racist and sexist in order to receive funding. Hillsdale refused.
For this reason and others, my son attends Hillsdale College and is receiving an outstanding education.
8
Bravo, Bruni. This is indeed a challenge to our slapstick society, where Stephen Colbert and his like determine how we vote. Unfortunately, we may be too far gone to turn our cultural mimickry around, but just knowing that such a place in the desert of New Mexico exists is a seed of hope.
2
It is said, that "real education..Teaches how to think not what to think"
I am so grateful that I had the education I did 45 years ago. It was exactly what is described. The courses I thought were useless are now the most important.
2
Okay, Okay, but please get over the implied lies about how bad "other" colleges and universities are. You can, if you will, get the same stuff at any one of them. That's a fact.
4
Not a fact at all; humanities curricula have be massively eviscerated across a vast swath of colleges from the most prestigious to the most humble. Probably most colleges have been affected, if not through altogether elimination of courses and progams associated with "liberal education" then through significant reductions.
Yes, determined students, especially given technology unvailable only recently, can access any texts they want, and even people to assist in their quest through distance collaboration/learning approaches. But even amid those opportunities university policies, curricular changes, and informal pressures operate to steer students away from the St. Johns approach and priorities.
1
@Donald E. Voth The curriculum is perhaps more integrated and irreproducible than you think. When I attended SJC in the 70s, a fellow a few years ahead of me had transferred from Harvard. Although he lost credit for his one year there in the transfer, he was glad he did so in order to participate in the St. John's curriculum. He couldn't patch its equivalent together at Harvard.
1
Sounds like it is vastly superior to Harvard,Yale,Stanford and our other so called elite colleges and universities that instead of teaching the canon of Western Civilization which has left all the other extant civilizations eating our dust, they indoctrinate the students with 4 years of political correct drivel
6
Sounds like an education, instead of what passes for an education now: telling people when to throw down the trump cards imperialist, capitalist, ableist, cis-hetero-normative, patriarchal, white-supremacist and fascist .
2
I received my degree in Information Technology in 1985. I've had a pretty successful career in IT since. Despite those facts. I've never used a single thing, that I learned through my major, in my career. Other than helping me get an entry-level job in IT, college was vocationally worthless. Other aspects of college were helpful (critical thinking, meeting deadlines, etc.). My experience tells me that St. John's has a strong argument for their approach.
12
I think St. John's has a program for children who travel with their parents and do not attend "regular" school. I have met one or two of the youngsters who cruised around the world in boats. I was impressed by their maturity - developed no doubt from being with adults much of the time and spending hours alone as well. This gave me a favorable impression of St. John's.
1
This sounds a lot like the 2-year "Core" curriculum required at Columbia College, Columbia University in NYC... The only one of the Ivies that still require such courses, I believe (unless that has changed in recent years?).
3
I agree that studying the classics and philosophy is still relevant today. Science nerd as I was and still am, some of the most valuable courses I ever took in college were in the classics, philosophy, and intellectual history. For the past 20 years I have returned to these works and those of other cultures over and over to relearn how to open my mind again. The value is not in the conclusions reached but in seeing the many different ways to think through an idea or problem. I wish I had more time back then to spend in classes bouncing ideas off of other people on these topics rather then working through them alone as now.
4
Thank you for this article. Last weekend, I attended the funeral of the best teacher I ever had--- she taught a college-level Humanities series at a high school and it shaped me (for the positive) more than any other class I have ever taken. Then, this morning, I read in BUSINESS INSIDER an article that lists every single one of my interests (speech, writing, performing arts, psychology...) as being the "least valuable college majors." Oh, and did I mention that I started to read the Woodward book yesterday? This article was a balm to my rattled being.
5
God bless them. This is sooo refreshing! I love it. Good place for my 7 year old grandson when the time comes.
3
Right. They do not have varsity athletes but I can tell you from experience that they can beat the sister Naval Academy croquet team in their annual tourney that includes period dress and beverage. A great time is had by all. I remember when I was there in the Viet Nam days that Annapolis had quite the mix as midshipmen (yes all men in those days) and St Johnny's with their long hair and hemp bracelets mixed it up on the old towne of Annapolis. And what great Tutors. It was like heaven.
5
I loved my time St. John's. From the moment I visited at a perspective student in 1982 to my graduation in 1986. I left my 30 some credit hours from a community college behind me (none transferred to SJC), and dove into a community of readers, where I was challenged and where I grew. The students there are committed to learning, to understanding, to questioning. I have never been in such a community since. I attended Cornell for my graduate work, and was dismayed as my undergrad students openly worked not to understand or follow their curiosity, but solely for the grade. If a concept or new idea wasn't going to be on a test, there was no reason to understand it. --
I wrote above that I loved St. John's. I still love St. John's and the program and my time there. I still miss seminar. Often, when I finish a book, I want the insight of classmates to help me understand. -- Happily, reunion is coming up in a few weeks and I'll be able to go to an alumni seminar.
11
St. John's publishes the reading list, so you can go through the curriculum, minus the seminars. Of course, the seminars are the reason for attending. Nevertheless, I've been reading from the list for a couple of years and it is quite eye-opening and rewarding for learning what Western culture is all about.
I've also visited the Santa Fe campus which is monastic but beautiful in the desert setting.
7
I attended the Eastern Classics Masters program at St. John's College in Santa Fe. This program covers the classical texts of India, China and Japan, including thinkers as diverse as the Buddha, Confucius, Nagarjuna and Dogen. I particularly enjoyed an entire summer reading the Tale of Genji, written by a woman--a required text for the program.
Many have commented on the lack of female writers and writers of color in the undergraduate program, and this is a serious concern, but one that I feel the College has worked to address. The program is far less rigid than when it was founded in the 1930s and upperclassmen have an opportunity to read non-program works by authors like de Beauvoir, Garcia Marquez, Camus and Turing and other topics proposed by students and tutors in a focused class called a preceptorial.
Others seem to believe that the program only covers the classical texts of antiquity, but seniors read foundational works of American democracy, seminal Supreme Court decisions and modern philosophers and literary figures.
Could more be done to include alternative voices? Definitely. But how many engineering or science students in the US are given the opportunity to engage with female writers or writers of color in their programs? American education broadly needs to do better in this realm and to castigate St. John's for its choices is to ignore this reality. St. John's helps students learn to critically assess and engage with ideas, skills whose use have no bounds.
13
@Jeff O.
Glad to see this was the first comment. I saw, as I wanted to know more about how the school addressed the lack of different ethnic groups, genders, etc. Hopefully a wider diversity will evolve as part of their program. It would seem a natural fit to integrate the knowledge, experience, and learning of the wide diversity of human experience.
My son, who is now a grad student in classics at UMinn considered St John, but at 18 felt that going to a school with such a narrow (better word?), focus might be limiting if he found his interests evolving or changing during those first 4 years. He went to Franklin & Marshall instead, and had a good experience.
I have to say that at the age of 64 though, the idea of spending 4 years of my retirement at a place like St John is actually very appealing...
3
Let's be honest. St John's wants a wider applicant pool. Their student body isn't going to change quantitatively as a result of lower tuition. The school can support X amount of students with the resources and infrastructure currently deployed. That's not going to change with an academic fire-sale even when accompanied by a principled sales pitch.
St. John's is hoping a lower sticker price will improve the applicants from which the school gets to accept students. It's a qualitative effort. To me this suggests academic achievement is sliding despite what the grades or demographics might say about the school's performance. The curriculum is another problem.
I've read Edith Hamilton. I've read Homer. I've read Socrates and Plato and Aristotle. I've studied Latin and Greek and many other languages. I still don't think the classics are a good basis for practical education. They provide too straight a path in confirming your own assumptions and biases. That's not thought. That's not even intellectual. It's habitual and chronically uncritical.
I'm not saying we need more vocational schools. There's a place for vocational training and college isn't necessarily the place. Instead, I'm saying schools strictly adherent to western traditions are mentally imprisoned. Your righteous dedication to a certain philosophy is your own mental prison. The classics are important but only insofar as you contrast those ideas against the rest of human history. Otherwise, you're missing out.
2
Reed College, which I attended, has a similar core program for its Freshmen.
4
Sounds similar to New College of Florida- another liberal arts school that continues to provide excellent education at an affordable cost. www.ncf.edu Building a work force that knows how to think, question and communicate effectively is much more important that focusing on one skill set that may be obsolete in ten years.
2
I expect true learners will see thru the naysayer commenters to this article, who are criticizing $35,000 tuition?
My wife and my careers were as Preschooler teachers, we doubted that we could afford any college for our son or daughter.
However, our daughter learned of St John’s, and was determined to go there in spite of 1998 tuition costs also at $35,000 at that time?
However,she graduated from St John’s in 2002, her student loan debt for four years total, less than $15,000, parents contribution less than $5000 per year.
She went on to a Masters at Williams College (annually rated as #1 undergraduate college in the US by US News and Report), and at her graduation, several of her professors sought us out to tell us that her research and writing skills were far beyond the scope of any of the other students? St John’s prep???
She then received doctorate program acceptance offers from almost all the top universities including Ivy League? St John’s prep???
Now in turn, beginning in 2001 our son attended Washington State public universities, his student loan debt almost $20,000, plus parents contributions over $5000 per year?
His schooling was specialized, with Math/Computer Engineer degree. He too has been quite successful as trained, along with love of outdoors as hobbies.
So St John’s is affordable, possibly more than public school options and well worth the pursuit for ANY student interested. I’m confident those very students will eventually find St John’s! Persist
6
sorry, but this is utter nonsense. Learning to analyze and reflect and think carefully has little to do with learning Greek. There are many issues currently that do not have good analogies with historical events, inspite of the intellectual joy of finding those that do. The fact that the graduates do well and appreciate the education is more indicative of their own abilities than any special value of the curriculum.
3
I love many of the so-called great books and what they have to offer. I don't know that, as the column indicates, this is "the" model. What I do know, and Bruni points out, is that this is "education" and not "credentialing, what so much of higher ed has become. And I say that as someone who teaches many an aspiring college student. The Jeffersonian notion of an educated populace has been gutted in favor of job training.
6
St John's provides their full reading lists for all their programs on their website. For anyone who feels too old, too poor, too unable to leave job/location, or in any other way not able to actually attend St John's, you can start reading now.
There are also lots and lots of online programs that teach many of these texts and subjects on the EdX website, including classes from Ivy League universities. These classes are entirely free unless you need credit for them and include high quality video, etc.
So if you're jealous of the St John's kids or want a similar experience to fit in with your current life, you have many options, all much cheaper than actually going to St John's.... Enjoy!
3
There's a picture in the Wall Street Journal (can I say that?) today of an oil tanker being pulled by a sail. The message: there is enduring value in the old ways. Bravo to the educational analog.
It might be worth thinking about whether your reluctance to so much as pick up such books is a big honking part of what you've been taught to help keep you down, passive, and working hard for the benefit of the wealthy.
3
As someone who has spent his life teaching this stuff, I appreciate what they say they are trying to do. But you have to watch out for Straussianism, which is not only poisonous nonsense, but poisonous conservative nonsense. Teaching the canon is a great thing, but only if you teach the canon, rather than Leo Strauss.
1
@G If it's poisonous nonsense, that's up to the student to determine. This school is giving them the skills to do that. Whenever I hear somebody saying that certain ideas are dangerous, I am sure that the ideas are worthy of consideration.
2
The St. John’s approach is admirable. The Western canon with its limitations and cultural baggage is problematic, but the canon is just a means to a greater end: the establishment of robust, flexible cognitive habits that can then be applied to a more diverse world. That’s the key missing from the current trend in vocational “education.”
We live in a liberal society, so how can you not teach students what that means and how it works? We need curricula that meld both liberal arts and vocational education. Without the liberal part, you produce one-dimensional tech developers (see Mark Zuckerberg) making global ethical decisions they are in no way qualified to make. You get politicians with simplistic, inflexible world views that privilege obedience rather than considered evaluation of issues. You get presidents untethered from reality, who drift without intellectual restraint into the shadowy realm of alternative facts and ethics.
What St. John’s is about –a term Bruni surprisingly never uses – is the humanities. We live in a complex world. The humanities produce students who are able to evaluate (critical thinking) the complexities, separate fact from fiction, and determine how we know what we know.
What we don’t need are self-absorbed robotic citizens who can produce, say, a line of code but who have no thoughts about why they are doing it (beyond a paycheck) or its consequences in the bigger picture – or how they will adapt when the real robots take their jobs.
7
I believe the St. John's model is great for the right type of student, & an 'exemplum' w/ indispensible lessons about inspiration, motivation, textual engagement, & the role & legacy of a very complex & variegated tradition that shaped the modern world, while raising universal questions (perhaps most classically, & so pertinent to or technologized, money-driven, Darwinian age, materialism -or scientific naturalism & empiricism- versus idealism & spiritualism) that can never be finally answered but on which all must tentatively take a stand, & which all institutions (& social patterns, arrangements, & relationships) implicitly answer, however -again- 'tentatively,' provisionally.
In contemporary society's mainstream educational approach, these questions are answered by default in favor of a reductionistic materialism & "homo ecomicus" model as Hobbes articulated, largely accounting for how big tech & skyrocketing inequality have taken over the world w/ little to no real resistance, an apt political terminology for which might be neoconservative milleniarian materialism, or what Giridharadas calls "marketworld", or just as appropriately, perhaps "McKinseyism" or maybe just "Taylorism" (these 'isms'/dogmas boiling down to the same) for that matter. St. Johns is designed as a democratic corrective to Hobbesianism-by-default that defines contemporary mores & episteme.
One proof St. Johns has been on to something is that around 1990 or 2000, a legal scholar... (TBC)
2
I wonder if they teach the students to avoid run-on sentences and the abuse of the symbol for ampersand (&)?
4
Kathleen, probably yes. But I'm sure while doing those things they emphasize clarity of communication above all, rather than quibbling over pecadilloes in a relatively informal conversation or forum. If your ideas or message are/is conveyed clearly, you have largely succeeded at the main objective. Moreover, however inelegant or convoluted my sentences, I don't think there are run-ons or abuses of "&" (we *are* constrained by a character limit).
If I over-emphasize efficiency by abusing "&" in this forum, it's worth it for challenging idolization of "efficiency" in education, where this is a much more serious problem.
... around 1990 or 2000 could plausibly claim "we're all law-&-economists now," referencing the materialist-reductionistic "homo economicus" approach to law purveyed by Richard Posner based on dogmas developed/propogated by the U. of Chicago econ dept (now ironically enough discredited by the same dept, getting more Nobels for refuting the same Nobel-awarded theory), while just 2 weeks ago Posner's own son Eric (also UC law prof) approvingly quoted a SCOTUS Justice as saying "We're all textualists now"(!).
In other words, St. Johns has always understood that the close study of texts (especially as against raw Hobbesianism, materialism, and the worship of money, which in the wake of the 80s held sway in the form of pervasive "rational choice theory," "human capital," "law and economics" doctrines) is & must be the first line of defense against tyranny and on behalf of the defense of our liberties, the cornerstone of law itself. St. Johns (like the liberal education tradition at U. of Chicago) has doggedly held the line against default or knee-jerk materialism, as the prestige of the latter crested & collapsed w/in a single generation. The text-focused tradition has been assailed from all directions but in certain robust pockets endured, a flickering beacon amid darkness. "We're all textualists now" suggests that light is regaining its former strength.
U. Chicago, St. Johns, & dedicated scholars & citizens deserve great credit. & in this paper, Stanley Fish deserves applause.
1
Thank you Mr. Bruni, but did you have to cough-up and interject the usual liberal "women and minorities" phrase?
While St. John's does not field any major sports teams, Marylanders know that one of the great rivalries in sports is St. John's vs. the US Naval Academy in croquet.
https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/croquet
3
One of my biggest regrets is that I did not take my middle school math teacher's advice to attend St. John's. Now at an advanced age, I am using online courses to learn more than I probably ever did learn at traditional schools.
1
My son attended a classical school that begins in kindergarten. It was an experience that was in every way a gift. When Mr. Bruni expresses the habit of humility that is found while studying this type of curriculum he is correct. Imagine grade school children learning like this. Unfortunately, almost every school district has abandoned these traditions. I can tell you the public school my son previously attended in no way compares to the classical curriculum found in his new school. While the public school spent double the amount of money per student it was an incomplete education. What I learned, first hand, was that the technology component of lap tops and a poor curriculum that is driven by standardized tests is no match for primary source books, paper and pen, and engaging discussions among peers facilitated by teachers who are passionate about the subject at hand.
1
This is a joy to read. There is hope for humanity, and it lives at St. John's.
3
A great piece about a terrific school that teaches people really to learn, which means to think. Thank you, Mr. Bruni .
3
I loved this column. Thank you. I can't say that I had such a beautifully rigorous education myself, but I was encouraged to learn, really learn. We sat up half the night discussing art or history or philosophy or literature (when we weren't trying to memorize theorems we didn't understand). Those were the most liberating days of my life. However, I was a scholarship student and thus could take the four years to get myself grounded in what some folks see as the clouds. Lucky me. Really, nothing prepares one for a satisfying life more than gaining a taste for and trust in gorgeousness. That was fifty years ago, and to this day I can remember not without some awe all-night discussions that, in retrospect, were about beauty and truth.
6
I've had a long indirect connection with St. John's. I even taught in their M.A. program one summer and learned a lot in the process. But in this comment, I only want t make one point. Every American college and university strives for diversity. But they all want to be diverse in exactly the same way. St John's is different. It wouldn't work for most American students, but it gives a few a way to develop their minds that is not available elsewhere. We need a larger variety of models for higher education and a way of helping people to find the right model for them.
5
I want to a small college and then universities in the 60s. I studied math and second in philosophy. It was a liberal arts education. And no, that's not liberal in the political sense for those of immediate ranks. The notion was to make one a better and fulfilled member in society. Hence, I was academically exposed to the classics, science, language etc. It was defined as an education compared to training. What passes today as "university" education lacks, in several respects, the development of an individual capable of approaching the complexities of real life and the ability to see through simple solutions to complex problems minced into slogans, dog whistles, jingoism and the buffoonery of bloated politicians whose lack of public commitment is teetering on treason. University programs producing accountants, engineers, business mangers, as example, often forgo or minimize the exposure to areas of human thinking outside one's labor discipline. Is one better than another? No, but considering our situation, it demonstrates the failure of Industrial education.
6
It looks like the St. John’s program would give the student a firm grasp of history, and the ability to argue coherently from many experiential and philosophical perspectives. It also brings the student into contact with others who value these things.
This is a practical education, since it develops the skills needed for leadership. At the same time, however, it lacks the immediate practicality of medicine or engineering, so that the student’s transition from study to work will not be as easy. But in either case, the full value of a good education takes time to develop. I expect that many of the St. John’s students will do quite well.
3
Frank Bruni has thought and written long and hard about education and we get to benefit. There are three ideas about education today that are prevalent and wrong. First that the education system, public and private at all levels, exists to strengthen US economic competitiveness (see, government support for STEM at the expense of ...) Second, that a very strong foundation in liberal arts, taught well, is "impractical" either in the deep sense of human flourishing or in the superficial sense of salary. Third, that its a good life strategy to decide, "First I'll make my money, then when I'm rich I'll do all that Jane Austin, Aeschylus, and Zadie Smith stuff. In weak moments I've wondered if these three are not a ruse by the haves to eliminate competition from the have-nots.
7
St. John's is also a college that is looked at quite favorably by top graduate schools (especially elite law schools like Harvard and Yale), but unlike most other "selective" colleges that are feeders for elite graduate programs, there's literally no room for students who don't identify with the school's mission and philosophy. It's nice to see that some administrators still believe that a great college need only offer a great and engaging education, rather than "the college experience" and fancy new facilities.
It's also perhaps an interesting story to contrast with that of the Cooper Union, which was a similarly small and focused institution (also famous for not charging tuition up until recently, although the ancillary costs of attending that school were not small), but seems to have had larger ambitions that many alumni feel are not congruent with the school's founding mission.
Even my own university, which I graduated from more than 10 years ago, has expanded its own facilities (although they were already impressive when I was there) and improved the standard of living (for students that can afford it) in a way that was shocking to me. Everything feels a lot more luxurious nowadays, which just feels "off", and also increases the cost of attending the school, making it more difficult to attend for those that are just there to study, learn and get a degree.
3
Will they take a 55 year old freshman?
8
Yes, or at least they used to. There were three way old people enrolled when I was there in the 70's.
3
@Palcah
http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/annapolis/ac-cn-st-johns-sheba-delane...
PS And a college actually doing something about hyper-inflated tuition! Now THERE'S something worth highlighting!
5
All I can say is 'Ahhhhhhhhh.......' A wistful breath of fresh air just blew by me. Thank you Frank!
5
Your column today has made me happy.
8
I'll take the easy stuff that deal with objective facts like math, physics, chemistry rather than pontificating on the speculations of long dead White men.
1
If you really think math and physics deal simply with "objective facts," St. John's might be just the ticket.
3
@rfb Your comment is one of the most frightening things I've ever read in this newspaper. When we start thinking that an idea's merit is related in any way to the skin color, gender or geographical origin of the thinker who divised it, we will be finished as a progressive, democratic society.
5
The failure of much of education is the lack of the mastery of the basics which these students are getting. In the “old days” however a good student would have read most of these classics in their spare time between fifth and twelfth grades.
2
Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit?" Seriously? Geez, I barely got through Kerouac at that age.
