Wytheian

You might know that for some years I have been an ardent fan of a small liberal arts college in Cedar City called George Wythe College (now George Wythe University, www.gw.edu), named after Thomas Jefferson's friend and mentor in law, a very shrewd and wise old fellow who also taught the likes of Henry Clay, James Monroe, and John Marshall, and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson considered George Wythe to be his "second father"; together they read law and everything else, from English literary works, to political philosophy, to the ancient classics - George Wythe had a lot to do with the learned and able man that became Thomas Jefferson. And I hope we all know the contributions he made to our relative freedom and prosperity!

When I say ardent fan, I mean the obsessive type that returns again and again to a website to ogle its contents and ponder continually on its principle message, its mission: "To build men and women of virtue, wisdom, diplomacy and courage who inspire greatness in others and move the cause of liberty." If ever there were a time when the cause of liberty needed fresh and fervent adherents, it's now.

I first became acquainted with GWC at a home school conference in 1997 when I was casting about for alternatives to public school for my then 9 year old son Logan. I sat down to hear the keynote speaker, Oliver DeMille, president of GWC, expound on the "Five Pillars of a Classical Education": Classics, Mentors, Field Experience, Simulations, and God. Simply put, he urged a method of teaching and inspiring ourselves and our children that struck a chord of truth in me: a teacher really ought to be a mentor who inspires and guides others to teach themselves and shows them how to do it by reading and studying the great classics (be they written or otherwise) and discussing and applying truths contained therein.

Instead of getting a text book interpretation of Darwin's Origin of Species, read it yourself. Instead of Cliff's notes on War and Peace, read it yourself. You want to know how to be a good businessman? Start a business, study business classics such as The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, find a business mentor. The method applies to any discipline. Art? Study the works of Rembrandt, Picasso, Michelangelo, and others, find yourself a mentor and start painting. Science? Mathematics? Study Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, Aristotle, Archimedes, Thales, Euclid, Copernicus, Babbage, Newton, Descartes, Einstein, Hawking. Political science? Plato, Aristotle, Aurelius, Locke, Montesquieu, Blackstone, Jefferson and company. Music? Find a mentor and study the classics. Be a mentor. Study, do, and teach. Learn as you go. Pay the price in time and effort. Instead of just dreaming about all these famous people, pick up their works and know them, argue with them, understand their contribution to your way of life. Then go out and make your own difference in your sphere of influence. Apply yourself. Don't know where to start? Visit the George Wythe website and check out the book lists. Pick one . . . and start. I did.

This fall I joined a group of about 20 like-minded individuals who came together to study and discuss great influences on modern social and political thought: the Greeks, Romans, Christians, Objectivists, Subjectivists (Existentialists), people like Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Jefferson and other early American political writers, C.S. Lewis, Hugh Nibley, Ayn Rand, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkagaard, Jean Paul Sartre, and Samuel P. Huntington. I'll try to share some of what I learned and thought as I dove into my studies, to satisfy your curiosity about what I'm doing. Hopefully you have a lot of curiosity. Feel free to share the blog or comment on it. Ask questions. Disagree. Poke fun. I'm excited to share what I've been learning and thinking with you.

And if you've read this far, I congratulate you, and thank you.