Teaching Through the Great Books and the Wisdom of the Classics

The College of the United States

In the 1920s and 1930s many notable educators were concerned about the lack of education in the best thinking and most influential ideas of Western Civilization. Robert Hutchins, then President of the University of Chicago, organized a committee to develop a new curriculum based on the best material Western Civilization had to offer, ancient and modern.

The Great Books are the result.

St. John’s College and Thomas Aquinas College use these works for their entire curriculum and many other schools, like the University of Chicago, use them in part.

The study of the Great Books affords an unparalleled experience of integrated learning: the writers were chosen for depth, fundamentality, originality––and historical and cultural importance.

Many of the texts enable the integrated study of philosophy, history, economics, science, mathematics, literature and the arts. Aristotle’s De Anima, Euclid’s Elements, Cervantes Don Quixote, DeTocqueville’s Democracy in America, and Heisenberg’s The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory are a few examples. Their study gives the student a deep appreciation of the history of individual thought.  

"The hallmark of a well-functioning mind is the ability to identify facts, analyze ideas, integrate knowledge, and successfully translate principles into action."