2
The St. John's places reading at the heart of their program. Reading is an encounter with the mind of another. Learning to listen to an author, engage with their ideas, and thoughtfully develop one's own position in response is at odds with a Twitter and Facebook dominated world. It is also worth more than all the STEM and coding classes pushed on education by Tech Executives. Teaching students to think invites them to take their lives seriously and ultimately this is a challenge to the algorithm based Tech world that relies on predictable behavior.
3
Not to worry. Betsy DeVos will fix it.
3
You had to know these guys have a campus in Santa Fe and the faculty and administration live in adobes. I’m sure they all smile a lot, too.
There still are a few schools that at least try to do as much, and succeed to one degree or another. They’re all private, they tend to be small, they’re quite expensive and if your kid wants to go to college to get a credential for a job at Google, fughettaboudit – they don’t want you, probably for very good reasons. The kids at these schools, and I’m sure at St. John’s, are operating at a level of general social sophistication and speed going in as freshmen that kids merely looking for that credential can’t begin to approximate – they’d be miserable (and they thought they were so SMAAART!). The problem is that a lot of our brighter kids are good processors with empty databases. These kids have a fair amount of data already collected and indexed in THEIR databases.
St. John’s may be able to lower their tuition based on a hefty endowment and their fund drive, but most such schools can’t.
On this I can agree with Frank enthusiastically that it’s a hell of an “education” … but selectively. VERY few kids are fit for such educations – this is merely the finishing touch and an in-depth guided tour of CONTENT on a process that those kids began, either by their own inclinations or because their mean ol’ parents forced them to, beginning as toddlers.
6
@Richard Luettgen:
"...VERY few kids are fit for such educations...".
This is complete nonsense and typical attitude from the right wing towards education and educated people. Most young people are perfectly capable of succeeding in this type of educational environment. Today's conservative movement in America is against educated voters and has been attacking public and higher education for decades. They do this because the republican party understands that an uneducated voter is a republican voter.
I'm for education. If that happens to turn a few republicans into democrats, then so be it.
5
@Chamber
You might consider changing antacids -- obviously the one you use isn't doing the job.
Most young people are NOT equipped to succeed in this type of environment.
1
Considering the curriculum, and on its own merits, I certainly hope that St. John's devotes an entire course to James Joyce's "Ulysses" - and that it's a required course.
3
Re “Education should prepare you for all of your life. It should make you a more thoughtful, reflective, self-possessed and authentic citizen, lover, partner, parent and member of the global economy.”
I guess I AM old. Back in my day, this job was part of parenting; now it's outsourced at $35,000 to $52,000 per year? No wonder the middle class is hurting.
3
Fantastic!
2
Hey, it's all good, but tuition of $35,000 (down from $52,000) in order for someone to tell you what to read?
Anyone can get an individual subscription to the Loeb Classical Library for $150 (the first year, $65 for each year after). Kant and Hegel (and everyone else) are available in nearly every public library, except perhaps in Kansas or throughout the South.
4
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand your use of Baudelaire. All I know of him is that he was a French poet in the mid-1800s, translated Poe, wrote a book of poetry about sex and death which was so scandalous at the time he earn a dubious respect for his talent because of the choice of his topics, and he loved the smell of his girlfriend’s greasy dirty hair. I thought using his name is in no way a compliment, I thought it is used to describe a great intellect and potential gone into the gutter. So please enlighten me to its correct usage in this article.
Friedman's article lacks the very thing he purports to value: critical thinking. In his admiration for the "intellectualism" of the classics, he fails to think critically about the relationship between the canonical texts of Western "civilization" and the status quo. He fails to see that that the markers of modern culture that he purports to lament--wealth inequality, rampant individualism, the sacralization of technology--are, in many ways, the products of the value system advanced in the classical tradition. The absence of the intellectual contributions of women and people of color in St. John's curriculum, which Friedman casts as an oversight, is fundamental to the production of the status quo Friedman bemoans.
1
@Penelope
"...rampant individualism...
You say that as if it were a bad thing.
And who is the "Friedman" you refer to?
1
Friedman?
2
Pomposity is even more essential to the status quo you bemoans.
2
Wonderful column Frank, uplifting in this time of gloom. Funny how grumpy some of the commenters were. I will add this. I attended UC in the 70s, graduating with two liberal arts degrees in 4 years. Tough and rigorous, mind expanding. So grateful am I. Along the career path I worked for a company that hired mostly engineers. The two smartest co-workers were the poli sci grad from another UC campus and a self-taught AA degree former tradesman. The engineers? Not so much. Mostly right wing in their political views, very limited exposure to art and culture, as the song goes "don't know much about history." Interestingly, in their constantly reinforced group-think, they believed themselves superior to most of society. Sigh....I really wish we could return to liberal arts, but I believe that door has closed. Even Obama was famously quoted making fun of art history majors.
5
This editorial raises a question as to why American colleges in general are now rated by how much their graduates make. I think the fundamental issue is cost of attendance. Nowhere else in the world does college education cost more than the average person’s annual pay. In many European countries college education is free or costs hundreds of dollars a year. Going to McGill as a foreign student costs less than attending a UC as an in-state student. That’s just crazy.
4
@Momo
" In many European countries college education is free..."
TANSTAAFL
@Owen Glendower
Not exactly true ... free TUITION , yes, for those who can pass very rigorous entrance exams .. maybe 30% of high school students.
Nonsense. There have been a few accretions to knowledge since the ancient Greeks--just a few. Think of science, for example. But not only science. Take a look at the Common Core at the University of Chicago, Mr. Bruni instead of rhapsodizing about the far past. One can also read the Classics at the UofC. Ancient Greece was not the place where the last worthwhile idea was thought.
3
Meanwhile, at the community college where I work, they can't add enough online classes. Everybody - professors and students alike - apparently prefer to stay in their pajamas all day and have as little contact with each other as possible. It's an appalling money grab.
1
As my father would have said, “A liberal arts education is like furniture for the mind.”
6
35,000 tuition is no more accessible than 52,000. It's like, you can have a slightly smaller Mercedes Benz. Most of the nation cannot afford either
5
Finally Frank you’ve written something that I’m in total agreement with. There is a God after all
3
This school sounds both wonderful and upsetting. It is wonderful that the students are being taught to think instead of being given vocational training. One of today's greatest problems is that people let themselves be manipulated by other people and cultural assumptions and often fool themselves as well. Good education should teach people the best ways to seek the truth and to avoid making judgements when they don't have enough information.
The upsetting part is the presumption that the road to wisdom is through classical and ancient authorities. First, we should think for ourselves and not be awed by authorities of any sort, whether Reagan or Kant or Aristotle. In ancient times few could read, there was no printed material, there was no knowledge of galaxies or subatomic particles or bacteria or biological evolution. As was pointed out, social justice was pretty terrible. As a kid I had a book on famous scientists and frequently the reason they had trouble getting new ideas accepted was that Aristotle had taught something different. The past is not the best place to look for wisdom and understanding.
This approach also smacks of intellectual snobbery. I suspect a big reason populists don't listen to the best educated people is that they see them as intellectual phonies.
2
@Bob Korn:
"This approach also smacks of intellectual snobbery. I suspect a big reason populists don't listen to the best educated people is that they see them as intellectual phonies."
Populists see educated people as 'intellectual phonies'? I guess they still have a lot to learn. As a society we should not dumb ourselves down in order to make "the populists" feel less stupid
4
@Bob Korn: A kid's book from which you learn that Aristotle's teachings are the reason why scientists didn't get their ideas accepted is not necessarily the best place to discover how Aristotle is important or still worth reading.
2
@Chamber
If you have a good idea, it should stand on it's own based on available evidence. Saying it in French or Latin or Greek doesn't make it more likely to be true, but it makes you seem smart. Same for quoting a famous authority.
I don't want populists to feel less stupid. I want populists to actually be less stupid because they recognize intellectuals actually know something other than how to sound impressive.
I have yet to have my fill of weeping over the dearth of critical thought in America today - over the dearth of humility - but this column helped a bit.
6
Here are some more contrarian views:
1. An expensive classical education like the one given at SJC prepares the intellectual managers and lobbyists - articulate, well-groomed, critical enough to discern and service the centers of power, adept at managing large numbers of people.
You can look at the corridors of power and you will see many who received a classical education along the same lines.
2. An expensive STEM education prepares the intellectual workers - the engineers, the tech CEOs, the elite workers in Silicon Valley.
****
Could it be that these are but two sides of the same coin?
To what end is the classical education given at SJC being put? Is it really creating a more critical citizenry, or is it a mere continuation of the kind of education that elites down the ages have always had access to and received, and that has marked them later in life as "one of the club" - a person who belongs?
4
St. John's seems to be the opposite of STEM oriented college educations that are just high level vocational schools. The object of STEM educations is to create a highly skilled middle class worker to enable big businesses to achieve higher profits. In theory, the STEM graduates benefit by being highly employable at good wages, at least until so many STEM graduates are produced that employer demand is satisfied and wages stagnate or decrease. Frankly, it's just business and colleges who play along generate more revenue but are integral to the problem.
It appears that St. John's object is similar to what 50 years ago was a traditional liberal arts education. It is to produce graduates with a passion for thinking and sufficient knowledge to do it well.
With a President who is non-literate as well as disdainful of information and thoughtful analysis, the value of having more people with a passion for thinking and the ability to do it well could not be more obvious.
5
Wish I had had those students and that administration during my 45 years of teaching at several universities. Today's universities are filled with bumper sticker students and merchandising administrations/ governing boards.
1
As a graduate of St. John's, I cannot express how thrilled I am about this news. I use my education every single day, though my field has nothing to do with Plato or Hegel. The practice in public speaking, conversation, and yearly reviews are inestimable going into a workplace. By making this education more accessible, the College will pull in students whose opinions would otherwise remain unheard and unchallenged. To those who want to go here, look into it. It may very well be the most challenging thing you ever do (fair and honest warning), but the payout is life changing.
11
I'm a college professor of a humanities discipline at a state institution where most students come from lower rungs on the socioeconomic latter. I wholly agree with this opinion piece and am often frustrated by the call to make our curriculum more aligned with the job market, which I feel reveals the underlying belief that economically disadvantaged students don't deserve the same access to a liberal arts education and should settle for one based on "utility." At the same time, however, I wonder how much of the success of St. John's graduates (and the likes) owes itself to the privileged backgrounds of the students, which provides connections to companies, firms, and agencies that will hire them based on the trust that they will learn the skills along the way. I don't know if my students will be given the same benefit of the doubt.
16
Like my shoes and my clothes if I hang on to them long enough they become fashionable again so have curriculum changes.
Not college though I did pre med in a college that required a philosophy minor but high school with four years of latin, two years of Greek, four years of English, Math, History Public speaking and one semester of Physics. Three hours homework every night that had to be done in ink at home and no pens allowed in school.
With that rigorous background I picked up the sciences without any problem and more importantly knew about life and people from the epics.
4
Prospective students are invited to visit St. Johns for two days, observing classes, talking with students and sleeping on campus in a dorm room. I recall being a 17 year old girl, gazing down from the second floor of McDowell Hall watching the people who - hours ago - were demonstrating Lobachevskian proofs, analyzing operas and debating the meaning of the Invisible Hand, dressed to the nines, swirling and twirling, swing dancing to big band jazz.
Choosing St. John's College was a big leap of faith. Decades (and a STEM PhD) later, I can confidently assert it was the BEST decision I ever made.
13
This sounds very like the core curriculum that filled the first 2 years of under undergraduate study at the University of Chicago in 1966 when I started. We read original sources even in "Freshman biology" (although nobody was called by those academic categories), and in every one of the other courses I took back then. I came from a small town in rural Illinois, from a huge public high school, and I was totally unprepared for this method of learning. My future husband, who had gone to high school at Bronx Science, found the method exciting and he thrived. Caveat emptor.
4
Are you from Accra or Kumasi? I became close with two Ghanaian students at the UofC a generation later, wonder if you know them/helped steer them toward UofC, George A. & Yaw A.
Both much more versed in the humanities, classically educated, than typical American students, w/ superior grasp of English & reading/writing skills. Though they were both obviously extremely 'smart' (Yaw objected to this term, for good reason), their intellect reflected, in my assumption, the English humanistic education that would have been part of Ghana's Brit. colonial legacy. In any case, George & Yaw were certainly among the brightest & best-prepared students you encountered, & that says a lot.
And yes, as many commenters observe, the UofC approach is strongly connected to St. Johns tradition, based on UofC fanatical dedication to "liberal education" since its inception (including unwavering, unshakable stewardship/commitment by a core group of faculty -Weintraub, Sinaiko, Redfield, Booth, the Kasses, Don Levine & J. MacAloon in the social sciences), most esp. John Boyer, advocate-defender as College Dean over several decades) & the "Great Books" mission championed & institutionalized by Hutchins & Adler, notoriously championed later by Bloom.
BTW, the above list of scholars is arbitrarily short, but those are the names I recall as most fanatically holding the line against vocationalism & surrender to techicism/positivism, implicitly understanding ultimate liberties/democracy to be at stake.
1
This is great -- and I would add a note, for anyone wishing to see this approach used elsewhere. The subject matter doesn't matter.
Yes, it's wonderful to read and discuss the classics -- teasing out the truths and half-truths, the hidden angles and contradictions, in the quest for a highly realized way of living and working which rings true across the scale, and does good. But the same fundamentals can be applied, and in many cases are being applied, to work in other fields.
Theater students learn to use them when they dive into a play, seeking how to truly "be" characters other than themselves. Engineering students, in good schools, learn the approach in projects that call on them to design something with many aspects in mind: from how it could be manufactured, to human usability, to the ultimate life-cycle costs and impacts, and whether it's the best solution to a problem at all.
And yes, it is immensely useful to learn any language, but it doesn't need to be ancient Greek. I have watched my now-grown child learn a living language, Japanese. I've seen this young person marvel at, and be enlightened by, the cultural nuances and differences of world view that are embodied in a language other than ours.
So, absolutely, I applaud what St. John's is doing. And it can be done everywhere, all the time. Let's do it.
13
Excellent comment, Mickey - thorough study, hands-on application, lively debate/critique/iteration - all part and parcel of what should be college education everywhere.
3
@Mickey Yes, I think what some commentators don't get is that it isn't so important what we read but how we read it. Obviously you have to be somewhat interested in classics, but it is the seminar style classes that I think are the real draw, but aren't usually available for undergraduates.
I am currently a student in the St. John’s College Graduate Institute. A great article, but Mr. Bruni only hints at what I consider to be the “secret sauce” of our learning. Here, the class time is lead by a “tutor” who guides the discussion through questions. Our discussion is focused on the original text without reference to secondary sources. We are forced to think independently about the text. We address each other in class by surname.
We discuss profound issues of humanity without distraction in a civil, serious and meaningful way. This means that we must listen intently and patiently to each other. As Mr. Bruni writes, “If digital devices and social media yank people from one trumpet blast to the next, St. John’s trains them to hold a note — to caress it, pull at it, see what it can withstand and what it’s worth.” Holding that note is not easy—I come home absolutely mentally exhausted because I had never before exercised my listening “muscles” to the extent necessary to contribute to a St. John’s class discussion.
One could go to the library and read the great books independently. However, the value of a St John’s education, in my view, is the unique environment we create in the class to promote civility, critical thinking and respect for the opinions of others on substantial, long-standing and controversial questions of existence, love, identity, faith, politics, and science. That to me is what the Graduate Institute at St. Johns is all about.
20
in June 1967, I arrived at Dartmouth College to under go one month of total immersion French language training under the tutelage of John Rassias. Le Tigre opened my mind and my heart to learning in ways i had never before experienced. In 4 years of high school, 4 years of college, and 10 years of grad school I never experienced anything like the epiphany Rassias provided during that month.
2
What this article and most of the comments on here are expressing is the collective counter-reaction of many of us to the overspecialization and fragmentation of higher education today, the transition from a "college" to a "university" mentality.
Liberal arts education at its best addresses the question of what are the shared common knowledge and enduring values necessary to make an educated man or woman in today's world.
I was a philosophy major in the 1970s, with a focus on the great American pragmatic philosophers, Charles Pierce, William James, and John Dewey. Although I ended up in public administration, not a week passed by when I didn't try to keep my brain stretched out by reading classical philosophers, all of whom I found "relevant" to my work and values as a member of my community.
Now that I have retired, I have thrown myself back into my classical philosophical reading, as well as classical literature and poetry, and have found that they have brought tremendous joy and consolation into my life, now that I can bring a lifetime of hard work and life experience to the philosophy and wisdom of the ages.
As Socrates told us, the life of the mind, the "examined" life, is the happiest life of all. It is great to see all these young men and women exposed to the the wisdom of the ages. I feel better about the future, knowing that we have such well educated and grounded people going out into the world.
3
As a college professor, what I find attractive about this description of St. John's is its rigor. I do not think, however, that we have to go back to Greece to have a rigorous education. I would vastly prefer a similar rigor but with a curriculum that rarely dipped beyond the enlightenment and one that certainly spent a great deal more time looking at the non-western world.
5
The basis of the article was St. John's College making the tuition affordable and not about the college's curriculum, based on Western civilization.
My daughter is a freshman at St. John's College in Annapolis, and the news of making college affordable was inspiring news, her tuition this year was almost $10,000 more than my net salary for the year. Don't mistake this, she will still have loans, but it will make it easier for her to pay off her debt obligations, and not carry over $100,000, in debt, like most college graduates.
3
It was a very refreshing to read about this college. I have spent four decades in the university teaching in business schools. Over the years I have noted a major shift in the understanding of what a student is. The administration considers a student as a customer and the student also feels the same way. This creates an exploitative environment of a market place. Moreover, the student treats us the professors as his or her employee.
Students expect to be entertained and get A with minimum effort. Nobody really cares about learning. This is not just in the US but also elsewhere in India and Europe where I have taught.
5
I graduated from a great books program at Notre Dame (the Program of Liberal Studies), very similar to St. John's program but in the context of a larger university. It was a first-rate education, and the primary texts along with excellent faculty and peers formed my mind and my character in ways I cannot quantify and which I would never trade.
4
My grandson is doing his best to obtain this type of educatio at his state university as his family could not possibly pay even the reduced tuition, nor could he assume that level of debt. We all value reading and critical thinking and have worked hard to pass this on to our progeny. It is an uphill battle to encourage education for education’s sake in today’s STEM-obsessed culture, but we are sticking to it. We also strive to make sure our children and grandchildren get a thorough grounding in science. This can be done for the STEM-challenged by making sure they understand the history and development of science to ensure a respect for the process and those who are good at it. Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein need to be read as well. Yes, I did note that they read Einstein at St. John’s and I hope other great scientific minds are in the curriculum as well.
4
This is all very nice. I, too, bemoan the jobs approach of higher education. BUT the problem is that St John's is just too small to attract the sort of great minds that can inspire greatness in others. I agree that not all "stars" are great teachers, but in my mind all really great teachers have been successful in their academic field.
Also it is difficult to tell how much you are getting from a teacher while you are still learning. There are too many distractions--grades, details of lectures, etc. It is not until you get out in the world that your realize that teacher S who messed up all the proofs in math class really gave you a basic idea of what was going on that was priceless.
I'm a mathematician. I have looked at the undergraduate schools of many mathematicians. It is rare to find one that went to a small liberal arts school. I know that this is partly because there are more math majors at Harvard than at St John's, but that is partly the point. The math faculty at Harvard just attracts more bright majors, and frankly, one learns a great deal from one's classmates.
I remember I was once at tea in the Princeton math common room talking with a random group of about 10 mathematicians ranging from graduate students to a couple of people with endowed chairs (from other universities than Princeton). I was suddenly struck by the fact that ALL of us had been undergraduates at MIT.
4
If anyone thinks this kind of education is generally unattainable, take a look at any state university's course catalog. The breadth and depth of subjects is amazing.
What's missing is the drive to learn interesting subjects and not merely career planning courses. And that is connected with the costs.
State colleges and universities should be free, or nearly so. Then every student could indulge -- as I did in the late 1960s -- in a desultory seven-year path to a bachelor's degree.
8
I wonder what percentage of alumni voted for Trump. Now that would be an interesting statistic.
3
What is interesting in many comments that question St. John's and a Great Books approach is the certainty that that is too limited and outdated. This discussion has been going on for centuries. Even Jefferson (liberal education) and Franklin (utilitarian and vocation-based) argued about it. As an educator that attended a staunch and still unapologetic liberal arts college, I can attest to the public view of education today. We are pretty certain that students lack the skills necessary to compete in a global, information-based economy. What over the past forty years have we de-emphasized in education? Classically liberal education. The focus on job skills and workplace preparation, with its attendant need to test to see if it is working, has produced a dearth of critical thinking and left millions ill-equipped to begin lifetimes of learning. No one used to worry about the power of fake news!! Coincidence?
10
Oh my! Thank you for this article. I didn't realize such a place as St. John's existed anymore. In 1993 at the age of 52, I got laid off from my engineering job, and instead of seeking further employment in aerospace, where I'd worked for 30 years, (I have an MS in astronautical engineering) I took a 10 week excursion through Greece. I had fallen in love with the plays of Sophocles at Bakersfield College in 1961 and decided it was time to revisit ancient Greek literature and see the country for the first time. The summer before I left for Greece I read Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, the Homeric Hymns, Herodotus, (every word of each) and many books about ancient and modern Greece. I had a tutor for modern Greek. The reading and the travels were life altering. I finally understood Western Civilization and particularly America. You cannot imagine how eyeopening an experience like that can be. I became an author and have written 10 books since then. I wonder what it would have been like to go to an educational institution such as St. John's as a young man rather than picking up what I could in midlife on my own. And what a statement from the St. John's senior: "We have to be comfortable in ambiguity." Oh my yes! What a treasure. What a gift to the world these students are. And what an institution.
