Lehrman American Studies Center

On May 21 in Washington DC, Leon Kass delivered the 38th Annual Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities, "Looking for an Honest Man: Reflections of an Unlicensed Humanist."

The lecture is about the lifelong pursuit of answers to the great human questions, the questions which Socrates began to address after his famous "turn" from natural philosophy to the deepest moral and political questions.

He summarizes his quest this way:

"I have sought wisdom about the meaning of our humanity, largely through teaching and studying the great works of wiser and nobler human beings, who have bequeathed to us their profound accounts of the human condition."

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Samuel Davies (1723-1761) was one of America's greatest preachers. He was a Virginian and the fourth president of the College of New Jersey, known today as Princeton University, succeeding Jonathan Edwards. As a pastor in Virginia, he had the privilege of discipling young Patrick Henry from the pulpit each Lord's Day.

On a friend's Facebook page today, I found these words from Pastor Davies which everyone who is serious about the truth, wisdom, and the life of the mind will take to heart.

I have a peaceful study as a refuge from the hurries and noise of the world around me, the venerable dead are waiting in my library to entertain me and relieve me from the nonsense of surviving mortals.

C. S. Lewis and Niccolo Machiavelli share some related thoughts.

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One of the more popular posts on my blog has been one by Harold Kildow (Ph.D. Fordham), "Jack Bauer and the Problem of Justice." He writes:

"Where do the rules of engagement end, and the crimes begin?" Jack Bauer makes explicit this season what has been an implicit question for the last six seasons of Fox's taut serial thriller, 24. It is a version of the dilemma Plato presents in the Republic, where it appears as Thrasymachus' implicit challenge to Glaucon and Polymarchos: can a just man remain just while conquering evil, or does the asymmetry of the evil/good dichotomy always favor evil in this world?...

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It has been about ten weeks now since Professor Huntington died, but as no one else has posted on this, and since there may be some who need a brief introduction to the work of this great scholar, I offer this reflection and survey of reflections.

The great Harvard political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington, died Christmas Eve. My first exposure to Huntington was as an undergraduate when I read American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (1981). In that book, he presented America as a uniquely principled nation that, because it was founded on moral-political principles rather than on blood or soil, we are always living with an "I v I gap," an ideals versus institutions gap. ...

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Charles Murray suggests directing most undergraduate study toward certification rather than degrees. Many people, though they have degrees, don't know anything close to what they should know in their field. I think very highly of Charles Murray. He's brilliant and bold.

What the BA offers that certification cannot provide, among other things, is training in writing and speaking. But many colleges have given up on this.

What I like about this proposal is that it would challenge the complacency of the college industry in the same way that school vouchers challenge the complacency of the government school system.

For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

By CHARLES MURRAY

The Wall Street Journal August 13, 2008; Page A17

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858688764535107.html

Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this pr…

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