7
I don't regret my decision to start at Austin College in the fall of 1989 but will always be honored that St. John's (Santa Fe) accepted me for the fall of 1990.
1
This is just another version of make America white again.The idea that a liberal arts education should begin with the Western cannon is the foundation of all that's wrong with our body politic. Civilization began in Africa not Greece, and Asia's cultures are much older too. If you want kids to have a well-rounded education, educate them on ALL civilizations. Thanks for showcasing a school that I will not be visiting with my son.
4
@Ritch66
And that "civilization" that "began" in Africa is what? You forgot not only to name it but list its accomplishments and how it effects this world to today.
People must first learn THEIR history, then perhaps the history of other, non-related-to-theirs might be in order. Then again, history of China might not be relevant to anyone other than Chinese or those related to China.
2
The point was not the curriculum, but the approach.
@Ritch66 Would you care to elaborate on the Western canon being "the foundation of all that's wrong with our body politic?" Do you mean the spirit of free inquiry that the Greeks fostered? Do you mean the Enlightenment thinkers who made modern democracy possible? I don't know why these thinkers happened to be born in Greece or France. I don't know why there are no African Aristotles that we know of. Perhaps there were, and their thinking wasn't preserved as the Greeks' was. The ideas of these men survived and they are what's important, not their national origin.
2
There is an old principle that this essay evoked when I read it: Good students learn in spite of their education; Others never learn regardless of their education.
4
Very interesting piece. It’s refreshing to see a piece in these opinion pages that does not harp on race and gender.
4
The most radical aspect of the college is that the faculty slowly cycle through the curriculum. You may be a physicist, but if you stay you will end up doing Greek eventually (at least this was true the last time I was in contact with people there a decade or so ago). St. Johns represents diversity in the best sense of its meaning and against the trivial "dead white men" criticism (also see the comment from the faculty member who states that they have seminars with readings from women and non-Westerners as well). As another commenter states: it would be a delightful way to spend one's retirement!
2
From what i read from mr. Bruni, this program sounds like stripping down the classics to their bare structures.
Even if if it's recommendable to go to the original text to form a backbone of thoughts and values, that is not always advisable.
My concerns are about two aspects of this approach:
1) On the STEM side, going to read Einstein's original work would be a big mistake. He was a researcher writing in a line of research, in a period of research. That means its subject was studied furthermore and interpretated ( as Einstein himself admitted to candidly when meeting with the young Bohr ). There is also a problem with the apprehending phase, in fact not everyone is the best preacher of their own works.
2) On the humanities side, i can say it, i like greek lyrics poets, but i read their works in books containing both the translation and the original text ( i can read greek, i like the musicality ), but really, without introduction, pre-post scholars' comments, notes and references on the myths they're talking about, it would be a very poor reading. Most of the time the translator is offering context to the socio-political era the authors were living in, what precedent works or authors were influencing them. Cutting that off would be of no help in evaluating those works, and make your own opinion over them, not talking about the variation they can offer over the written words of the greek text
1/2
2
I don’t think they consume these texts in a vacuum, but rather consume them with the guidance of a professor who offers the context you say say is lacking.
"If digital devices and social media yank people from one trumpet blast to the next, St. John’s trains them to hold a note — to caress it, pull at it, see what it can withstand and what it’s worth."
What a beautifully constructed sentence. What an illustrative metaphor. Wonderful writing, kudos to Frank Bruni.
Also, this college seems nice too.
8
Yeah, but...... the lack of serious attention to the nuances of gender and race is a pretty unforgivable and egregious flaw in St. John’s philosophy of education.
This kind of intense focus on the Westernized cannon just perpetuates Eurocentric neocolonialism. Sure— most of the mechanisms of modern globalism are based on Western thought. However, the primary reason that Western ideas are so dominant globally is because of the West’s well-documented, centuries-long history of conquest, colonialism, prejudice and capitalism. Classical western thought is still prominent today, chiefly because Western nations systematically pillaged, subjugated, and otherwise murdered foreign societies and peoples who espoused alternate thoughts & philosophies.
The study of marginalized people and the continuing ill effects of colonialism should not, under any circumstances, be optional. To center the Westernized cannon instead of scholarship produced by women and people of color is essentially to perpetuate white supremacy.
One need not subscribe to a curriculum that is based in Western classics in order to learn how to ask questions, think critically or come to understand the limits of human knowledge and the ambiguities of life.
Colleges should instead focus on teaching the humanity of “othered” people. While teaching recognition and respect for the dignity of all human life seems like a simple lesson, history shows that the point needs belaboring.
215
@KS Agreed. Hard to call it a deep, global, rigorous education when it only studies a narrow segment of the world's history and people.
Inch wide and a mile deep.
@KS So, what you want is a homogenized monoculture, because what you're describing is what literally every other college in the US is doing. And sadly, the result has been a declining set of critical thinking skills in an entire generation. I taught at a large public university during this transition ten years ago, and left because it was so depressing where education was going - to identity politics at the expense of the development of thinking skills. I refused to be a part of that.
8
@KS Yes Mr. Bruni really "other than that Mrs Lincoln"'ed this huge problem with St John's curriculum. It's not something that should have been so casually dismissed.
Thanks for an article about a college focusing on teaching and its educational program!
A welcome break from "college" articles about "elite colleges, rankings, test-prep, gaming the admissions system, mega-building projects, and (usually corrupt) sports programs.
How about more articles focusing on similar aspects of similar colleges -- places where teaching, learning, and a focus on students is part of their core mission?
Would be a welcome counter to the usual college article pieces and also highlight wonderful places often left out of the spotlight by the media.
5
I completed the MA in Western Studies on the Santa Fe campus as a very much grown-up adult. Life-changing experiences can and should happen, perhaps more frequently as we advance in age. Curiosity is everything. Not only was I in the midst of a group of fellows seekers with impeccable credentials (and so deeply human too!) but I was able to leverage my intellectual abilities and writing talents to an unimaginable degree, even winning the coveted college essay prize. Thanks, Frank Bruni, for this fabulous endorsement of a most contrarian college, its existence so critical in these dangerous times.
10
The people of Wisconsin need to read this, as Scott Walker and the uncreative state GOP attempt to turn the once-august University of Wisconsin into a glorified trade school. They even removed the “Wisconsin Idea” from its mission statement until public outcry forced them to retreat. It’s shameful.
9
The root word of education is the Greek "edukos" - to draw out. What a wonderful think to know that a school still exists where the development of one's soul is priority number one!
6
What's that? I couldn't heae you over the sound of East Coasters breaking their arms patting themselves on the back...
Frank Bruni’s Infomercial for St. John’s College is interesting but unpursuasive. Lets look at an experiment of two, my brother and myself. Fifty years ago we went off to college. Me to the small and historic midwestern liberal arts school Shimer College, with a restricted “classical” curriculum not unlike St. John’s. My brother to the Universty of Illinois-Champaign flight school for job-specific technical training. Eventually we both ended up doing exactly the same job for the same company, pilot at United Airlines. With luck and diligence we were both successful personally and professionally.
Looking back at my own “classical” vs. my brother’s job-specific schooling I can’t see how my classes in philosophy, comparative religions or rhetoric, etc. were anything but a complete waste of time. In a nation crying for STEM graduates tiny schools like St. John’s try to make a virtue of the necessity of a small faculty and limited science and math resources.
You might ask the NYT HR department how a St. John’s graduate would fare against a well respected journalism school degree. In my experiment of two, differing educations made no difference at all.
@Mark Swofford
The difference is that you were educated, your brother was trained. Your comment that you think that your education was a "waste of time," proves that you didn't get much out of it, but that's on you, not the college.
5
Hmph. I was on the short list for the Annapolis campus in 1982. Instead of the next/last step in the admission ritual I ducked out of the waiting line... and in the same weekend out of the prep school. Went to work in an all night gas station at a lonely intersection up in the northern most tip of Virginia.
Because that felt more like an adventure. Real peril: drunken armed rednecks; inbred myopic savants. All dropping by after dark for a case of soda, whoops and gas. No more hand wringing over yet another faux pas at the headmaster's fall reception.
Frats.. country clubs... cotillions. The Upperville Horse Show.
Telluride, Vermont. All of it milquetoast. Splendor turns to squalor quicker than the tonic loses it's fizzle. Only tepid gin and not-greener lawns for the long glide down.
Like living inside a Whit Stillman movie.
If you are still in town, Mr Bruni, a group of literary ladies would love to meet you.
Interesting – kudos...
They may want to consider adding the study of ALGOL and its origins – might help increase the number of applicants...
Am dead serious...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL
2
"They may want to consider adding the study of ALGOL and its origins ..."
At St. John's, books, not subjects, are studied, so you would need to suggest a *book*.
If I were suggesting a modern book on computer programming, it would be "Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs" (1976) by Niklaus Wirth. Wirth starts with an amusing epigraph by Voltaire satirizing the mathematician Leonhard Euler.*
However, the idea of an algorithm was known to the Ancient Greeks.**
* "Doctor Akakia"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Akakia
** See the Wikipedia articles titled "Algorithm", "Sieve of Eratosthenes", and "Euclidean algorithm".
Absolutely spot on...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklaus_Wirth
“...Wirth was the chief designer of the programming languages Euler, Algol W, Pascal,[6] Modula, Modula-2, Oberon, Oberon-2, and Oberon-07, and Component Pascal...
Was also going to mention Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, but – like pre-genomic evolutionary biology – it didn’t have the subject matter fully in view, at the time it was developed...
So that one could go either way...
Neural networks still in the “spark gap” stage of understanding – though Shannon theory far more accessible to a non-STEM major than thermodynamics...
What I absolutely revere about this place – in the 15 or so hours that I’ve been aware of it – is that it focuses on dialog...
Not debate...
As a means of advancing individual and societal knowledge...
Debate has its time and place – just like other acts between consenting adults...
But foisted too aggressively on those in subordinate roles – it comes across more as diktat...
Will they accept 81 year olds?......Oh for the pleasures
and rewards of thoughts given time to grow......
10
Yes!!! Education is not vocational preparation, but an opportunity to learn how to think, how to write, how to reason. If more people had the benefit of a liberal arts education, the US wouldn't be in the sorry mess it is - I doubt many St John's grads would have been taken in by the amoral, utterly ignorant charlatan currently occupying the Oval Office.
8
@Suzanne Agreed. 4 years at a small NH Benedictine college gave me liberal arts/basic science foundations and a bachelor of science in nursing. That was 40 years ago. I struggle with younger well educated people who are much less interested in the world or able to communicate well.
5
But OMG they'll never get jobs!
1
You blithely overlook Deep Springs College.
2
In 1787 in America, about 90% of white men and 50% of white women were literate (the world average at that time being about 10%). They got the government they deserved.
3
Thrilling.
3
Congrats to the Remarkable St. Johns!
And, Bring Back Free Tuition to the SEVERAL very fine New York City Colleges! Make the once great USA State Universities Great Again by funding them properly.
Americans, also rid yourselves of President Grifter and his Republican Sychophants.
2
Can I get a do-over!?
258
How does glorifying and almost fetishizing one tradition of thinking above all others teach critical thinking? Yes, students should read classics of the Western canon, but true critical thinking requires a variety of perspectives and a willingness to question assumptions. Great thinkers are those who exist in the fog of a particular time and place and culture but are able to imagine the world differently or grasp a truth that lies beyond that fog. We can certainly find some of these great thinkers in the Western canon, but they exist in every time and every culture. The ideas upon which Western civilization were built have to be questioned. How else can we imagine a better world than the one we have inherited? And who can teach us to question our foundations better than the voices of those who’ve been marginalized? The only thing that made me happy in this piece was the fact that St. John’s isn’t getting enough applicants these days. Perhaps this generation is bright enough to ask for more from their education.
9
"Great thinkers are those who exist in the fog of a particular time and place and culture ..."
What makes Ancient Greece "foggy"?
"... but true critical thinking requires a variety of perspectives and a willingness to question assumptions."
The classics taken together do that. That's what Robert Hutchins meant by "The Great Conversation":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Conversation
"The ideas upon which Western civilization were built have to be questioned."
OK, "question" Euclid's "Elements". Hint: see Lobachevsky's "Theory of Parallels". Both titles are on the St. John's reading list.
4
The fog metaphor is not to imply that a particular culture is “foggy.” The point is that it is hard for humans in any culture to see beyond the beliefs, values, and truths that surround them.
I’m aware of “The Great Conversation” and recognize that there are plenty of critiques within the Western canon; my point is that the conversation shouldn’t be held in a locked room. Open the door up for a richer conversation.
3
This really resonates with me, especially treating students as fickle consumers. They are our clients, but they should not be in charge of the operation. I was a university professor for 38 years; there is no way we could have done what St. John's did and survive, but I admire them for doing it. We have gone too far down the path of making education "relevant" and building a curriculum around what students want rather than what we judge they need. Our students would be better off with an education like that mandated at St. John's.
7
St. John's offers an excellent education. There is an organization, which SJC supports, of institutions around the world that have like-minded programs, a few as extensive and many at least offering students (and their parents) an opportunity to become acquainted with such works, discussions and type of education. It is the Association for Core Texts and Courses. Students (and their parents) who want a real liberal education but cannot for various reasons attend SJC would do well to learn of like-intentioned programs in other institutions. Liberal arts education is not dead, despite popular views to the contrary.
4
I teach at this college, and was almost brought to tears by this article. We have been wondering how such a great institution has not received the recognition it deserves. I need to call attention to the fact that we try to enter into dialogue with everyone who is great - we teach Sappho in language class, we read Jane Austin, W.E.B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass in seminar, have reading groups on George Elliot, Simone de Beauvoir and Camille Paglia, and had a recent Summer Classics course on Chinua Achebe. And our Eastern Classics graduate program is of the highest caliber.
814
In my opinion, what constitutes “greatness” in the eyes of a university is an arbitrary and flawed metric that will always skew to white men.
A token smattering of women and POC on the syllabus is still insufficient when the vast majority of authors that are considered “great” enough to include in the curriculum are old dead white men.
I went to Columbia, so I can recite “Homer, Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero and Vergil” by heart.
Of course the CC core curriculum paid lip service to diversity. But, in my opinion, the most productive and enlightened moments of intellectualism occurred during the junctures of university history wherein Columbia student-activists were introspective and critical of the institution that educated them, protesting the outsized influence of Western classicism by papering over the Butler library “greats” with all women authors or all African American authors, etc.
I think the sentiment that RBG has communicated in the past is applicable here. There will be “enough” women on the Supreme Court when there are 9.
1
@MSG Thank you for this comment! I graduated from the 4-year program at SJC in Santa Fe in 1986, and benefit more each year from the culture of questioning that I acquired then. It saddens me when I hear people dismiss the entire program as "dead white men." It is so much more.
20
@MSG
Alas, part of the reason your college has not received deserved recognition is because of the size of its endowment. Keep raising money to boost the endowment-per-student toward what those "prestigious" schools boast, and recognition will increase. Again, alas, in America, so much is based on the belief, "money talks."
1
While I earning my graduate degrees and teaching for decades at one of the NY state campuses, I saw the emphasis in higher education go from "learning" to "liking."
During this same period, the business model slowly replaced the scholarly model in higher education.
Scholarly deans, who were highly accomplished in their particular field of study, were replaced by manager deans, who all too often lagged in the scholarly contributions/research and publication area. Manager deans and administrators were there to bring in money, hold down faculty salary costs, increase enrollment, and please the customers, boards of trustees, politicians, and enhance the image of the school.
The economy tightened, Reagan championed business, college costs skyrocketed, the job market tightened, and parents and students viewed college as vocational training to get a job--no more time or money for the "luxury" of learning.
Majors were declared early, business majors proliferated, and the professions gained control of the college curriculum. Core curriculum requirements in liberal arts and science courses were replaced by training courses in one's major and a supermarket of electives ("selected elective") replaced foundation courses in history, philosophy, chemistry, physics.
And how many students chose electives that were reputed to be "easy" rather than tough, challenging, and rigorous exercises for the mind that led to actual learning?
How about college for thinking--for a change?
12
I too attended a small, liberal arts college which happened to be in the Northeast, also dedicated to educating its’ students in the Classics, Ancient Greek, Latin and many other works of great literature of different cultures and eras. I absolutely loved my education which has stood me in good stead for all of the decades hence.
The frustration I found upon my graduation was that there were few with whom I could have a conversation beyond a certain point. I’m very grateful for the education I received and knowledge I possess as a result. I only wish there were more such institutions where a thorough grounding and understanding of all that has come before is so important. Our culture is dependent upon it.
7
Sounds like a great place to get educated, after you get your Comp Sci masters from MIT and can make enough money to afford the luxury.
2
A few years ago, I met a young psychiatrist who majored in Ancient Greek (minors Math and philosophy) It was his plan from the start. He learned to listen as an undergrad. Learning Greek helps when having to memorize scientific terminology as you know the root of the words. He told me that College actually prepared him for his residency (long hours) and for his practice (listening to others). He is not the first MD not studying Bio and Chemistry in College. I also have a MD friend who studied music in College (he still plays the clarinet every day). He started taking Chemistry and bio in his last year of College,when he realized he wasn’t going to be able to be a professional clarinetist in a major orchestra. He is very happy as a doctor and always carry his clarinet when he travels.
You go to College to “open” your mind and “learn to learn”.
1
@Jeanne
The get out jail card for liberal arts majors is medical school or law school or teaching. Getting thru med school (which St John's students should be able to do) will solve the problem of a useless degree. Learning Greek is a waste of time.
so maybe Dead White European Males do have something to contribute after all...
8
I am a former tenured university professor of mathematics who left teaching to work in industry. I was also a student at three major universities and taught and did research at three universities. By far, the most provocative, interesting, and influential classes I took while a student were the six philosophy courses I attended when I was an undergraduate. In each of these classes, it was unnecessary to take notes - the only requirement was to listen to the discussion, and if you were so inclined to participate in the ensuing verbal give and take. My participation in these six classes taught me to listen carefully to various points of view, to question assumptions, and to begin to synthesize a position - they were invaluable in helping prepare me for the rest of my life. To help in molding informed and thoughtful citizens, America needs more colleges that, at least in part, follow the St. John's model.
10
I applaud the focus and ideology of St. John's College. On so many levels, I believe they tap into areas which have either been forgotten or tossed aside.
However, that being said, one of my neighbors graduated from St. John's in Annapolis, Md in the early 1980s. Her passion and drive is art. In the past 38 years, she has been unemployed more often than not, usually unable to hold a job more than a few years. She is up to her eyeball in debt and owes money to everyone she knows. She is a mess, financially.
The funny thing though, she doesn't seem to mind all that much that she has little money, no insurance, no security and nothing to fall back on. She truly embodies the definition of a starving art but is okay with that. She has her books, the NYT, the classical radio station, and her cats.
I think the most important quality she learned at St. John's is an appreciation for the arts, being secure with whatever her passion in life is, and to take things as they come. She's happy and that's her bottom line.
8
I admire the St. John's model in many respects. I considered going there for college, but ultimately chose a more traditional university.
The reason? The St. John's model demands more than just *intellectual* courage. A college education requires spending (and often borrowing) several hundred thousand dollars. I loathe the trend of thinking of universities as glorified trade schools, but one can't completely ignore the economic realities of 2018. A liberal arts education is invaluable, but most employers want to see some evidence of course work beyond studying "the classics." Law school no longer offers the safe option it did even 20 years ago. Do current St. John's grads find many career paths open to them other than in academia? (And the academy also offers far fewer opportunities than it once did, in a world where more and more courses are taught by adjuncts.)
4
When I was a teacher I received a fellowship to study at the Santa Fe campus one summer. Great experience! Theirs is a unique program indeed. I cant imagine what it would be like to be an undergrad there. I would definitely have been exposed to the great works and wisdom of humankind!
3
Yes! I studied and read Greek and Latin throughout my youth and have returned to Greek in my retirement. Living with the precision and flexibility of these languages and reading in the seminal works of our culture - lyric, epic, philosophy, politics, etc. - infused a long career in public service that, as I hope - no, as I know! - brought happiness to many, many people.
3
Having lived in Annapolis a few years, I always chuckled at the juxtaposition of the Johnnies with the Middies, the former the no rules, free spirits looking like they just got off the bus from the Village, the latter spic and span in their uniforms, looking like they were on parade even when trying to enjoy the freedom of a Saturday afternoon walk outside the penetentiarial walls of the Naval Academy. I am sure that the St. John's curriculum has stimulated many discussions comparing it with the traditional college curriculum. However I think the power of St. John's is not so much its curriculum, but that it does attract the intellectually courageous student, thus creating a true collegiate atmosphere.
1
When I graduated from UT-Austin in history, it was not unusual to be a liberal arts major. Now? Bidness bidness as well as pr, physiology, with no time for the liberal arts. I believe not only does it lead to a drier, non-intellectual life, but it impedes the very idea Bruni leaves at the end of this article as said by JackIsenberg: We have to be comfortable in ambiguity." Isn't that the opposite of the bottom line, winning is everything, 7 Rules of Success or whatever titles books in the art of success push?
5
As a 1975 graduate of St John's, I can confirm: this college is not for everyone. But for a certain kind of student like me, it's the best, and maybe the only, place. Also, this White Male (not quite yet Dead) can confirm that the curriculum and the "Canon" are continually under review and that a broader representation of non-Western, non-First-World thought is considered a worthy goal. But the pace of change remains glacial. (For example, after I graduated, Martin Luther King's civil rights classic Letter From A Birmingham Jail appeared in the reading list but then was replaced.)
2
Thank you, Mr. Bruno, for telling truth to power, a rarity In the mainstream media these days. It would be great if more colleges were like St. John’s.
5
Ah, to be comfortable in ambiguity. I contend the biggest scourge in society today is the insistence by the simple mind that everything be either black or white. You're either for me or against me. I only listen to (insert news program here), that's the only place you can get the truth. It says so in the Bible, end of story. Abortion is murder, period.
Opinionated and inflexible minds brought us perhaps the worst governing body ever inflicted on our republic with no end in sight.
Question everything you think you know, and especially everything you know for sure.
6
This is all fine, if it was part of an continuing education program. I can tell you honestly, I have NEVER had to discuss Kant, Ancient Greek, Hegelian Dialectic, etc., with anyone in any walk of life. Not once, in 30 years since graduating college.
1
You might be missing the point of the program. You leave with the ability to read, understand, evaluate and discuss any material. The particular content is not that relevant. You are learning a process, a method, an approach. You are learning in a system that challenges assumptions and theoretically provides an opportunity for a sound outcome, however short lives that may be. You discuss the mundane as well as the atypical. You consider a variety of relatively universal human experiences and ideas in an orderly, considered and accountable way. And you probably think about and use the ideas people like Kant expressed daily, but you don't label them "Kant".
8
As an alumna of the college, it was lovely to read your article and see how you really paid attention and “got it.” SJC isn’t for the faint-hearted and so many who visit barely take a moment to grasp the ethos of it. Thanks, Mr. Bruni.
8
"Something wonderful happens when you read this ambitiously and wallow in this many words. You become agile with them." These might be my favorite two sentences written this year.
6
Don’t let Bill Gates know education like this survives? Wait, it’d be fine for his kids just not for the rest of us which is nothing but test & punish!
1
The "classics!"
And really. Gee, so very swell that "the degree to which “the program” omits the intellectual contributions of women and people of color troubles" you. The pain!
There's nothing wrong with a focus on a selection of great books.
But when that selection deems "great" as applying only to the pantheon of white men writing in a western cultural context, we don't have "great," we don't even have an "education." We certainly don't have the development of contextualized critical thinking that recognizes and discovers the linkages and to and fro of inspiration and learning that is the actual path of human history. And without appreciation of the preceding, there is not the ability to chart through the pathways and connections that produce real learning and understanding and analytical strength.
To trot out this whitewash as an "education" of note, is so beyond the pale (yes, pretty deliberate), that one wonders, who really is this Frank Bruni? I won't say I'm "disappointed." "Horrified" at who this person actually is would be more accurate.
2
@AJ
"I teach at this college, and was almost brought to tears by this article. We have been wondering how such a great institution has not received the recognition it deserves. I need to call attention to the fact that we try to enter into dialogue with everyone who is great - we teach Sappho in language class, we read Jane Austin, W.E.B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass in seminar, have reading groups on George Elliot, Simone de Beauvoir and Camille Paglia, and had a recent Summer Classics course on Chinua Achebe. And our Eastern Classics graduate program is of the highest caliber."
--A comment elsewhere in this thread
2
St. John's, along with the transformed Chicago of the 1930s, once seemed a hope for the conjoining of American intellectual life with the more sophisticated European one.
Alas, pragmatic America, tinkering America, won out, leaving St. John's, at best, a seed for such a venture in the distant future.
A side remark. Bruni says:
"The degree to which 'the program' omits the intellectual contributions of women and people of color troubles me."
This is the PC statement, mandatory in all musings about curricula, that Carthage really does have to be destroyed. In my youth, we had another mandatory phrase: "I'm not a Communist, but..."
C'mon. We have an abundance of schools, some of them once pretty good, where you don't have to worry about having your mind contaminated by Dead White European Males (DWEMs).
How about some where you can make up your own mind?
You go to your church. I'll go to mine.
6
An even more ornery and purist example is Deep Springs College in California. Great Works + a kibbutz to run.
There is hope.
6
Mr. Bruni’s praise includes “enduring answers” and “orneriness.” He tempers it with, “The degree to which “the program” omits the intellectual contributions of women and people of color troubles me.” It seems to me that that omission of the experience of at least 3/4 of humanity is a profound critique. Would Mr. Bruni please discuss that?
1
At a time in our society when higher education has been privatized and sold out, it's encouraging to read about a thriving school for the "intellectually curious." Thanks for this article.
6
I'm a student here now. When we received the announcement that the tuition will drop, I was moved to tears. As a middle class student from a small rural community, I often feel out of place in an institution that seems to value the experiences of wealth educated students more than my own. This initiative reaffirmed my hope that my college can grow, can be better than it is. With a more diverse student body will come a louder cry for more diversity in our readings, and lend strength to we marginalized people whose only representation in the program is as the villain of someone else's story.
Only good can come of this change. I love it here, and I hope to see my college strive to be braver, to be wiser, and to be even more contrary.
17
2/2
...since their text were written on papyrus and got through centuries of humidity and sand and heat. That's why for example there are the Naples' papyrus rolls still untouched and unopened, because there is no guarantee it will not shroud into tiny pieces when unfolded.
extra) then add two tutors for what? giving student the kind of context one should have through reading multiple authors ' comments on the same text? And wouldn't be it the same of letting them read scholars' ( that's what the tutors are ) translations?? Also who can say the tutors are belonging to an interpretation's school more solid than that the student feels more kinship to ( think about the Yale's eighties De Man, Derrida, and the like of )?
I have admired this college for years, and hope my children will want to go here. No fluff, just the great stuff.
8
Thank you, Frank Bruni, for inviting George Will to write your guest column today.
85
Nailed it
1
@Joel I was going to write the following: I wanted to go to St. John's, but my dad insisted I go to the University of Michigan. I did. I learned so much there that my entire life changed. (Late 60s, by the way). Not all of what I learned was in the classroom. It was the African-American literature class I took (the first in the nation?); it was the anti-war speeches on the quad; it was the diversity in instructors beginning to show up. But the classes were extraordinary too, and the other students were so intelligent (I learned humility there too).
But now I don't need to write that comment. From Ann Arbor, you said it all. And the picture of the St. John's profs is very clear as is the curriculum.
@Joel Thank you Joel for spotting the possibility of a bridge across the partisan divide and quickly moving to dismantle it.
4
There is a school in Halifax, Nova Scotia called the University of King's College, which has a similar approach.
It's a small school (around 900 students) located on the corner of the larger campus of Dalhousie University. Most of the first year students enroll in the Foundation Year Programme, which involves reading the great books of western civilization from the Epic of Gilgamesh through the works of 20th century existentialists. Students come out able to think, write and wrestle with the big questions. And since it is a Canadian university the cost is much less than most American schools, even with the international student surcharge. My daughter went to King's and loved it.
Interesting fact: Columbia University was originally know as King's college until the revolution. The Nova Scotia King's was started by loyalist professors from the NYC King's who fled to Canada after the American revolution. King's is one of the oldest universities in Canada.
7
Another interesting fact is that the College at Columbia University (the former Kings College in New York prior to independence and the "parent" of the Nova Scotia King's College) has long had a great books core curriculum, watered down in comparison to St. John's but still similar in its stated purpose.
1
Do they take 70-year-olds?
302
@Martha Schwope
Yes! The Graduate Institute takes students of ALL ages past a Bachelors. Don't have one? With your life experience, you can still apply. What they look for are people who have a desire to come explore, learn, and participate communally. This link will help answer further questions and get you started: https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/graduate
I completed the Western Classics program at the Santa fe campus three years ago, and can easily say attending St. John's College has been one of the best choices I have ever made, and not just educationally.
1
@Martha Schwope Martha, my thought...exactly. Heck, I'm located in Needham. Maybe if we could persuade a tutor or two to come and spend their vacation time in Eastern MA to share with us geezers. (I use that term affectionately... we've earned it). I have pursued my own and similar agenda since I was in the USAF... prior to using the GI Bill to complete undergrad...more than 45 years ago.
But, I do miss studying the classics with like minded folks and a tutor. Not some 22 year grad student who is fulfilling scholarship requirements but a true scholar who values the knowledge and the heft of the work we are studying.
In the past 5,000 years, I recognize "women's issues" and women's points of view have been largely lost or ignored in the interim. Wouldn't these be worthwhile issues to consider as we wade on through the classics?
@Martha Schwope
They do. You can do the MA program. I did it. It changed my life.
1
One of the problems of college these days is people who see them as trade schools, like college is just a variation of the old, not loved, ITT Tech and the like, that they are 'career focused', and "skills focused", both of which while true are being misapplied. I am not saying learning Ancient Greek and Latin is the way to go, you could apply this same approach to other fields of study, it is the idea you are thinking. When I took computer science many decades ago, it wasn't a trade school for java programming or whatnot, it was in understanding how it all worked, the theory behind languages, compiler theory, network theory,and so forth, and that has changed. Might not seem 'practical' to being a java programmer, but some of those courses took a lot of thought, had nothing to do with churning out code.
Among other things, this 'impractical field' teaches on lesson, about being willing to take a risk, enterpeneurs and business leaders who are risk averse, fail; doing a program like this is taking a leap. Music performance is like this, it takes incredible discipline, it takes dealing with difficult people, it takes dealing with ambiguity and subjective things, it requires learning a complex subject (music theory that crosses lines of math and physics and psychology/the brain), and as a result music majors do well down the road, ex music performance majors have some of the highest rates of admission to med school among any major..yet music isn't "practical"
7
As a college professor of English, this sounds like heaven to me. As a professor at a community college, I can see firsthand the struggles and hurdles many of my students have to go though just to get there, in hopes of learning a profession to take them out of their current situation. But I also tell them, as we learn how to write essays, as we read through poets and authors and playwrights, that College is also there to make you an educated person, to make you more cosmopolitan, to learn a world view. And that you should demand this from all of your instructor, because the very fact you're there says high school wasn't enough for you. You wanted more. And to never let anyone tell you you deserve anything less.
10
This is gorgeous. My college had something roughly, very roughly, similar. Two years of Western civilization. Required . No choice. Absolutely beautiful. Barack went through that at Occidental. It is in fact for everyone. But if it's not good for you, neither is college.
3
When you nominate the most contrarian school, you are bound to get a debate. While I am not an alum, Deeps Springs College in California would give St. John's a run for this title
4
If I didn't need to work, I would have gone here.
3
Don't forget the two years of chorus: when seniors in the audience stand up and welcome freshmen at convocation in Annapolis with Sicut Cervus it sounds a lot like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPjC4-lQdSQ
2
This is a great reminder of what higher education could be-- but there's one major error. St John's College (founded in Annapolis 1696) and St John's University (founded in NYC 1870) are in fact NOT the same institution! The "college" has a branch campus in Santa Fe, New Mexico; not in New York.
You just impressed me, Mr. Bruni. I honestly had no idea that you, like me, value Western culture and classics. Most writers for the Times do not.
7
And then there's the meditative power of a good walk.
I had the pleasure of visiting the St. John's bookstore a few weeks ago. What a treasure! I bought a copy of Moby Dick which, I'm embarrassed to say, I'd never read. There were several editions to choose from.
4
"Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have made it possible for scientists to watch the rate at which the PFC matures, and have discovered the male brain doesn't fully develop until age 25. Meanwhile, women experience a maturity rate of 21 years-old."
All the education in the world may go to waste, because your smart, happy, bouncy, baby boy's brain has not fully developed. Before you spend an arm and a leg on your child's
education, make sure you understand this phenomenon.
http://brainmadesimple.com/frontal-lobe.html
What would the classics of past say about our politics today? A few columns in Washington Post:
Danielle Allen: Cicero used to be boring. With Trump around, he’s breathtaking.
Kathleen Parker: Plato would be horrified by Trump’s rise
Michael Gerson: What Shakespeare would say about the 2016 election
Alexandra Petri: ‘Julius Caesar’ should go, and all of these, too
Dana Milbank: The gospel according to Donald Trump
2
At last, an aknowledgement, perhaps even an endorsement, from a ultra-liberal pundit from a newspaper that sets the standard of liberal.
Note that Frank's last line from a classicallly thoughtful senior: "We have to be comfortable in ambiguity..." Ambiguity is absent stuff at NYT, where the answer, and the only answer, is their politically correct progressivism. You won't find that fickle flag flown in the classics.
Politically correct is only as good as the politics that guides it, and politics is dead these days.The varying PC "correctness" is driven by the changing winds of politics. What we really need is the unchanging "moral correctness." St. John's senior, Jack Isenberg, knows where the guiding answers lie. It's not in our newspapers, folks.
2
Nice article. I hope Mr. Bruni expands on this in the future, perhaps for a NYT Magazine piece.
6
Diversity is good, including an example that mimics the ideal of past ages, beauty and warts alike.
But this is education for children of the elite, preparing for life and grad school, or for the optimistic among the less lucky, who believe they can parlay a general education into economic stability to go along with their a better lived life.
It is hard to see how, say, bolting a requirement to read Einstein in the original onto a more practical education could make engineers more articulate. But, diversity is good. Perhaps someone should try.
1
@Laura, I got my St. John's degree in 1980 in Santa Fe. My father got his engineering degree on the GI bill and my mother's childhood was straight out of The Grapes of Wrath. Does that make me a child of the elite? My dad used to tell me he wished more engineers could think like a Johnny.
One of my great regrets is being turned down for a position there. I taught for six years at Shimer College, with a similar program, before it went under. Pray St John's thrives.
3
Please proceed with caution. My parents had family friends whose kids went to St. Johns. They were what one would describe as misfits in high school The older studied for four years, graduated, and joined the peace corps. Upon their return, they wanted to get into agronomy. They had to complete the full undergraduate agronomy major at the state school at 100 percent their own expense. The younger sibling is still working as a barista ten years after graduation.
The education was not linked to anything in the real world, the career counseling was weak if nonexistent, and there was no alumni network to help put your skills to work. The liberal arts are still alive at Yale, Chicago, Duke, and Columbia. I get the impression that life is hard for St. John's graduates. You can still love Descartes and have marketable skills.
1
@Chgobluesguy And when did they graduate? This is a common path for many who graduated in the depths of the recession, Johnnies or not.
4
The college has made great strides in improving career placement since the recession. And how much better would it have been has those children been able to attend at a lower cost?
Interesting article about a college I hadn't heard of (the only St. John's I know is a Jesuit School here in NYC that seems to exist for basketball [or rather that is what people talk about, not that it is a good school with solid programs]). While I could argue that the curricula itself seems pretty rigid and mono focused, I like the idea that the classrooms are about learning. Sadly, a lot of getting into college these days is about 'achieving numbers', kids focus in high school on 'the numbers' (grades, SAT,AP, ECs, ranking), then in college focus on 'practical' courses and 'numbers' as well; don't take a challenging course if it hurts your GPA, for example. The discussion of practicality comes up a lot, and the problem with that is the assumption that somehow college 'trains' you for real world jobs, and it doesn't always, outside tech/science or something like accounting, many jobs don't rely on college learning, you learn most of it on the job. Even in tech, I can tell you that a lot of bright candidates come in (I am a hiring manager) who would have a hard time, because many jobs are not lock a geek in a room and code, and they can't communicate, or work with people. I think an ideal would be the mix of worlds, where you have classes that aren't spit out the right answer and get a good grade.
1
My lab tutor at SJC was formerly the chief logician at IBM.
I am a firm believer in a liberal arts education; I graduated from a liberal arts college in 1964 that had a required freshman year curriculum that included a year of physics and calculus. Yes, I then went to graduate school and earned a PhD. The liberal arts background, and the knowledge gained by reading the classics has benefitted me throughout my career as a physicist working for Los Alamos National Lab and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
I've always admired St. John's and donate annually the college, because I admire their continued support of what they call the Great Books Curriculum. I agree especially with the earlier comment that criticizes the present educational emphasis directed toward job training instead of what my college called educating the Total Man/Woman. I consider this realization why most medical schools require a 4-year bachelor's degree before entering medical school.
5
Academic heaven. This college exists in a league all its own. It is the best. I spent my professional lifetime in academia. How I wish I could have spent it there. The noble quest for egalitarianism should be to benefit people. It should stop short of ideas and books.
4
For the past several years I taught an undergraduate college course in a career-oriented program. The students were likable young people. However, two things made teaching them a real challenge:
Their vocabularies were so limited they had difficulty reading anything longer than a page or two in length and above a middle-school level of difficulty. Ordinary words and phrases stumped them to the point that reading was nothing but an exercise in frustration.
And even worse, history, even recent history, was dead to them. In one discussion it emerged that no one in the class had a clear idea of when WWII occurred or what it was about. They skated along on the surface of life, absorbed in the latest whatever. They lacked any sense of belonging to a human community that was larger than themselves or the current moment.
The university not only did not see this as a problem, but actively positioned themselves to take advantage of it. For one thing, it simplifies "teaching" if you don't assign any reading longer than two pages out of textbook. You can also skip any thorny issues with grappling over the past under the rationalization that no one is interested. Instead you can focus on nifty topics such as emerging media platforms.
Needless to say, I declined the continuing invitation to teach there for a pittance! It just wasn't worth my sanity. St. John's may not be a model for every school, but at least it gets what education is - or should be.
8
I was planning to steer my 8 year-old daughter to my Alma Mater, The University of Minnesota at Morris...I may need to reconsider...
6
The focus on a rather antiquated ideal of the Western canon, and the exclusion of women and people of color is not just troubling. It's absolutely a deal breaker. While I appreciate the push back against vocational education, and the reading of original texts, I think the college also needs to transform its curriculum so as not to blindly reproduce hierarchical structures of power. I hope some of these students will question the curriculum. And by the way, quite a few selective liberal arts colleges, including the one I work at, combine a deep engagement with original texts with a rethinking of what constitutes canonical knowledge.
4
Amen!
I never applied because I was so intimidated, even after speaking to reps at college fairs. Some of the students were in fact intimidating and brutally blunt when I met them in social situations (this was a few decades ago). That was the MD campus, and I'm wondering how it is today.
1
Totally agree on St. John's College. This is what high school should be.
St. John, please add color to the canon and I would feel comfortable sending more students your way. "The West" has never been just white, even at the time so many of the "classics" were written.
5
The Western civilization is rooted on Greek history and ideas - a deep immersion to it at the beginning will make the person Western. To understand and appreciate the multiculturalism, a deep sense of one's own culture is needed. It is true, most of the educations today does not prepare the student to hinge to a cultural root - they float in a ocean of confusion that toss them on guilt and pride. 50 years back I was traveling overnight by train from Greece to Denmark and met a Greek Phd student who was going to London. The long night journey allowed us to had a deep discussion on Greek cultural and its connection to Sanskrit and Indian thought specially Upanisads. This memory encouraged me to appreciate the Greek education system - deep understanding on its history and ideas and open minded to know the world and humanity as a family. Hope this trend spreads and changes the current fad of shallowness in higher education.
9
I graduated from the program at St. Mary's in Moraga, California in 1973. 35 freshmen, seven of us graduated. I still translate Greek as a hobby.
5
I can read the classics for a lot less than 35k a year. Furthermore, the classics are important because they were influential and innovative, not because they were an epitome. The best thought is not necessarily the oldest. But the stuff about cutting out frills sounds like what is needed more broadly.
1
I was the only major in Classics in my undergraduate class at a very highly rated liberal arts college on the east coast. Few family members, friends or classmates could understand why I would "waste my time" studying these ancient texts, ancient history, philosophy, art, etc. But, as has been the case for centuries, these disciplines teach you to think and think critically. If most people learned to think critically, there would be little attraction to all the rumors and disinformation that circulates on the Internet because people could it for what it is. And our society would be more just and on far firmer footing than is the case today.
10
Let me offer a contrarian opinion.
While every student should have an opportunity to learn deep thinking, grounded in philosophy and cultural classics, only a small portion can indulge those interests exclusively. Education serves both society and the individual. We need engineers and scientists and historians and economists (and welders and bakers and nurses). And we need to help guide and prepare people for careers both personally and financially rewarding.
A world without St. John's College might be intellectually poorer; a world of only St. John's graduates might just be poor.
6
@Bob Krantz
The world could use more of that kind of "poverty."
3
Interesting yes and lots of food for thought, but how does one reckon with "how much is unknowable"?
When my daughter, after a semester of agony at a university, told me she was applying to St. John's, I was thrilled. I knew it was for her, and I knew she would love it. Those unfamiliar with St. John's often believe it won't prepare anyone for making a living, but Johnnies excel at whatever they take on after graduation. (IT, btw, is a piece of cake after reading Newton, Planck, Maxwell and Einstein.)
One need only look at the nearly-unanimous adoration of St. John's by its alumni to realize what an extraordinary education does for the soul.--Karol Steadman, SF'80
10
One of the great pleasures of my life in retirement is to periodically walk the serene campus of St. John's in Annapolis where I always make sure to stop into the subterranean bookstore. It is like stepping into another time and place. I have avidly encouraged friends to visit St. John's and highly recommend the experience to any visitor to the area.
2
The son of a close friend is starting there after his gap year. After reading this, I am tempted to take a trip so I can audit some interesting classes/conversations. Are old people allowed to hang out?
5
As a parent of a recent grad, it was worth every penny we scraped, saved, borrowed, and are all still working for.
6
I visited St John’s in Santa Fe after having learned amount from Warren Winiarski. If I had known about it when I was 18 (and had the wisdom I have now) I would have gone there in a shot. Re-doing the experiments that led to scientific breakthroughs rather than just leaning the law must be the basis of unforgettable knowledge.
1
Very impressive. I suspect these kids know the difference between the three branches of the US Government a fact unknown by too many young adults today.
3
I suspect a discussion on the branches of government of this country is rarely of interest, concern or “importance”.
Make Homer great again.
274
@Shmendrik
I like your sense of humor.
Homer has always been great.
It is some people who have become compromised their integrity for short-term and immediate but transitory gratifications.
Why lower the tuition when the student body has no worries about money or the need to find a future job in anything other than a Greek restaurant?
1
@ H.Weiss I would bet that a very high percentage of grads are well employed, successful professionals and that none are working in Greek restaurants.
5
Are you telling me that there are still places dedicated to turn young people into THINKERS not WATCHERS ?
Great news !
7
A Liberal Arts which stresses the Classics, i.e. Classical Languages and thought (although I did not see any reference to Latin).
While I personally agree with the curriculum and the education, at the risk of seeming culturally philistine, I was wondering what one can do with such a Liberal Arts BA today. When they were common, jobs in many fields were easier to come by. Will this get one into graduate professional programs today? Or a real job after a BA.
Great education, no doubt, but what future does it provide?
And $35,000 tuition is still very high by world standards.
36
@Joshua Schwartz
Yes, many fellow alumni have gone on to law school, medical school, grad school in the sciences, literature, public policy, etc. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something "practical" with a degree from St. John's.
You'll just do it differently.
19
@Joshua Schwartz
Three of the richest men I know were English majors who excelled in business because they had learned to think deeply. And I do mean rich. Businesses crave employees who can think and, importantly, write. I have read the work of some business majors and was appalled by their near illiteracy. A Liberal Arts education has been the foundation of scores of famous business people. Business is a trade that can be quickly learned. A classical education not so much.
24
@SCZ Doing a little more research, I saw that St. John's itself was concerned with this issue which is why they do a yearly study on career outcomes of the graduating class:
https://www.stjohns.edu/employers/career-services/career-outcomes
Apparently a Liberal Arts degree can still work.
6
While St. John's is clearly not for everyone, there is still much to be said for a traditional liberal arts education, which is perfectly compatible with learning a marketable skill. Most majors require about 30 to 40 hours of core courses. That leaves a student with about 80 hours to explore philosophy, literature, art, history, etc. etc.
I ended up going to medical school after graduation from a small liberal arts college. Over a 40 year career in medicine I often found that what I learned about the human condition from reading Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy was more relevant that the calculus and physics that I was required to take.
14
Sounds like a delightful way to spend one’s retirement! Surrounded by smart and engaged young people, reading my brains out, having deep conversations, and spending enough time on each subject to deepen my current understanding. And, unlike the students, I would not be worrying about what kind of job I could eventually get with this sort of education.......
One thing though - back in the day when I was in college my school had a huge mandatory liberal arts curriculum which totaled nearly half the credits required to graduate. I had to take two semesters of a foreign or classical language and courses in art history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, economics, American history, World history, a course called “Origins of Western Thought,” political science, literature, Math, Biology, physical education (I took a delightful folk dancing course!) Music, and others I can’t recall.
Of course we all chose a major, and the rest of our studies were in that area, but I do not regret for one moment my exposure to all this study and the challenges faced with such a rigorous curriculum. Oddly enough, with no specific business or accounting courses required, and therefore none on my transcript, I went to an interview at a major New York City bank and was hired by a VP who recognized my small college on my resume and said “I’m desperate for someone who can read, write and speak well.” He was tired of the amount of editing he needed to do on his staff’s memos and client reports.
423
@Joanna Stasia
I had a similar college experience. I got my undergraduate B.A. in Humanities which emphasized art, architecture, philosophy, literature and music. Then I went to medical school and practiced medicine for 30 years. The grounding of a liberal arts education makes us more human, more compassionate and, dare I say, more interesting people better equipped to be good citizens.
4
@Joanna Stasia By all means join us among the retirees who enjoy the St. Johns weekend and summer seminars, offering small bites toward the quest for wisdom. A most worthwhile experience.
@Joanna Stasia great points. I, too, spent the first two and a half years at my small, public (state school) liberal arts college taking core curriculum classes. These classes consisted of three undergraduate writing courses, Philosophy, Psychology, Physical Education (yes, it was required, and it really focused on lifetime health), two years of literature (American and European), a year of history, a year of sciences (Chemistry, Biology, Physics), and Math, among others. I thought it was outstanding and at $280 a quarter/term, it was quite a bargain, especially with most classes under 25 students.
Being exposed to such a variety of subjects really educated me and widened my world perspective in an excellent way. I hope my alma mater still has the Liberal Arts Core Curriculum, and that other universities -- like St. John's, other private schools, and public universities -- offer this rich curriculum.
Sometime Latin teacher weighing in.
It seems to me that colleges and universities are caught in a dilemma. WHAT precisely are they trying to do?
(1) Equip their young charges with a slate of skills, enabling them to make a decent living in the workaday world.
(2) Turn these young people into better and wiser human beings.. Human beings nourished on. . .okay, might as well say it. . .the liberal arts.
I honestly think--colleges and universities flounder between these two goals. Are they aware--FULLY aware--of this cruel dichotomy?
One last thing.
I have a Master's degree in Classics.. . ..
. . . .and I would say to you--in all honesty, in all sincerity--
. .. there is nothing so wonderful as the Greek and Roman classics.
Nothing!
The languages in which these works were written and handed down. . .
. .. those languages. . ..
. .. are (in themselves) masterpieces of the human mind.
The incomparable Homer--who on earth WAS the guy? Plato's infinitely supple and expressive Greek. The stately language of Demosthenes.
And then (my home turf)--the richness and copiousness of Cicero. The golden hexameters of Virgil. The wit, the fluency of Horace. The iron cadence of Tacitus. The lines of Juvenal--"whereof" said one scholar "every one is a lash."
Why (some ask me) did you ever STUDY these things? Well--that's easy.
Pleasure, my friends.
Sublime pleasure.
Those kids at St. John's are finding that out.
More power to them!
5
Wow, listen to this guy blowing hard: "And what better idiom for the instruction that he’s describing than the classics? What better mooring? They're the foundation of so many of America’s ideals and institutions. They’re the through line from yesterday to tomorrow."
The foundation of so many of America's ideals and institutions?
Um, no thanks.
The through line from yesterday to tomorrow?
What does that even mean??? Like, they're time itself?
I'd like to drop out, thanks.
Amazing, a real education. What college should be.
2
Frank, in an age where the likes of Betsy DeVos are trying to turn students into compliant robots — with the exception of those with wealthy parents, of course — this was a pleasure to read.
Teaching young people to think critically is way more important than stuffing their heads with random facts, especially when those 'facts' are carefully biased by higher powers. If only this kind of teaching could start in the early grades and be available to every child in America. It could bring a new Renaissance.
4
My father, born into poverty in the Bronx, attended the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD at a time before the GI bill, so college was for the select few. I always remember him saying “The really smart ones are the Johnies!”
8
Oh, Mr. Bruni, when I got to the end of this opinion piece I was sad because I wanted to learn more about St. John’s. Please write about it again. The world needs more of this.
- A classically-trained STEM professor
2
But what about the Hutchins program at the University of Chicago... which got rolling about the same time? Never quite that intense, but close.
Of course, you got to be around 80 yrs old to have been part of that great education, ahem, ahem. What an education!
B.
1
Well now you've done it, Frank. I mean, come on, how are these students expected to make any money studying the classics, the great philosophers, and the history of the world? We aren't sending our children to learn from all those liberal professors who will blackmail their minds. And lowering the cost of tuition. Subsidizing all of this. Shame on you, Frank. The worst thing you have done is put this on the front pages. Now Betsy DeVos will run right out there and shut them down. There must be a for profit school that can put these young people on the right track. If they are going to be in debt at the start of their careers, might as well be from a college that will keep them from asking too many questions. The world doesn't need anymore of that.
4
"Jack Isenberg, a senior, told me that St. John’s had taught him how much is unknowable. “We have to be comfortable in ambiguity,” he said." Bruni writes: "What a gift."
I can't think of a single, canonical thinker, prior to the 20th century, who would have endorsed that statement. There was a rather consistent belief in "natural law" that affirmed certain statements as true and others as false. That, Mr. Isenberg (and Frank Bruni) is not ambiguity.
1
@William McLaughlin, what about Socrates?
Any smart manager would consider hiring one of these graduates for higher level positions that require leadership competency, speaking and writing skills, and, yeah, the ability to think.
My education was very close to St. John's and I am a sought after business consultant and instructor and executive coach at top ranked business schools.
Hold out, St. Johns, and open yourselves to women's contribution and to the wisdom that was nurtured on other continents. You are preserving something invaluable, something today's "teach a salable skill" mentality would better understand if they were exposed to the likes of Wittgensten and William James!
2
I hate to dive immediately into the "Johnny" message, but I would give four years of my journalism to have their four years of critical thinking. I have a buddy -- philosophy prof -- in the California system, who started a master's degree for technicians -- docs, lawyers, engineers -- to learn critical thinking, which seems to be the St. John's message. He did it 30 years ago and the only problem he had was that he did it himself on the telephone. It was wildly successful. My brother, a chest surgeon, did the same for himself after he retired. Read like a fiend and made furniture. He was remarkably happier. Bring on more and more St. John's. Great find Frank.
Jim Lawless
5
Classics are great. But my public college education (CCNY - back in the day) exposed me not only to classics (not to the depth as St John's) but also physics, biology, genetics, math, 2 foreign languages, music, English + .... much more. I settled on math - which, like classics, you can't "eat" - but managed to make a decent living anyway (not at math). And I wouldn't change a thing. Am still very much aware of how ignorant I am. It's good that humility (esp. re what we can know) is one of the things that come out of a St John's education - or indeed - should come out of any good education. Although I have a special disdain for people who are willfully ignorant - which seems to be an epidemic these days.
2
@Unconvinced We studied all those things when I was at St. John's. Four years of math were required including studying Newton's Principia and NonEuclidian geometry. We studied Greek for two years and French for another two. We all learned enough Greek to translate passages in Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus, and Aristophanes. We even had a short unit on Biblical Greek. I had had six years of French and went straight to reading original French literature. They don't do quite as much science as when I was there, but it is still a surprise to students who thought they were coming only for the classics. We also had a year of Chorus and another of music theory. I remember studying Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Mozart's Don Giovanni page by page. It's the classics, though, that strike the reporters.
What nourishment —at least some people aren't falling for the teach-everybody-to-code meme.
2
What, no mention of St. John's croquet team? They've beaten the Midshipmen at the Naval Academy 29 out of 36 matches!
3
The primary challenge our nation faces today is convincing citizens of all backgrounds, colors and creeds that the blessings of Western Civilization - and of our nation - are for them. Really and truly for them, and available to them.
Not a particulary easy task, given centuries of slavery, de facto genocide, and a widespread "Americanization" process that encouraged descendants of immigrants to discard their ethnic identity.
But it can be done. President Obama was a good start - symbolically, if not in practice.
It is possible to synthesize Plato and Shaka Zulu, Shakespeare and Confucius, Schubert and Willie Colón. This is America.
2
"The thought of what America would be like if the Classics had a wide circulation troubles my sleep." from Cantico del Sole by Ezra Pound
5
The first antecedents for universities in the world were founded as centers of learning for young people who beginning in the 9th century paid a learned scholar to teach them what he knew and by corollary -- how to THINK.
It had nothing to do with functioning like a factory to enable students to procure a piece of paper in order to "get a job."
2
I agree that humility is key. The students who don't learn it, end up being "populists" in America and arguing for "change" based on nothing but gut feelings, which is the essence of why Trump is president and Kobach is a candidate for governor in Kansas.
2
I hope St. John's is careful enough to avoid ending up with a student body that is dominated by neo-fascists who fetishize western civilization. If they want to attract high school seniors who are true thinkers, intellectually thirsty and adventurous, I think it's pretty safe to say that the Tucker Carlson viewership is not the place to find them.
2
If more of our citizenry could learn to be “comfortable in ambiguity” there would be a lot less shouting and a lot more thoughtful discussion in our social discourse. Sadly, many choose instead the comfort of black and white doctrines and the endless conflicts they perpetuate.
4
Thank you for this very interesting article on St. John's. I enjoyed it and found it inspiring. Mr Bruni please consider spending some time at the United States Military Academy, West Point and provide a review of their curriculum. I think you will find many similar characteristics. ( FYI.... I am not a graduate of West Point, just an admirer.) Again, thank you well done
1
Well said .... thank you St. John's College and please continue to hold the line.
1
Many comments are missing the underlying point of this column: although he gives it scarce comment, Bruni’s reason for visiting was to learn about SJC’s “contrarian” reduction in tuition price. The scandal of university tuition costs deserves much more attention than does the quirky (to me enticing) curriculum of this particular college.
2
Take a look at the growth curves of college and university “administrators” versus teaching or research faculty.
You will find nearly all of the excessive “cost inflation” due to non-academic baloney. St John’s is likely an exception.
Does the 'omission of contributions of women and people of color troubles' you, or do you just feel the need to state it? If there contributions were truly of value, I'm confident it would be covered. Isn't that the point of your article?
1
But where did Aristotle, Homer, Copernicus. Hegel, Marx, Cicero, Einstein, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright Brothers go to college?
What college did Saint John attend, and was he, like Homer, even able to read?
St. John’s is a great school for a ruling class of educated and leisure lifestyle college students who may not ever worry about rents or mortgages in Manhattan, San Francisco, Palm Beach or Silver Springs, MD. Or who have not the fire in their belly to create a computer program in a hotel room one weekend or design a computer called a Macintosh in one’s garage.
So next time Mr. Bruni, visit the Office of Patents and Inventions to contact the other class of students, many of whom attend only the life college of their inspirations.
1
The fact that there is no women's studies or "people of color" studies makes the college even better. This does not mean excluding their writings. It means not including them for the sake of including them.
And I bet the female students and the minority students couldn't care less that their professors focus on white guys. It's called maturity.
9
@Erik. I'm a graduate of the Santa Fe campus. I can tell you the lack of non-DWM voices has been a source of much discussion at St. John's for decades. Caring about it has never been seen as a sign of immaturity.
Sir I must differ on sports and the Johnnies.
The Annapolis cup, an event where they go mallet to mallet in a thrilling game of croquet against the U.S. Naval Academy. St.Johns has won 29 of 36 matches.
Attended by crowds as large as 5000 souls.
''Courtesy and good sportsmanship are expected of all players. No players may throw a mallet or hit a ball in protest or anger. No trash talk is allowed.'' https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/croquet/facts
Could you be enticed sir to act as the Times sports reporter this coming June? Imagine a world renowned sporting event you could attend with your family without denting your retirement portfolio.
Topped off with Maryland crab cakes. Fresh Rock fish. Local craft brews. Good sailing weather.
The added publicity might help the Johnnies raise some needed money as well.
Do come.
5
It is an attractive, even wistful idea to thoroughly immerse in “the great books,” and I don’t doubt the rigor of the program. Still I question the exclusive focus on the “Western canon.” It seems oddly, even quaintly, un-post-colonial.
2
50 years ago all college aimed at this kind of education.
Now they scorn history and Latin and push bitmap training.
4
Do they teach self-direction and autonomous thinking? Do they teach students how to fail?
Thank you, Frank Bruni, for opening the doors to a rare institution devoted solely to the pursuit of thinking, which is what all true education should be. I say "thinking," not "knowledge," which has become a debased currency in the age of Google, because thinking requires curiosity, engaging with complexity, searching for nuance, appreciating ambiguity, and above all questioning. It's the bedrock of human achievement in all fields - the law, business, the arts, medicine, academia, and - yes - politics (if practiced as it should be). And of course thinking, as St John's nurtures it, is never without self-doubt. What a model this place is for the rest of the country - and for people who regard education as a lifelong process, not something that stops after four years.
2
I went to a small engineering-liberal arts college in New York State. I took some engineering courses, changed my major, and graduated with a degree in mathematics. Along the way, I took courses in French, Comparative Literature, and English. I developed a life-long love of mathematics, Shakespeare, English poetry, and classical music. A truly great college should make sure that the engineers take some liberal arts courses and the liberal arts folks bat their heads against some math and physics.
6
While panting up a steep trail in Zion National Park, I met a freshman St. Johns student, and so we began a conversation that has spanned two years.This week, now a junior, she told me she gets to DO FRACTIONS?!?
Each semester she sends me papers she has written: Chaucer, Keplar, L'Orfeo, Odyssey. In this hyper-political, micro- moment, tweet-driven world, it's like deep breathing, zen and yoga, done with a good Cognac. Who would have thought that 2,000 year old education could be so grounding and calming?
I wish I could clone Bridget and sprinkle her 'magic' upon D.C. DeVos should consider teaching Homer rather than arming teachers.
480
I’m presuming you mean L’Orfeo, the Monteverdi opera, which happens to be the work I’m teaching this morning. Wonderful choice. Learning languages helps students to master English writing, which these days is a waning skill (see a number fo the comments to this article).
1
@Seattle123. I doubt Betsy knows Homer.
1
So ‘in the old box’ that it’s very ‘out of the box’ these days. Just lotsa thinking full time on a very small campus. Ironically, it was at this place devoted to philosophical discourse that I suddenly got really good at math. For the first time there was something about it I could ponder in a strangely compelling way.
3
Frank Bruni fails to mention that the "tutors" teach *every* subject, including those outside their area of specialization. This is inappropriate in any form of education, much less higher education. Teachers should always know more--a great deal more--than the students they are teaching.
Reading originals of the great texts carries a student only so far, and if it omits the skilled commentary of great teachers and modern textbooks, is a highly inefficient form of education. This is not really higher education, but a superficial and misleading "chef's tasting menu" of real education. The "core" curriculums of schools like Columbia University and the University of Chicago use the great texts as a starting point, not the entirety of higher education.
I have met St. John's graduates, and most have been imbued with the belief that their education "has taught them how to really think," unlike the rest of the academic world, although this belief is entirely lacking in objective proof.
2
@NYView
I spent two wide-eyed years at St John’s and then transferred to Wesleyan because I wanted some balance and art. I really think it IS a starting point for all no matter what direction is next. Would be a shame to consider it an end, but still not a waste. Please don’t underestimate the effectiveness of the tutors teaching “broadly”. They are still gentle leaders. The flip side is that elsewhere, specialization sometimes leads to forgetting how to connect and spark ideas.
3
@NYView Socrates never claimed to know more than the boy. I learned a great deal from him in spite of his superficiality.
As a former high school principal, I was continually frustrated by our district's mission statement, which, clearly articulated St. John's educational goals, and yet, asked me to implement vocational/institutional goals---all revolving around some form of quantitative accountability. I should note, that my academic background in philosophy did not find a welcoming home in central office board rooms, where questions about what it means to be educated were met with a reminder that I was to stick to the agenda. For all the years I was in the Principalship, I was always amused at opening day remarks by Central Office personnel quoting John Dewey, Horace Mann, and even Plato...and within hours of their speeches chair meetings and send out memorandum directing us to implement the goals and organizational structures of Frederick Taylor.
7
Education comes from the Latun verb educo, educare--to lead out.
St. John's sounds like it is putting this into practice in an extraordinary way. Reading this article, I envy the students their experience and wish I'd gone there.
7
Thanks Mr. Bruni for reminding us that basic truths don't lie nor change .
{n talking to several friends, it was decided that the most valuable courses, we had taken in college to us was Phil 101 and 102. Which is logic.
It appears that St. John's graduates have a sound basis of Logic.
Just as a side note, I lived in Annapolis for a brief time and was not aware of St. John's or it's reputation. Sad for me.
3
Despite the many positive comments about SJC, I am conflicted on this article. As someone who went to a very liberal east coast elite college that espoused critical thinking, I agree that the classics are no doubt vitally important to learn/understand. . . but I'm not sure at the expense of other more "main stream" subjects. I also have a friend whose son went to Santa Fe about 10 years ago and has yet to really hold a full-time, self-sustaining job. He will debate endlessly . . . smugly. . . haughtily . . .exhaustively. Maybe that's just him. . . an outlier. . a "contrarian" perhaps. He's now back in school for a degree in biology.
Also, without the high costs of funding sports complexes and chemistry labs and perhaps even a library(ies) with a wide array of books. . . . it's plausible that SJC is better positioned that many other schools to cut their costs.
1
I'm surprised that the article doesn't mention Robert Hutchins of the University of Chicago and its Great Books program. I admire St. Johns, but it isn't standing out there all by itself.
3
This college has embraced Enlightenment principles and the real surprise is that it is a surprise and so rare. Colleges elite and otherwise long ago caved to student and faculty pressure to abandon core curriculum in exchange as you so aptly put it for a “vocational education.” At the helm is a wonderful man, Mark Roosevelt (yes, of the storied family). Mark was a bright star as a young Massachusetts politician in a state that seems to specialize in them. He championed equality laws for gays years before anyone anywhere in the US. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor. He embodies the Enlightenment ideal that believes in human progress and sympathy for our fellow man. As such he and his college stand in stark relief to the cynical on the left and the fearful on the right. I would have loved such an academic opportunity as this.
1
As an undergraduate, I attended Bennington College, a definitive "design your own major" school. Looking back, I have always wished I'd been given less choice for the first 1-2 years and been required to study the Western canon as a strong foundation. Bennington asks students boldly to develop a unique plan of study, follow it, and hone it each term, progressing from exploration to application and interdisciplinary connection. The students who did best in this curriculum were those who could boldly balance the freedom of these choices with the reality of doing something meaningful within four years. Those people recognized how to join intellectual inquiry and the creative process with the boundaries of application.
As for me, the freedom was very distracting for a young person. I lost the opportunity for depth as I kept changing plans and studying more broadly. An enduring lesson, though, is the imperative to use all my intellectual capacities to determine my contribution to this world. Having that freedom so clearly presented to me, and having seen what it means to use it well (or not), I learned the courage not to assume a pre-packaged position as a professional, a citizen, or a friend, but to be those things truly. I'm still learning how to do that, but Bennington got me started.
The thing that St. John's College shares with schools like Bennington is the spirit of intellectual inquiry, learning what it means to assess ideas and to use the tools of mind in the world.
5
What a wonderful antidote to the popular “trade school” focus current education punditry. In an age where our leaders seem unable to understand or accept complexity, refllect on their own behavior, and be courageous with truth and facts, we more institutions that teach our children how to learn and grow for the rest of their lives. Most technical knowledge folks learn in school now will be hopelessly outdated in a few years, but learning to reflect and grow with a basis of understanding from timeless forbears is lasting.
3
I graduated from an expensive college with a very narrow career focus -- then I turned 21, life happened, I changed my mind. St John's has always been my "I wish I'd" school. I knew a woman who went there, and she learned so much more in college than I did. I've always been envious. I'd agree that "the program" is not diverse enough (and that it leaves no room for addition.) But if you learn to learn like this, you can easily shape your non-school time/years to fill in. This year I've read only books by people of color. Last year I read only non-English books. St Johns offers what I'd hope all colleges do: a rigorous education in learning how to learn and critically think. That is missing in some of our most "elite" schools.
6
I'm a St. John's graduate, class of 1986. I needed to take a break for a year due to the intellectual rigor. Most of the tutors were just outright geniuses, while most of my fellow students were far smarter than me. As a result, I became smarter as well as educated. I reflect often on the fact that the Founding Fathers no doubt studied the same primary sources we did, and that our Constitution very likely emerged from the same intellectual ferment that is present in my Alma Mater. The negativity and dismissiveness in the majority of comments is unwarranted and unfair: the culmination of my work there has indeed made me a better man and a better citizen, someone with an ethical compass. As Dylan wrote: don't criticize what you can't understand.
23
So a “liberal” education is for liberating, ie, freeing, a person actually to live and steward the life they’ve been given. And in that, instead of settling on THE “answer,” living the question. Would it be for everyone? We Americans speak about freedom while at the same time being bound to so many things, including rigid principle (political and otherwise) and unshared exceptionalism. A wonderful piece on St John’s, providing another view than is commonly held.
6
Very sad that such a profoundly powerful classical education pales in comparison to ‘professional’ sport icons and their sponsors and their managers; the media sensations and journalists not to mention the other structurally designed institutions such as consultants, boards of directors...all making exactly what kinds of contributions to a greater humanity except keeping the paved roads maintained to success, stardom and material wealth.
1
College should be the exploration of IDEAS like St. John's. We have lost that in most college settings today.
The majority spoon feed our kids Left wing political rhetoric without a healthy exchange of diverse ideas. Professors with opposing ideas have been let go. No wonder why parents are not getting their money's worth on a true education. It's a joke. It's indoctrination.
4
As a college educator, I can attest to the ongoing commitment of instilling in our students the value of critical reasoning and inquiry. We foster dialogue, listening, effective writing, close reading (yes, a single phrase can become a half-hour detour); in short, many comprehensive liberal arts colleges continue the traditions central to St. John’s mission. To major in English, history, or the arts is to find your life. Somehow the public has decided this is not the case, but they need to visit.
I only wish we too would drop our tuition in humane solidarity so that more students could join us.
2
@SecondChance
There is nothing true about your assumptions; they are spoon fed talking points.
1
Every summer, Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English uses St John’s for its Santa Fe program. I was in the first Bread Loaf Santa Fe class - way back - and I loved the campus and the environment.
There was, I remember, a little tension between Bread Loaf’s philosophy (we were studying for our MA) and the Great Books philosophy espoused by St John’s. (That summer I studied Native American literature with Scott Momaday and Literature of the South with Arnold Rampersad.) I found the undergrads there to be thoughtful, but a little bewildered that I’d want to read about coyote trickster gods and ghosts in the arroyos. At the same time, I couldn’t imagine reading Kant with the smell of pinion trees all around me. But we accepted it and played softball together. I learned a lot that summer.
7
Reading this column and the comments of those who graduated from and/or teach at St. John's, I am encouraged that there is at least one institution that treats ordinary students as thinking human beings who can contribute to every area of society. Too many politicians and others seem to view higher education, and even high school education, as merely job training to fatten the portfolios of the wealthy investor class.
5
I graduated City College in the sixties. What was the formula that made it so great? Why did it have more Nobel laureate graduates than any other public college? How did it remain free? There was no prestige tuition. Just good high school grades.
Is St. John’s College a remnant of that type of schooling? Education needs less snobbery and more government support, so good students or their parents can afford a well-rounded education.
6
I’m not so sure this is that new. And, more, that credit should be given where due: this is essentially what Hutchins did at the college at the University of Chicago. Truly a remarkable place then and probably its only true peer, at the time, was CCNY. Nonetheless, quite refreshing to see something of this sort in this day and age.
3
@J Kagan Chicago's and St. John's programs are both descended from the Columbia College Core Curriculum, each modifying and developing it in a different way.
1
Sign me up. Or more precisely, sign my three daughters up. Thank you St. John’s for having the guts to value the Western canon. I’m saving money for my kids’ education and I promise that after reading this, we’re coming to visit you when their time comes.
4
@bhough You will not regret it.
I can appreciate any education that relies on the ''classics'', however many of the ills of society today are because of the passing on of very limited points of view.
You offered a tell tale sign by saying so: '' The degree to which “the program” omits the intellectual contributions of women and people of color troubles me.'' - it would trouble me as well.
I want me daughters (as any parent should or would) to learn from and be among peers. I want them also to be immersed in various cultures, people and color. I do not want them to look around and be blinded by whiteness.
I think we short change our youth by offering a very sheltered and privileged education - no matter how low you drop the tuition.
Just a thought ...
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@FunkyIrishman
And that is exactly why there are so very few 'Great Books' colleges left.
People would rather consume a diet of balanced, insipid and mediocre thinking than deign to suggest that there are no reasonable substitutes for Homer, Hesiod, Virgil, Plato, Aristotle - dead white males - all of them.
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@Steve
I never said anything about mediocre, or the other adjectives you projected, but just because a text is ancient, means that it can apply to modern society. (religious texts are prime examples)
The heart of critical thinking is to take in all of the information possible and try to come to a logical conclusion.
I would argue that requires looking at the writings of women, minorities and so on.
You are applying the example of what I said in me first paragraph.
@FunkyIrishman The people who go to St. John's are bright enough to look at the world around them. I have a feeling that the young women in the photo are acutely aware of the limits of Dead White Guy Syndrome. And we need people who can read the classics and know what's in them, if for no other reason than to recognize their mistakes. That knowledge sure isn't being transmitted through most colleges today.
I don't know what St. John's diversity is, so can't comment on that, but I won't make assumptions, either.
8
Why is the absence of works by women and people of color troubling? You imply that representation matters. I don't think so. I think only incisive thinking matters, and, to cultivate and foster that, the most incisive works should be taught. Education exists to make us better thinkers and better technicians. It doesn't exist to make us better people. We become better people by becoming better thinkers. I'm happy to read and study women and people of color, so long as their work is as good as they DWM (dead white male) work it must replace on the syllabus. I think diversity and representation are wrongheaded notions, but justice and equality are not. However, I see not real connection between diversity and representation and justice and equality. To me, that's fuzzy thinking. Thinkers such as Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius and Shakespeare and Voltaire and Locke have survived because they are deemed by every generation to be worthwhile. Thinkers such as Boethius, Aquinas, and Husserl are more obscure, because they have not really passed the test of historical value. I think intellectualism should come before politics. I'm an atheist, but I read John Milton and George Herbert with immense interest and joy. The problem with our era is that intellectualism has become the handmaiden of politics.
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@richguy That is so wrong. What you either refuse to admit, or fail to recognize, is that the decision of what is great is not objective. It is greatly influenced by the listener's prejudices about which voices are worthy of attention. Those prejudices are a filter through which the work is judged.
People who are comfortable with institutional inequality always say that they are judging only the work, not the maker. In the 70's, when women were trying to get hired as news anchors, many of the defenders of the status quo said that they agreed that women could read the copy well enough. The problem was that their voices did not carry enough authority to read the news.
In the 70's and 80's, when women musicians became vocal about their gross under-representation in the top symphony orchestras, the answer was that women players could not match the muscularity of the music produced by men. And then most orchestras went to blind auditions, and the number of women hired skyrocketed. The earlier reactions, which were defended as objective reactions to the music, were in fact influenced by what the management saw as much as what they heard.
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@cds333
I have a PhD in English from a good university. I stand by my somewhat conservative beliefs. In terms of making people smarter, I'd devote a year to reading just Shakespeare and another year to reading just Wittgenstein. I am a huge fan of George Eliot.
I believe strongly in objectivity. I am not a moral relativist. I am not a relativist. I'm a republican. I don't care about turning students into liberals. Do I have to be a liberal to be a teacher, or can I be a teacher who's a republican?
I said to my friends' daughter, a cellist, that I thought Jacqueline Du Pre's playing was full of passion. Her reply was, "Sure, if anger is passion." All my friends' daughter heard in Du Pre was anger.
@richguy This comment is foolish in many respects: primarily, that it assumes that Women and PoC aren't uh, also dead! It also doesn't allow for the idea that what we think of the work of DWM as the exclusive standard for greatness. There is much more that is great than can fit in 4 years at St. Johns--how they choose what they choose is how the help students understand greatness. Why wouldn't we want students to have a deeper understanding of who has written our important ideas throughout history, instead of limiting it to conventional wisdom?
2
Great article-teaching a student how to do critical thinking is key to their success in later life. My grandson just graduated from Baylor with a degree in literature with a “specialization in great texts of the western tradition”. It has prepared him for any direction he may choose to in graduate school.
1
There once was a time when a basic liberal arts curriculum did what St. John’s does, prepare a student for life. It was assumed that the first two years would focus on a range of basic subjects, science, math, literature, art, social science and a foreign language.
But then the business world stepped in and began to ask the colleges do the job training that they used to do in house.
While there was a shift toward more self directed subjects, there was also a shift toward the pragmatic and the job skills direction.
So today we have students ready for the world of corporate America, but lacking in the critical thinking skills that causes many to challenge what corporate America is doing.
Along the way we’ve slipped in Womens Studies and African American history. But make no mistake, today’s college is designed to prepare its graduates for the neoliberal world of the workplace.
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@drspock Agreed, except the dismissal of Women's Studies and African American History. There is no reason that these courses cannot be as rigorous as any other. The rigor depends on the professor and the institution, not the subject matter.
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@drspock
"So today we have students ready for the world of corporate America, but lacking in the critical thinking skills that causes many to challenge what corporate America is doing"
Bull's eye!
3
@drspock I'm a retired lawyer. I was astounded - absolutely astounded - at how many lawyers, including those who have been practicing for years, couldn't put together a cogent argument (or sentence) to save their lives.
6
It’s notable that in all but one of the accompanying photos, there are books. And in none is there a computer.
8
What an amazing shock to open this piece to a photo of a group of students discussing Hegel! As someone that teaches graduate philosophy, it's enormously heartening.
But I wanted to add the following thought to the other commenters, in light of the reading of Hegel and even more the learning of ancient Greek: a fundamental element of a proper education is the confrontation with your own *lack of mastery*. The exposure to ignorance, and the feeling of difficulty, these are among the greatest lessons of any genuine education. Mastery of great ideas is irreplaceable, but so is this.
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@ overground
Once they know Hegel, they'll never support socialism.
@ overground
"Lack of [the illusion of] mastery" is one of the salient features of the program. Remember, the professors at St. Johns {"Tutors"] do not present themselves as experts in technical fields but as skilled guides to how to engage with difficult material. Every tutor rotates his teaching through the curriculum, so that any tutor, is available at any time for a discussion of any of the works in the curriculum. Tutors are always re-encountering the material. They are leaders in learning.
When we were visiting prospective colleges, I bribed my son to visit St. John’s. (I promised lunch in nearby Washington, DC).
Having gone on tours of multiple colleges, we had developed stock questions to ask admissions officers, including “What’s the ideal [Name of College] student?” Most of the responses were stock answers performed in front of a crowd of parents and students.
At St. John’s it was just my son and me sitting across from two Admissions officers for over an hour. (We didn’t even have an appointment.) When I pulled out this stock question, “What would you say is the ideal St. John’s student?” the Admissions officers took her time turning the question over in her mind and thoughtfully replied, “I’d say St. John’s is for the intellectually courageous.”
I watched as my son sat up taller.
We spent two more hours touring the campus with an enthusiastic “Johnny” as our guide. Lunch time came and went. My son was smitten. He fell in love with St. John’s and graduated four years later. His passion for “the program” has never wavered.
Every time I'd visit, he’d take me for his own version of a tour of this magical place, unpacking and relating all he'd learned.
My favorite was standing in front of a series of framed mathematical proofs. His explanations became more expansive and incisive with each visit—from Euclid to Ptolemy to Copernicus to Apollonius to Galileo to Newton to Lobachevski.
The four years passed quickly, but this education is timeless.
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@MGJ My father also made visiting St. John's a condition of going to see other colleges. And I had your son's experience—it was deep, life-altering, unlooked-for love. I can still see that first dark seminar room, listening in as these strangers just a few years older than me discussed Dante as though everything were at stake. A wildly rich four years and, twenty years later, still the foundation for who I am. St. John's has its complexities and its troubles, but that passion, that authenticity, that humility, that wonder... there's nowhere else like it.
9
Thank you for your firsthand testimonial, MGJ.
My father graduated from high school in 1929. Enrolled at Villanova University but had to leave a year later as the Great Depression started to kick in and his family couldn't afford his tuition. For several years he drove a garbage truck. He returned to college, this time University of Pennsylvania and went on to Hahnemann Medical School. When my sisters and I were exploring college possibilities in the 1960s, he always mentioned St. John's. He was enamored of its curriculum and wished he had been able to go there. None of us applied, but it always remained in my mind as admirable place for, not only as as the admissions person told your son, "the intellectually courageous" but those of us who needed to face our intellectual fears, that is our fears of not being smart enough.Such a curriculum, as my father noted, would instill the courage to explore and dialog with confidence with great thinking of the world.
3
My daughter is a freshman at the Annapolis campus. My wife and I wholeheartedly support the idea of “education for the sake of education” and in the idea that the school is creating a group of young people who will become “life long learners”. The jobs of tomorrow will probably not be found in the majors of today. Why waste time and money majoring in something that might be obsolete in a few years? Besides, how is a young person to decide the entire course of their lives at 18? We are glad she is investing in her most important asset-her mind.
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@Ted
My daughter is there too, and I agree with you, for my family it was the cost and not of the education she would have received, since I now many Johnnies.
@Ted we also have a daughter who is a freshman at the Annapolis campus this year. Every day they text me with, “Guess what we talked about today?!?!” excites me for the learning path they’ve entered.
May our daughters enjoy their four years together!
@Ted
"The jobs of tomorrow will probably not be found in the majors of today. Why waste time and money majoring in something that might be obsolete in a few years? Besides, how is a young person to decide the entire course of their lives at 18?"
You nailed it, sir. Your daughter has been fortunate in her choice of parents.
1
My sister went to St. Johns' in Annapolis, and became a high-powered lawyer. I remember two things she said to me about the experience.
First, even though there aren't any composition classes, she learned to write with clarity and power. You write a substantial essay each semester on one of the books, and then, instead of getting it back with a letter grade and a few remarks scribbled at the end, the teachers sit down with you and ask you about the implications of your ideas. This conversation goes a lot better if you've written clearly and forcefully. It's a powerful incentive to develop those skills.
Second, law school -- which everyone told her was so difficult -- turned out to be easy. "Try reading Kant and Hegel," she said. "After that, law books are easy."
Full disclosure: I went to St. John's, too. Later, I got a PhD in Philosophy, and taught at a few schools. But the whole time, I missed the energy and intensity of life at St. John's. The life of an ordinary academic, where you have little time for your students, where research and publication is always the top priority, and where your true peers are not at your institution, is a thin substitute for what undergrad education had led me to yearn for. Eventually, I came back to St. John's, and have been teaching here for the last couple of decades. Now, my top priority is my students, and my most important, most intense and energetic conversations are with them. I wouldn't give it up for any other job.
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@JAD Our son attends SJC in Santa Fe and we're so grateful for the amazing experience he's had. I've met many of the Tutors and I'm so impressed and touched by how much they care for these young adults. Thank you for the special work you're doing!
@JAD As the parent of "Firstie" at the Naval Academy who was "Jesuit and Ivy trained", this is an exceptional column by Frank Bruni and yours is a most interesting reply. I only wish that USNA and St John's had more mixture beyond the croquet match. I will now take a tour or attend something at St John's on my next trip to Annapolis. #GoNavyBeatStJohns (in croquet).
@JAD I don't understand the claim that teaching are research/publication are incompatible. If we are not doing active research, what are we supposed to teach?
1
At $66K a year, I don't find this school contrarian. It seems right in line with the elitist image that private colleges and Universities like to project to make students willing to break the bank to be a part of. They also have a low 4 year graduation rate, maybe a reflection of its very high cost. My vote would be for a University like ASU whose stated goal is to enroll as many students as possible at a more reasonable cost and provide creative ways to educate and retain its students. Certainly not as rarified, but more of a public good.
@edv961 Speaking from experience cost is not the factor leading to a lower graduation rate. The college isn't for everyone. It is demanding and as a result students drop out. I also think that you are throwing the term 'elitist' around a little too freely. Learn to be a bit more comfortable living with ambiguity.
5
What a wonderful concept. But I also think that for many professions, economic literacy is a essential. So I hope St. John's requires courses in macro and micro economics.
3
@Erik Is Adam Smith ok?
Rigor, that's what it's all about. St. John's, of both Annapolis and Santa Fe, educates [leads forth]. It doesn't train. I went to Reed, the same rigor in my day, late fifties/early sixties. One learns how to learn, how to dig deeply; the framework and essential skill for a lifetime.
8
Thanks, a great article. I hope many in higher education read it.
3
Bruni slides right by the real reason for the price cut in only 8 words: "St. John’s wants more comers than it gets" Nothing revolutionary there.
@JC Schultz
What's wrong with that?
I applaud St. John's philosophy and methodology.
6
Agree with everything the author says, but if he wants to experience a school that makes St. John's look like Arizona State (no offense to either the former or the latter), he should check out Deep Springs College.
2
@Tim
2 years. Men only.
1
So far, no alumni have made comments, although I'm sure some will. I loved St. John's, and all Bruni says is true, BUT...the reality is, St. John's is a brutal place for women and people of color, or at least was when I was there in the early to mid nineties. It was amazing how much frat-boy culture existed in a place with no fraternities.
I know they have tried to do some positive work to address this---but obviously, one way to do it would be to include some diversity in the curriculum. I truly believe there are ways to do this without compromising the program---especially if they included works by de Beouvoir, Fanon, and others, who in their own way are in dialogue with the Western tradition. I have to think it would be harder to belittle and demean women and people of color in the classrooms if our voices were given the same textual deference as those of white men.
It's been a tumultuous few years to watch as an alumni. I love the place dearly. The school kind of broke some of our hearts when Roosevelt did an appearance on Tucker Carlson. Lowering the tuition to make it more accessible is a great first step. I hope there will be more. Many won't like me airing dirty laundry, but I was never much for "The Prince"---I always liked "Discourses on Livy" much better.
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@Sarah
Wow. I'm sorry to hear you thought St. John's was "brutal" and had a "frat-boy culture." I graduated in 1980, in Annapolis, and I definitely didn't have the experience you describe.
5
@Sarah I was there in the mid nineties and did not find it “brutal” to women. I found it disappointing, I will grant you, that we did not read more books by female thinkers, of which there certainly would have been many fine choices.
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@Gribbly
Everyone has there own experience; just like in a family, siblings can have different experiences. All I can tell you is I found it such. When some of my classmates tried to start a (gasp) a campus women's group, they, and me when I joined them were derided on multiple public platforms. I heard women's voices spoken over, derided, in both classes and in all social settings. And now I know, having come in contact with more of my alumni after the Carlson mess, that I was not alone in this experience. The Great Books, because they have been written by men, can also be used in a social setting with young people as a weapon to silence and demean. I'm glad you had a good experience. For me, St. John's is like a relative I love in rehab----I'm hoping it will come out better than it went in.
1
Dude, you can't eat Kant. Nothing wrong with learning a skill or trade or profession that can land you a decent-paying job. I'd love to wallow in the Aeneid for four years but it wouldn't hurt to take a few practical classes in programming or engineering.
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@Eyeballs You are correct , you cant eat Kant, or Kafka or Kierkegaard. You also don't have to go to college, you can go to Apex Technical School ( remember those ads for Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Repair Technicians?) or some other trade school. Franks point is that when one has a rounded education one and can advance in their careers.
My wife and I studied philosophy in the 70's when CUNY was free for NY residents - and we never regretted our decision and it has helped me in my ( very successful ) business career. Our daughter has her degree in Philosophy as well ( from a top tier expensive school - in case you were thinking my wife had the luxury because our education was virtually free - our daughters cost a bundle ) and she is now on the path to successful career that has nothing to do with Philosophy per se.
What we all learned, above everything, more than the Iliad or the Odyssey or Sarte or Plato is ...knowing what we dont know!
In my business life I learned that what hampers many people is not knowing what they dont know.
And Apex technical school and its like will not teach you that.
5
@Eyeballs several years ago a young couple moved into the house next door. Both were medical doctors. After we got to know them a little, they told us about their undergraduate years at St. Johns in Md. I was thrilled to find out that they don’t work for grades in their courses. For a professor like myself, the students’ preoccupation with getting an “A” rather than the scholarship that the grade is supposed to represent was always depressing. How wonderful it would have been to teach students (or tutor them) for the thrill of learning rather than the gold medal they think they will get at the end.
4
Why do so many people believe that an undergraduate degree should be the equivalent of attending a vocational high school? "Wallowing" in the Aeneid, especially if you read it in Latin and translate it into English as you go, gives you excellent skills in your own first language, and discussing its unfolding story hones your analytical abilities. You'll need both those things in your professional life, whether or not you go on to grad school in law, engineering, librarianship, programming, teaching, etc., etc., where you really do learn a trade.
1
On the other hand, the percentage rise in college-educated people has not improved general critical thinking. It seems unlikely that reading the classics, even in their original language, would have stemmed the tide of ignorance.
Yet, what *is* needed is a return to a classical understanding of rhetoric, rhetoric that’s not merely “rhetorical” but also analyzes the logic of use of language itself. For once I will blame both sides equally in this lack, whether it be the Left’s bent for appropriation of meaning or the Right’s disregard for meaning in and of itself. We’re well into a new Dark Age of ignorant armies clashing by night.
2
"If digital devices and social media yank people from one trumpet blast to the next, St. John’s trains them to hold a note — to caress it, pull at it, see what it can withstand and what it’s worth."
I sent this statement to my four grandchildren who are attached to their devices.
One of the best of Frank Bruni columns.
2
We need to look into the past president of St. John’s in Annapolis, Christopher Nelson. Fast Forward to the Me Too Movement in recognizing his sexual misconduct and aggression towards women was not only harmful but completely wrong. Sure. Those intelligent men of the past can teach all human beings a thing or two. However, the revered President Nelson of St. John’s in Annapolis truly believed females were toys to play with. To do with as he pleased. Not the message this college should stand for.
2
Do any people of color attend this college? Why don’t they also make Sanskrit or Swahili or Hebrew compulsory?
It is not a good idea to study Science by reading Pythagoras or Galileo or Newton because the terminology is antiquated and the method awkward.
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@ThinkingAloud
You're missing the point.
Maybe a semester or 2 at St' John's would illuminate the point. LOL
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If they want people to study the classics, I recommend learning Hebrew and then studying the Tanach (Masoretic Text) in the original language. Talk about seeing thing in a different light (since it was written without vowels and punctuation).
2
I often say I live in the gray zone. I like it. Many people despise it, desperately searching for black or white.
1
Just to play the Devil's Advocate, here, why not have a college curriculum that teaches that the earth is flat? Surely (may I call you Shirley?), this would take students out of the corrupting, dumbed-down ideas of the current age and bring them closer to those who thought that the sun was exactly two inches in diameter (Heraclitus-the-Facetious).
One problem with Classical learning and Classical argumentation is that it is based on Platonic dualisms relating to appearances versus reality. Reality, of course, being something that nobody can see, or prove, but can only be believed. One only has to listen to Ted Cruz for a few minutes to watch him count the angels and tuck dollar bills in their bras as they poll dance on the heads of pins. Students would do well to read the late Richard Rorty on this subject.
For language training, I would recommend any major living language combined with at least a year or two living in a country that speaks it. French, alone, will teach you most of the ten-dollar latinized words that make up English. Some kids speak two or three languages. I know, I taught them in international schools. I even introduced some of them to their fourth (4th) language!
I have nothing against reading the Classics and getting a good smattering of Renaissance and Enlightenment reading. But a lot of interesting progress has been made in thought since then. The problem with schools like this is that they think they need to OPPOSE new though.
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@Al Mostonest
I disagree with the supposition of your last sentence.
St. John's method is to teach students how to think. A thorough understanding of the great minds and thinking of the classics with the understanding of where questions may lead will enable students to fully understand new and original thought.
That's a priceless gift. It will serve students well throughout their lifetime and enrich that life.
I applaud St. John's. And Frank Bruni for introducing me to a college that is not all about sports and rote learning. The ability to think is a gift St. John's gives that will keep giving for a lifetime and to future generations.
2
@Butterfly: No one with any learning thought the earth was flat. And the other language taught at St. John's? French.
Gothenburg University has the same, but just a single programme called Liberal Arts.
How exciting! The cynicism in comments below is largely uninformed. Students who succeed with this kind of curriculum can enter any field they choose. College as job preparation is far too narrow an experience to produce the kinds of thinkers who graduate from this program.
8
It seems that there are two articles here,one on the unique program of St. John's,and a second on the smoke and mirrors game on financial aid that colleges and universities play with students. I put myself through SJC in the early 70's by working every campus job I could find, including washing the cigarette butt infested lunch dishes of the prep school kids dining overhead, some financial aid,working summers as well as taking off one year to finance my education. St. John's has always struggled financially, and may well do so into the future. Limited (by design) enrollment, high student turnover (it was 75% over 4 years in my time), an aging infrastructure are issues.Kudos to the current admin for turning around a multimillion dollar deficit. But the hard truth is, even with some transparency in pricing, small college liberal arts degree are still well beyond the means of most working and middle class families without going into major debt. The unique aspect of the program sets it apart from current educational/vocational trends, but also at a cost. SJC is a small and insular community. A large percentage of tutors are themselves SJ grads. The college was recently criticized for a sexual harassment policy that was years late in coming and fell far short of what victimized students wanted. A private prep school founded by SJ tutors has been rocked by scandal of predatory sexual conduct. Finally, one wonders why SJC is beloved by the far right American Enterprise Institute.
2
Please read Murray Sperber’s book Beer and Circus to understand why the nation’s llarge public universities are like they are. The former teacher’s colleges have also adopted this model and have moved from student centered culture to a publish or perish paradigm for its professoriate.
1
"What a gift. What an education".....and what a crock.
Actually, I agree with St. John's philosophy but not with a column that morphs into an embedded advertisement. The school may not need it to attract students, especially as it lowers tuition, but does need the hoopla to attract the multi-millionaires (billionaires!). There is no link made in the column to the drudgery faced by public-education faculty and students as the students cope with lecture halls with seats as far as the eye can see, professors either overwhelmed as mini-research institute themselves or degraded as adjuncts cobbling together a MacDonald's livelihood and all this carried out in crumbling infrastructure.
The problem with the column is not one of commission but of omission. Let the students at St. John's ponder that under a leafy cottonwood tree.
1
Higher education should focus on two things: learning how to learn, and learning how to think.
Master those, and you can do anything.
Sounds like St John's has it about right.
p.
4
"There is no rigorous and effective deconstruction without the faithful memory of philosophies and literatures, without the respectful and competent reading of texts of the past..."
Jacques Derrida
9
Wow! To wake up to this with my coffee! I feel hopeful and energized for the future! College, at it's root and with its original purpose: guiding young minds in how to ask the right questions, especially when there may never be right answers.
This is the college experience I dream of for everyone!! We'd all be better off for it! For those lucky few who have it, I urge you to indulge, indulge, indulge!
6
I graduated from Saint John's in 2001. Some thoughts on the piece and my experiences there.
"Jack Isenberg, a senior, told me that St. John’s had taught him how much is unknowable. “We have to be comfortable in ambiguity,” he said."
This is the biggest benefit that SJC had in my life. It opened me up to questioning my preconceptions and helped me to relinquish my need for certainty. Without my experiences at this college my upbringing and social programming would likely have guided me to take a very different set of paths in life.
Concerning the assertion about "humility". Not quite. To be fair, I imagine the author probably meant humility in the way we approach new ideas and concepts, learning the value of divorcing our egos from our opinions and ideas, and viewing the pursuit of truth as a collaborative endeavor. I think SJC does teach this, but I don't know how many of us successfully internalize it. I think a lot of us tend to be arrogant little snots, and that SJC even exaggerates these tendencies, precisely because the culture at SJC teaches us that we're exceptional for having spent so much time contemplating weighty concepts and immersed in thoughtful discussions that have taught us to be "humble".
But in an era where we seem preoccupied with placing outrage and moral posturing before curiosity and intellectual integrity, I think the world desperately needs more of what this place has to offer, and that it needs to be made accessible to more people.
13
I know St. Johns well, by reputation and many of its graduates. The plaudits are deserved.
But the criticism is deserved too. As the head of a progressive school in Manhattan for many years, I fought to sustain a counter-cultural approach against a constant battering of pragmatism, competition and vocationalism.
Some comments observe the absence of voices of women or folks of color in the "classics" curriculum. Others defend that as part and parcel of the intellectual tradition that sharpens critical capacity. It is not either/or. The same open-minded, probing, intensely intellectual approach can be taken with contemporary authors, philosophers and artists from a broad variety of sources.
As delightful as it is to acknowledge St. Johns, it also stipulates to the subconscious notion that the essence of intellectual thought and tradition is found in the Euro-Centric classics. Yes, that is part of our heritage, but believing it to be superior is a cultural and intellectual arrogance that does not serve us well.
I wish Frank would visit the Calhoun School in NYC, where a deep, engaging approach to education is paired with a relentless commitment to contemporary social justice, the consideration of traditions and beliefs outside our own experience, and the unfettered joy of discovery and imagination. And, I had a group of middle school students pondering Kant's categorical imperative as part of a discussion of ethical expectations in 7th grade.
9
your description of St John's reminds me of my undergraduate years at the University of Chicago. no Greek was not wired which didn't stop some from taking it. the first two years was mostly core courses which included many original writings just like you described.
unfortunately in my opinion they have lost much of that Focus also. not entirely but in my view largely. perhaps st john's will goad them and others to change back to giving an education that prepares one for life and not just a tool that is useful for a job which has often disappeared by the time one graduates
1
The most interesting thing about this piece and St John's College is that this school's philosophy is not a secret. It's right in front of us and is known to be a better course for advanced education and the preparation of young people for successful lives.
Why can't we see it and embrace it?
3
@Davym
The answer to your question is our obsession, as a society, with money.
Years ago I read that an of at St. John's is that these four years are preparatory to graduate work and adulthood. Four years with the classics are to establish a foundation that a person can then use in whatever profession they want to pursue.
There are professions where a classical intellectual foundation might not be required. Car mechanic is an example. But that shows that not all individuals need a college education.
Discernment then is important for any young person. Appropriate help is vital in assisting any young person to recognize what is their calling, whether their calling is car mechanic or philosophy teacher.
If I knew in my youth what I know today, and had the ability to attend St. John's, I would have made a bee line to their admissions desk. That is one reason why I believe that a second bachelors for adults would better our society. A study that commences in our 50s when a person has built the experience that helps them discern more clearly who and what they are.
Short of that there are now MOOCS. Thanks to a MOOC from the University of Pennsylvania I studied The Odyssey. What a masterpiece of poetry and story! From Homer I discovered Hesiod, Ovid and Virgil. Then the amazing revelation: These texts are equal in importance to Biblical text. Then another revelation: A committed, emotionally fearless, intellectually demanding study of Biblical text can lead a person to reject God and then "know" God better than they otherwise could.
4
I have a bookstore in Philadelphia and this summer a young man came in, a student at this school. He wanted books in ancient Greek, a good copy of Don Quixote, Thucydides. He was the most well-read 19 year-old I have encountered. He didn’t text anyone in my store, in fact he never opened his phone. This young man’s brain will be teased with the knowledge he needs to open new doors and create wonders for us all. St. Johns is definitely on the right path - I wish I had gone there 45 years ago. Thank you Frank Bruni for bringing this story to the Times!
11
Sixty years ago I wanted to go there. My parents said it was just "too far out." This article makes me aware again of what I missed. (I ended up at Wellesley instead.)
3
It starts with the concept of what value is in education. I might value the strong critical thinking skills and intellectual curiosity of real liberal arts education.
But that is useless if I cannot afford it, because what I value is not what employers will hire. I can't buy a Lamborghini, either, even though I would really like one.
Kudos to St. Johns, and to the students who can thrive there, and to the employers who look for a St. Johns education. But in a market that has commodotized humans pretty much the same way the commodotized bottled water and phones, it is cold comfort to know you are the best you can be, when your worth to the market - if you cannot find your niche - is nil.
4
I felt a bit envious after reading this article. Would have been great to attend a college like this. I suspect faculty are carefully selected, and held to rigorous standards. So are students and administrators. Lodging, catering, facilities are Spartan. Kids discussing Kant - holy mackerel - sounds great.
As an educator, I think I would weep with joy if I walked into a class where students were articulate, well-read, interested, focused, and humble. Largely because I was none of these things as a student. I am not sure I am any of these things as an educator. I should think that I had died, gone to heaven.
I have one curiosity that was not satisfied. Is cell phone usage restricted on campus? How much time are students spending on social media (I suspect the national average is 'every waking minute')?
5
there is no, repeat NO, reason that public school education, especially early education when, as a.n. whitehead tells us, an enthusiasm for learning should begin, cannot be grounded in the same critical methods.
no matter, repeat NO MATTER, the content.
in a single generation, teacher training and school administration reform (master teachers in charge, educrats in support, not control) could get the job done.
6
@ecco
Amen.
Congratulations and my most sincere thanks to St. Johns College, to the parents who raise offspring with the ability to handle a wisdom-instilling education, and most of all to the students at St. Johns, who will no doubt comprise many of our most capable leaders in coming decades.
Mr. Bruni's column today is a very welcome counterpoint to news of the rising debacle in other elite schools where whiny, spineless, self-important and clueless students demand "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces," as they prepare to be flattened like swatted flies by the inevitable vicissitudes of everyday life.
8
Teaching at a NJ State University, I was troubled when I would ask simple questions to students like, "Who fought in WWII?", and see blank faces.
I realized the problem wasn't the kids, but how they were educated before they got to me. So I began to infuse my classes with historical writings- the underpinnings of Western Civilization- related back to current day and the course topics. My hope was the IF they didn't know every detail that led to the creation of the Magna Carta, they would at least know what it was, what it did, and how it underlines concepts of liberty and freedom.
But I also make a point to include Women and People of Color in my discussions, because many of my students have NEVER seen people who look like them considered in the "Canon." This matters!
So for all that is great about St. John's- and I admire the school and will suggest my High School son look at it- leaving out the contributions of Women and People of Color is a glaring hole in an otherwise seemingly wonderful education.
6
Trust students with great ideas and time enough to devour them and our future will be more secure. Oh, and lower the cost. St. John’s is welcome to that party. Drew University, a militantly liberal arts college, cut its tuition by more than 20% over a year ago.
1
How refreshing. A college that educates students, preparing them for "all of life." I was lucky enough to experience college- undergraduate and post-graduate-in a somewhat similar environment. Not a lot of fun, but I'm blessed even now in the autumn of my years with an enriched intellect and a burning curiosity. I owe all that I have to those administrators and professors who inspired me to hang tough and survive academic boot camp.
4
I am heartened by this column. When I was considering colleges 40 years ago this fall as a kid from a very large, supercharged meritocratic (as we'd say now) middle class public high school in the middle of Long Island, I only considered three colleges: the University of Virginia, William & Mary and St John's. Both of the Virginia public colleges still had very strong liberal arts disciplines that had yet to be infected by trendiness, and St John's consciously resisted them. Ultimate, my choice was ruddered by cost and the fact that I needed a more diverse student body - so I went to UVA and was delighted beyond words after 4 years - but I've been saddened to see the likes of St John's decline in public awareness in the intervening decades. It shouldn't.
2
Although my first attempt at obtaining a college education came up short, I was assigned "1984" in English 101. All the engineering courses I took have long since faded in the slowly enveloping fog of old age, Orwell's masterpiece still remains in the forefront of how I make sense of the world.
Meeting someone with a deep understanding of the classics, far more than the thin patina I possess, is indeed a great pleasure.
3
The underlying premise of this excellent article speaks to the value of the liberal arts as making one truly educated. In most chosen professions, any employer can teach the skills necessary for job success. What they cannot teach is an understanding of the world, how to write and communicate well, how to reason and think critically, and how to extrapolate contemporary problems to broader contexts. These are the skills most employers value, according to numerous studies.
The siren song of vocationalism resonates strongly with parents and their kids who are forking out piles of money and incurring mountains of debt, all to land that first job. The liberal arts provide an education that will equip those same students with the ability to navigate the inevitable career changes that characterize today’s workforce realities so that they will be equally prepared for that LAST job. And these same students will be our most productive - and educated - citizens.
6
I am glad to see an article about a college that is concerned first with the life of the mind. I fear it will not be enough to turn the tide that is swamping good small colleges that focus on liberally educating their students in front of and with the tutelage of full professors who prioritize undergraduate education. Schools that put ROI first and market themselves as gateways to entry level jobs have the attention of most in this era of huge student debt and outlandish tuition rate growth. I still hold out hope that St. John's and other strong liberals arts colleges will regain their place in higher education. As MLK, Jr. said, we live in an age of guided missiles and misguided men. We need to restore humane learning to the place it not only deserves, but that we desperately need.
4
As a father and a brother to two St John’s (Annapolis) alumni I can attest to the quality of education and its success. My brother class of ‘94 is now a Nationally recognized physician in Addiction Medicine and my daughter ‘06 is a successful senior program manager at a software firm. Both have placed their ability to think critically, discuss and argue any debate with clear and knowledgeable base of understanding on their undergraduate training at St John’s. Thank you for this article.
9
While I did not have the opportunity to attend St. John's, I did have a solidly liberal arts education at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as a high school education that emphasized literature and history. One of the most rigorous (and memorable) experiences was a two semester course (at a Jesuit institution): Logic and Epistemology which sharpened my critical thinking skills. Some years later, when I interviewed for an HR position for which I did not have the academic background, I was hired because, as the manager noted, "you have analytical and communication skills to work with people at all levels of the organization. You can learn the specifics of the position." How right he was! Those four years gave me a world of experience and challenge but also credibility when I embarked on an academic career in an increasingly professionally-oriented world. Some days I feel like a voice in the wilderness when I champion the value of the Humanities as so necessary in our fragmented society.
9
I'm a graduate of Shimer College, located in northern Illinois. The school, founded in 1853, is now a part of North Central College. But the rigorous classroom wrestling with big ideas remains. If you are at all tempted by Mr. Bruni's description, I urge you to explore. There are a number of schools to challenge yourself with the classics; learn critical thinking and teamwork in a classroom without an exploited adjunct instructor. I have never regretted my choice.
3
Most people think of a college degree as a "requirement" to open doors to a good career...and income.
This op-ed on St. John's reminds us of the higher purposes of college: learning how to learn, learning to use the faculties we have, learning to be inquisitive and to discover, learning for the joy of thinking through questions and problems, and learning for a command of knowledge; all of which enrich life.
That said, most of us cannot afford the luxury of a St. John's experience; not because of the cost of attending St. John's, but because our materialistic society values the graduate who can step right into an international banking and currency trading career more than the graduate who knows that a life well lived is not measured by a bank account balance.
14
Great column! I wish I had the opportunity to experience that type of education. As I'm in my " golden years" I would enjoy it. Although, lets be practical. Unless these students are lucky enough to have a trust fund, how are they going to market themselves. I guess its more money spent for a practical degree at another university.....
1
@Oliver check out St. John's graduate program on both campuses. If my memory serves me, I believe the courses are offered in the summer.
Our daughter attended and graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis. It was a good decision for her.
2
@Oliver Hillsdale College has FREE online courses on ancient Greeks , the constitution, literature. Not as rigorous as these but if you do the reading, you can learn a lot!
1
Our daughter attended Kings College in Halifax. Kings was first located NYC, being the original Columbia. I believe the name may still be over the lintel of one of its buildings. Kings has a Foundation Program in which the students read the classics (science, literature, philosophy, etc.) and discuss them in tutorials. They must produce a paper each week. Sunday evenings the older students gather in the lounge to assist the first years in their writing and thinking skills. Our daughter changed demonstrably from her time at Kings. She grew more articulate, her writing vastly improved, and she broadened her interests. All of this for a fraction of what U.S. schools charge. And no guns. And health insurance at a reasonable cost. Go Canada and Kings.
9
The best description that I heard from a St John's (Annapolis) grad was that it was an intellectual "bootcamp". Requiring one to study math in ancient Greek was less a matter of relevance than enabling a student to learn that with intensive focus, a person can do anything. Unfortunately, most highly selective colleges substitute choice but not mandatory rigor
9
I hope that "rigorous intellectualism" is not code for a curriculum that excludes nonwestern ways of knowing. I hope that "rigorous intellectualism" is not code for only "the classics." I hope that "rigorous intellectualism" welcomes all students who demonstrate the necessary curiosity and commitment to learning and not merely the near-affluent and affluent.
5
@Julie Haught
Enlighten us: in a few words what is
a 'nonwestern way of knowing' the laws of physics?
Bravissimo, Frank. What a great column. I only wish I could have been one of the lucky ones to attend SJC.
9
The ancients used to say 'a sound mind in a sound body'. St John's s may not have a pool, but I notice it does offer outdoors activities, fencing and various team sports. Developing our bodies and getting acquainted with nature are as important as reading Aristotle: they too expand our understanding and appreciation of the world, and open up new lines of questioning.
3
Mr. Bruni notes many good points about St. John's, but not what I have found to be a negative: each professor must teach every subject, on most of which he or she is necessarily not an expert. I once taught at a distinguished university not far away. Over some years my Dept. found none of St. John's students admissible, because their knowledge was inadequate. Contrast the Oxford tutorial system, where twice a week each student must write a research paper to answer a major question and then go one-on-one for an hour with a world-class expert — the College tutor in that field — who has heard every possible answer to the question and shows you what you hadn't thought of. Three days later, another major question with a reading list, a paper, followed by an hour to understand what you hadn't seen. Three years of that teaches students to have a critical mind, the thing most sorely lacking in the U.S. For the results, compare British politicians with their American counterparts.
26
@Robert Wallace
I'll compare Boris Johnson to Donald Trump, please.
@Robert Wallace
I guess Boris Johnson didn't go to Oxford
1
What a wonderful column and a refreshing break from the political wars fought in the comments of the opposing sides of the NYT's daily columns. Kudos Mr. Bruni. St. John's graduates may be tiny in numbers, but the students described are surely mighty in impact as they join the workforce and better their communities! Well done.
13
Yes - and no. I have so many unanswered questions, primary of which is what happens in those last 2 years of college. I grew up in an education oriented family. My parents talked about the idea of "the educated person," which in their minds was about far more than job training. So, they saw to it that we took courses like art & music history, had adequate literature, philosophy (not hard in the days of core curriculum). This mindset was about being an integrated, knowledgeable, thoughtful person throughout life - and becoming a life-long learner.
That said, my actual major was nursing which, of course, came with a ready career path upon graduation. So, what do these obviously bright, thoughtful students do when they graduate? I suppose professional or grad school are options. I'm definitely not saying that college should merely be job training, but many students do not have the resources or luxury of doing 4 years and then thinking about how to support themselves.
12
As a graduate of an elite and intellectually rigorous liberal arts college who went on to a career in higher ed, I appreciate this essay. It demonstrates that the emphasis on "career training" we are all (outside St. Johns and a couple of other places) being pushed to value is useless unless the foundation is built. That foundation is critical thinking, analytical skill, and fluency of language.
I studied Greek and Latin in college; I use Latin every day in my own work and in preparing my classes. I do so at a state university with a radically different student body than that of St Johns (not affluent, not privileged) with the same devotion as I read in the comments of the St Johns instructors. But even as my students value the things they take away from my classes, the work I do is devalued by the legislators who control the funding for my university.
I would love to instill a love of classical education in everyone, but the preparation needed to do that work is missing in most of our first-year students. Public education has bought into the career-path curriculum fallacy and students often are uninterested in reading for its own sake. Students from the urban core, who sacrifice so much to earn a degree, also have not the leisure for the weighty questions tackled by the St Johns student.
I applaud the principle behind SJC, but let's work on getting the less privileged a great education, shall we? One that is inclusive of subject and generous in concept?
20
Kudos, Mr. Bruni!
This piece stopped me in my tracks with its refreshingly compelling story as well as how that was told. I'm now only 70 and wondering whether it's not too late to attend St. John's.
This shining example once again proves the adage: Everything old is new again. What a way to live one's life!
17
Would that I could have afforded to send my children to college. Would that my parents could have afforded to send me. Would that our educational system was available to all.
24
There are some problems with the St. Johns model.
Reading original texts is usually a very inefficient way to understanding the current state of knowledge about the subject.
We now know a lot more about geometry than Euclid did.
Better would be reading Euclid from the perspective of our present understanding of geometry.
16
@Joe Sneed One of the great things about mathematics is that your conclusions don't change when you shift your "perspective" and your "understanding". Perhaps that's why post-modernists think that it is just a tool of the "patriarchy".
We know a "lot more" geometry now than Euclid did, but his work provides the foundation. At least the St John's students are provided with tools and a solid basis of knowledge for proceeding in any direction that they like.
2
Often the original works are dense, convoluted, and deeply flawed.
Both Copernicus's De Revolutionibus and Newton's Principia come to mind -- Copernicus with his erroneous insistence on circular, uniform motion, and greater use of epicycles than Ptolemy did; it is said that only a handful of Newton's contemporaries ever read him well. (In calculus, his methods were considered labyrinthine and Leibniz's formulations and notation system were used instead.)
Reading portions could be useful, but good histories of science and intellectual biographies would make for better, more accessible fare -- and the combination would achieve much more.
It seems an utter waste of time to have students "learn" Greek instead of a modern language -- which would be better acquired through a year abroad, anyway. Reading excellent translations of the original works would work well. Better that students read Plato's Republic and understand its ideas than that an additional impediment, mastery of the original Greek, be mandated.
I wonder, though, if that's really what happens at St. John's. For example, Einstein's book Relativity, which was written for a popular audience, is the one being studied, not his actual, technically and mathematically, dense papers on relativity.
In any event, St. John's foundational education, small seminars, and intensive reading of the classics and discussing their ideas has always struck me as a smart approach.
3
All for so much of the general principles Bruni -- and St John's--are vaunting here, challenges in the face of so many destructive tendencies in higher ed at this moment. But while I am far fro ready to throw out the 'classics,' as Bruni and St John's term them, I am also deeply wary of the kind of hypostatization of them as an Arnoldian best of what humanity has thought, etc. To learn truly to, as the student here says, 'be comfortable in ambiguity,' students need to learn to see through the eyes of other people than white European men. Sounds like a cliche to the St. J's crowd, but our collective global history tells us that truth every single day.
7
One of my favorite bosses went to a school in Belgium that taught only Latin and Greek and mathematics. This was pre college, and a private school. His breadth and depth of knowledge was a sight to behold, and I envy him to this day. He went on to a PhD in Molecular Biology and is now a VP at a biotech company.
21
St. John's was my dream college when I was a senior in High School. But, I chose a different path.
Today, as the CEO of an engineering company, I value good writers and speakers and thoughtful employees. Calculus is overrated. I am a huge proponent of teaching humanities and the classics. This leads to intelligent, open-minded problem solvers who can write-up their findings and solutions in a way that clients can understand.
76
Calculus may be overrated, but it is very much part of the St. John’s curriculum.
I received a similar college experience at Bard College at Simons Rock except the average age for an incoming freshmen there is 16. Similar classroom setup, similar canon style curriculum. It was a wonderful college experience that far exceeded any university or professional training I received later on after leaving.
12
Bruni has the right idea: seize the moment of collective liberal dread in Trump's America and start questioning the entire neo-liberal enterprise, starting with higher education.
I can think of no greater institution that has failed the last couple of generations of America than higher education. They might have been hungry students eager to learn when they entered school but they emerged entitled consumers taught ideologies in an ever closing mind by the time they leave. The price tag at the Ivy League place I went to just ensures the mind is closed that much tighter.
Can we begin to question political correctness as a liberal religion next? Why teach kids what they can and cannot say? Why not teach them how to think instead? And can we keep focusing on the price tag? If college was accessible to all we would not have such toxic charges of "elitism" every time a complex idea like climate change surfaces. And can we question Identity politics -- which divide -- and consider instead forging common visions of assimilation that lend credence to the ethnic, racial and gender discriminations of the past and present? Identity politics that have been the rage on elite campuses created Trump's base. No question.
The anti-intellectualism that has always permeated this country has penetrated the walls of most places of higher learning. Students absorb this.It shows in the way social media discusses Trump.
I look forward to more articles from Bruni on this subject.
25
This was the education my two children received at the classical lyceum in Italy, 5 years Latin, 5 years Greek, 5 years Philosophy plus all the rest, including Dante, art history, math and physics. Guess what? It was free and boy do I feel as lucky as they do. No better preparation for university.
42
@Celeste Many New Yorkers for about 110 years received a free and terrific education at the Cooper Union for art and engineering and at several city colleges.
The corporate media does not want the people to learn that old and recent history!
2
While completely fascinating, I think our real focus should be on teaching people cause and effect. And I mean all people, not just college grads.
One of our biggest problems today is people can't work out there are ramifications of their actions. They can't look at the totality of what they are doing and understand why it might be wrong or bad for them.
We need to teach cause and effect. Otherwise, frankly, we are sunk as a species.
5
@mj
No worries there. Aristotle's in the curriculum: efficient, material, formal, and final cause, all there for students to contemplate.
1
It’s called “ critical thinking”
1
As a St. John's graduate, I found this piece heartwarming. Going there was one of the best things that ever happened to me: the use of discussion ("active learning" in edspeak) taught me to do my own thinking and to listen to other people's opinions. As for the tilt towards dead white males in "the program," consider this. You cannot teach everything in four years. What you can do is stretch students' minds and teach them to think in all sorts of different ways: literary, philosophical, mathematical, and scientific. This is excellent preparation for "lifelong learning," another popular slogan in edbiz. First, learn how to think. You can learn other material later, in grad school, law school, or simply in life.
83
@Philip Holt I agree completely, with one enormous caveat: *If you have the money.*
The American higher education system is increasingly bifurcated between those who can view their undergraduate years as a time for exploration, and a far larger group who must view them as their last chance to prepare for a career that might conceivably allow a middle class life.
We can certainly debate how effective the smaller, more "elite" group is pursuing their experimentation and personal growth. But we shouldn't ignore the elephant in the room: most college students don't believe they have that option, and most of those are right to hold that view.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/students-at-most-colleges-dont-pick...
5
What's the highest calling of higher education?
There seems no high calling. What's valued politically, economically is stability, what occurs biologically is increase of numbers of the human species, what education teaches as morality is to view all people as equal, that everybody either advances together or is held equally in place and everybody is overseen by leaders who are merely first among equals.
What's valued technologically and in business is product which serves everybody equally, does not distinguish between people. The great sin of modernity, though of course people do it every day, is to distinguish, discriminate between people and things, to have an eye for quality. It's frowned upon to state this or that person is more beautiful or talented, etc. than that person. Increasingly to have a clear eye for differences in this and that means a person is merely being subjective, that it's merely their own opinion and does not reflect the reality of things.
The ideal society apparently, whether right wing authoritarian or religious or socialistic is a world in which the citizens are educated as much as possible to not see differences between each other, a world in which advances in arts and sciences and technology do not open differences between people but serve all equally. Essentially modern education is in so many ways turn a blind eye for the good of society or find something to do which helps everyone equally.
Woe to the person who strives to see.
1
@Daniel12
By the eighth grade, students are supposed to know simple arithmetic; make change, manage a checkbook, fill out an income tax form, write a simple sentence and paragraph. By that time a student should have some knowledge of general science, and some history and civics.
If a kid has not mastered those skills, what is the value of higher education? Too many people with college degrees have not mastered simple skills.
Most educated people like the "great books," mainly because we are familiar with them. The problem with a "classical" education is that it does not teach socialization and does not offer an entry into a "real" world.
The "great books" cirriculum, ala Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer Adler at the University of Chicago is great, and is taught at many colleges, and should be offered at most, but before students undertake the classics, they should have mastered 8th grade math and demonstrate that they can write a simple sentence.
St. John's shares the city of Annapolis with the US Naval Academy, which may strike some as two opposites rubbing shoulders. Back in the early 1980s, a confidant commandant of the the Academy was conversing with a St. John's student and suggested that the USNA could defeat St. Jon's in any sport. The student reportedly replied, "How about croquet?" This is what the military theorists would recognize as "asymmetrical warfare". I am not sure that concept shows up anywhere in The Great Books other than the Bible, but the point is that the student thought quickly and outside the box, a pretty good set of attributes for a military leader.
SJ and the USNA have played an annual game of croquet since 1983 and SJ has won 29 times. Now that doesn't mean that we should turn over national defense to SJ grads but if I were going to pick folks to analyze intelligence or logistics they would be people with stellar intellects steeped in critical thinking. Think Bletchley Park and the breaking of the Enigma codes. How many of those people would have made great front line warriors? Probably not many. On the other hand, the front line warriors were given a huge edge by the efforts of a collection of brilliant and often quirky citizens who also had the discipline to keep the secrets of BP for close to 30 years.
I also point out that Sigmund Warburg, the notable British merchant banker used to say that the all a successful merchant banker needed was a first in Classics.
56
@Petros Given the absurdity of the original challenge turning over national security to others whose minds are oriented not in such a manner would be wise.
@PetrosHOW aboyt thise navajo Vode talkers? They lved close by the SFe campus..
When I arrived at a small liberal arts college in 1971, the Dean, a crusty old soul, told us that we had come to a place where we would be "educated". While not nearly as intense as the St. John's program, we read the classics, we wrote extensively, and some of us spent our final semester in a seminar on Paul Tillich, the 20th centiry theologian...4 students, one professor.
That college is now shifting resources away from the classics to economics and the hard sciences. Not due to student demand, but due to pressure from parents and others to provide more career preparation.
Learning to think, write, solve complex problems and communicate verbally are critical career skills, sadly lacking in today's STEMified world.
By the way, I had a long and rewarding career in IT. The highest compliment I received came from one division president who said "You are an IT guy that doesn't think like an IT guy. You offer me real solutions to real problems."
Maybe studying Tillich's existentialist theology was the key......
62
@Peter
Since the cost of higher education has risen and parents and students who invest so much money and time of study.. our high school and middle school students could perhaps have an opportunity to study the classics and learn about them perhaps on a lesser level but could affect their critical thinking when they get to college.. I think teachers would welcome the challenge of opening students minds and at the same time learning to process foreign ideas.
8
I had several years of Latin in my public high school, in addition to four years of French. I regret that few public schools today offer Latin, let alone Greek. Those foundation studies help develop students into better readers, writers, and thinkers.
3
My father attended St.John's in the '40's and my daughter is a Junior in Santa Fe - she's developing that almost eerie intellectual calm that he had. The place is anything but a country club for rich kids. St. John's has a long tradition of welcoming ex-military, who, like Odysseus, are trying to find their way home after the war. And don't dare even bring up trigger warnings or safe places - you'll be run off the campus to a chorus of derisive jeers. In fact, each student has a brutal yearly review where the tutors, with the student silently in attendance, discuss and decide whether the student has the intellectual ability to be invited back or not.
It's completely egalitarian. If you want to try, they'll pretty much let you in and often help with tuition along the way. Many students who have failed at traditional education have found themselves through this program. But leave the thin skin at home - it's four years of intellectual boot camp that leaves those able to do it full of wisdom and an enlightened view of the world. Johnnies can think.
127
@John
I don't believe the part where you say "don't dare even bring up trigger warnings or safe places", my experience with St. Johns graduates is that they don't run their peers off campus with derisive jeers, they listen and understand and address the point that was made, perhaps by asking an incisive question.
1
folks have known about St. John s and Reed College for decades.
and 50 years after I graduated university I still would not be able to get in
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When looking at colleges, I’m sorry I didn’t know about St. John’s. But History and Literature at the oldest did help prepare me for a long Wall Street career. Today I’m re-reading the Iliad (perhaps for the fifth time), in Pope’s translation, and comparing it to Butler’s and Fagel’s.
My kids and grandkids have STEM’d it, and we have sparse means to communicate intellectually. To each his own - but educated Americans know Homer, the Bible, and Shakespeare. These three.
W White
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I'm sure their students are quite wealthy and connected and don't need to worry about finding a job with their valuable Greek and Latin degree.
What most of us leave out of the equation is that College didn't prepare people for work in the first place. College simply marked you as a member of that elite club. It wasn't the education that got you the job, it was the club membership that did.
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@Lois Hardly the case. I graduated from SJC in 1984, and my family was far from wealthy. Likewise the majority of my friends' families. The college is extraordinarily generous with financial aid. It specifically aims not to be a school only the wealthy can afford.
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@Lois College should prove to employers, for those so inclined, that you have the ability to learn and you were able to stick to it through four years. When I was in science, math, and electronics classed my instructors told us we'd use 20% or less of the actual lesson plans we struggled through. But if you got through (we had a 75% attrition rate due to a rigorous course load), employers would at least take a look at you. If there was any 'clubbiness' to it, it was from the late night study sessions shared with fellow students, brutal tests, and the sense of accomplishment we had.
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I went to SJC and had a food budget of one dollar a day. Many of us were rather the opposite of wealthy and connected. People in my class went on to become professors, actors, lawyers, journalists, ... It was not our "club membership" that allowed us to pursue our careers, rather our education.
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Sounds like fun, but were would I work afterward.
You can read Hegel (Schopenhauer would call this a waste of time), Voltaire, Marx, Schopenhauer, N.O. Brown, Gray, Dewey, Rorty.... on your own. I know this to be a brute fact for I did it and still do.
Although I'm an engineer, I'm a big fan of the Humanities, especially Western, but this sounds like humanities overload.
But to each their own.
"Experience is a good school, but the fees are high."
Heinrich Heine
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@Prometheus After graduating, I worked in publishing and journalism, corporate communications, and now in marketing for a data and analytics company. Many Johnnies go to grad school (law is a popular area of graduate work, though we have doctors, scientist, writers, entrepreneurs, and folks in many areas of the arts and business).
Sure, you can read the program books on your own, but lots of luck finding another community within which others are reading and dissecting and discussing them in depth. The SJC experience is far more than reading a massive book list and ticking them off; it instills habits of serious inquiry and respect for the views of others - attributes in woefully short supply today.
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@Prometheus
I've had a highly successful career in public radio -- classical music, opera, news, etc. Not only did I have no problem getting a job after graduating from St. John's, but my education there has stood me in good stead, enabling me to converse with anyone and everyone about anything. That makes for good interviews and fearless questioning.
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@Prometheus
After I graduated, I ran a bookstore. Then I became a stockbroker (and passed both Series 7 and Series 8 without tutoring or classes). When online trading started, I retired for a while. When that became financially unsustainable I went back and got another BS (yes, glorified trade school/state university) in my 50's and do medical lab testing.
It's highly unlikely that the trade you majored in out of high school will still exist several decades later. You need to learn how to learn. And enjoy it.
And I don't think I would ever have read Hegel on my own, much less tried to tackle his "Lordship and Bondage."
Dear Mr. Bruni, thanks so much for this article--I graduated from Annapolis and then did a Ph.D. in philosophy with the Jesuits, and an Ivy League law degree. There were times those experiences were very intense, but fundamentally nothing was harder than my first year at St. John's. One of the greatest things about the program is that, at base, the students are teaching themselves. The tutors are just guides. If you succeed at St. John's you have taught yourself the mental skills to study most anything (agreeing of course that technical fields will often require supplementing St. John's with conventional college courses in math and other disciplines).
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Good news....sanity in higher education!
We all need to learn the lessons of respect for ourselves, our neighbors and the environment.
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See https://archive.org/details/StJohnsCollege# for a perspective on St. John’s college circa 1962. It sounds like not much has changed in half a century. Full disclosure: my father directed this film.
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Most of the world's books have been written in the last century. What makes the "Great Books" great? Were people intrinsically smarter in the past? They may be the best books of their time, but there's no especial reason for students to locate themselves so firmly in the past.
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One difference off the top of my head:
The "publishing industry", along with western consumer culture, didn't exist when all these "greats" were penned.
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I went to St. John’s. About “greatness.” If perhaps the best argument for the liberal arts is that it makes good citizens, all Americans can benefit from reading this “canon”—our country was founded on the Enlightenment ideals teased out of centuries of European and Middle Eastern philosophy. That’s a great benefit; but greatness comes in the durability, the re-readability, of these works and how they build upon each other. This is not to say that many other canons, or a mix of readings from various and additional traditions might not be equally valuable. And over time the reading list changes (a bit). But what’s maybe the most important benefit for students, I think, is the intellectual community created when the entire polity has the program in common—when you’ve all read the same things. There are probably many programs that could be designed to have those benefits.
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@David desJardins
What makes them great? They stood the test of time that their wisdom should be heeded. They ask the right questions that we need to think about, even though some of them can never truly be answered.
Great classics are few in number from any age. Were the people smarter, no, but like in any generation there are those who stand out, the geniuses that give us wisdom that time never dims.
We still use the math of those ancient days. The science thought of from them. So much of what we have today was built on what they created or thought of.
In our arrogance we think we are smarter, not true at all. The questions we ask today or at least some of us, were the same questions they asked. They knew human nature as well as we do today.
That is why we study the classics, to be or not to be, that is the question. It will always be the questions that we try to answer for us. Something those classics understood.
When I studied creative writing, it was understood, 99% of what is written is pure crud. It is that 1% that survives to be classic, that makes people think, to dream, to question. It is why it deserves to be studied.
Otherwise you get Atlas Shrugged with no intelligent thought and people thinking it is great literature. Tolkien and his fantasy was far better. And quite frankly more realistic.
3
My favorite liberal arts story is that of my brother-in-law, who is a graduate of St. John’s College in Annapolis. As an undergraduate, he never took a computer science class (none were offered). But he taught himself to code, and got into a masters program in computer science at the University of Chicago. One of his professors there developed cloud computing, and my brother-in-law went to work for him at the Livermore Lab when he graduated. He’s since had several interesting jobs, and now has a very well-paid and demanding job with Amazon in Seattle. THAT’s what you can do with a degree in the liberal arts.
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