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- [00:02]
A
Hello, this is Jeremiah Regan, Executive Director of Online Learning here at Hillsdale College, and I have some great news. We've brought Hillsdale's incredibly popular free online courses to the Hillsdale College Podcast Network, and our next series is the American From Liberalism to Despotism, a course taught by Associate professor of Politics Kevin Slack and Hillsdale President Larry P. Arn. After listening to all 11 episodes, you'll have a deeper understanding of what has happened to America in the past 60 years and what we can do about it today. The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, hosted by Online Learning Marketing Director Juan Davalos and me, expands Hillsdale's mission to provide all who wish to learn the education necessary to increase happiness and to preserve the civil and religious liberties of America. We want you to be a part of it at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu. Subscribe now to the Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast to hear new episodes every week with additional commentary and insights from our team. Go to podcast hillsdale.edu to learn more. That's podcast hillsdale.edu.
- [01:15]
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Welcome to The Hillsdale College K12 classical education podcast, bringing you insight into classical education and its unique emphasis on human virtue and moral character, responsible citizenship, content, rich curricula and teacher led classrooms. Now your host, Scott Bertram.
- [01:34]
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Thanks for listening. The Hillsdale College K12 Classical Education Podcast is part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at podcast hillsdale.edu or wherever you get your audio. You also can find more information on topics and ideas discussed on this show at our website, k12 hillsdale.edu. thanks for listening. Liberal and civic education two essential components of a real human education are united in purpose through an honest approach to history and civics. During the Classical Education Forum hosted on the Hillsdale campus earlier this year, our Associate Vice President of K12 Education, Dr. Kathleen O', Toole, elaborated on the relationship between liberal, civic and moral education and their aims. Here's Dr. O'. Toole.
- [02:26]
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Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk with you this evening. This year is America's semiquin centennial. Have you been calling it that semiquincentennial? Or have you just been saying 250th birthday? We try to say semi quincentennial, but then we get together and practice to make sure that we do it properly. Here in this room, all of us are doing the hard and important work of educating students at a divided and perhaps increasingly polarized time in America. Our nation is divided over many things. How ought we to educate students? We're perhaps even more Deeply divided over how to talk to them about America, about our common past, and about the regime that has shaped and formed us all. It seems like a good time to reflect on liberal education or classical education and its relationship to civic education. And so that's what I'd like to do this evening. Briefly, in what does real education consist and how can we recover it? I think traditional or classical education can be divided into three subcategories. One would be liberal education, which I'll say a few things about. One would be civic education, which I'll say a few things about. And one would be professional or technical education. Those three things are kind of the traditional way of educating students. Now, no one seems to doubt the value of that last part of traditional education. There can be no doubt that one crucial purpose of education is to equip individuals with the knowledge and the skills that they need in order to take care of themselves and their families and be productive members of the community. That seems uncontroversial. But what is controversial and what raises some fundamental questions is the relationship between liberal education and civilization. Civic Education let's take liberal education first. The end or purpose of liberal education is simply to see the truth. The truth about any and all things falls under the horizon of liberal education. But there is only so much time, and so liberal education prioritizes the pursuit of truths that are the most fundamental or important for us. What are those things? Well, we human beings are that part of the universe that seeks to know where we stand in it. We are the ones who wonder about the universe's ultimate origins and character. And we're driven by a desire to know ourselves, to understand our essential natures and purpose in life. We're interested in the natural things and in the human things. Thus, liberal education seeks knowledge of the natures of things and especially the nature of man and the universe as a whole. The surest guides for this twofold quest are the greatest works of philosophy and political thought and the greatest works of art that mankind has produced. The former analyze the natures of man in the world, whereas the latter reveal those natures by amplifying certain aspects of them by depicting their ideal forms and the ideals that drive them, and by throwing them into action by telling stories about them. Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, these works aren't that difficult to identify. They're marked by their revolutionary, foundational, and intransigent character. No honest intelligence surveyor of human civilization could unite the could deny the unique brilliance of Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, Locke, Rousseau, or Melville. But liberal education requires something Else too, the broad base of its pyramid is the study of history. Like Odysseus, the student of liberal education must learn of the minds and cities of many other men. That is, he must learn of their politics, their ideas, their way of life. That is what history provides. By studying the variety of political, social and economic arrangements under which men have lived, as well as their actions and deeds, and their competing philosophical and religious beliefs, students greatly expand their appreciation of human nature, the breadth and limits of its capacities, as well as its dominant characteristics and needs. But it should be said that the liberal study of history isn't only pursued for the purpose of general reflections on man or politics. We also want to know the particular stories themselves. That's because to know himself, man must learn his place in the world, a major part of which is his place in the unfolding of the human story. This story fires the imagination and fascinates the active mind. It need not tell of some developmental ascent, as the progressive educator hopes it does. Its scope is truly global, though. In order to appreciate the most profound philosophical, religious and political ideas mankind has grappled with, as well as the ideas that have most decisively shaped the world, the student of liberal education must especially study Western history. This includes Greek and Roman history, the Middle Ages and the modern age. And further still, men are bound to their own, and they need to know their own place within the broader human story. That's one reason why it's especially important for Americans to have a rich and robust knowledge of their own American history. Liberal education liberates man in the true sense. It liberates us from ignorance and confusion, from prejudice and delusion, and from the wild passions and fanciful hopes that can degrade and destroy us. It liberates human beings by making us rational, allowing us to see the world clearly and honestly. In revealing our nature, it necessarily reveals what we need by nature, what is right and good for us. For these reasons, liberal education provides, in part, a moral education. Rather than do violence to human nature in a vain attempt to remake it, liberal education cultivates human nature so it can grow properly and flourish. It takes up the hard but essential task of character formation. Liberal education aims to guide us into freedom by making us self reliant and responsible, capable of governing ourselves and taking part in the self government of our communities. Liberal education makes us fit to be true citizens. But still, serious thinkers have always recognized some tension between liberal education and civic education. The former is open minded and seeks truth and wisdom wherever it may be found. The latter aims to make men dutiful and devoted citizens of a particular regime. The inquiries of the former necessarily call into question the commitments of the latter. Plato, the first and greatest thinker to take up this theme, famously distinguished the virtues of the human being and the citizen. He divided liberal education from civic education and the philosophical understanding of virtue from the political understanding. Yet he and the greatest thinkers have also always recognized the necessity of civic education. It turns out that the serious pursuit of liberal education leads one to conclude that the life of the mind and the very existence of liberal education depend on the existence of civilization, not to mention political order, security, and freedom of thought. And it turns out these goods are very hard to achieve. Of course, it's not only thinkers who need these goods. All peoples, and especially free peoples, depend upon them for their well being. The essential foundation for these goods is an education that forms the people and inculcates in them the virtues that maintain civilization. If free people are to remain free, they must be taught their rights and duties, how to exercise their freedom responsibly, and the principles and institutions that make self government possible. On this point, our American Founders were most instructive. Unlike the Progressives, they didn't think that progress would make the threat of tyranny and strife things of the past. These dangers are ever present. Freedom can only survive where there is a vigilant and enlightened citizenry. Here's how George Washington made the point in his farewell Address. Tis substantially true, he said, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular the rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of this fabric. Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. Civic instruction and moral instruction are not the sole objects of education, but as the Founders saw, they are its most important objects for the country. And for this reason, they wrote, we should place those things at the heart of all levels of schooling. Once we look to the content of liberal and civic education, we find that any tension between the two approaches dissipates and they end up complementing each other. This is because an honest assessment of the truth has a sobering effect, making one wiser and more realistic about the ways of the world and more capable of appreciating what makes civilization thrive and what destroys it. In the American context, it allows one to grasp the merits and prudence of our founding principles and our constitutional system, how well they take into account both the noble and base aspects of human nature, and it makes one less prone to exaggerating or getting angry at their imperfections. When history and civics are taught properly, the truth is sovereign, and this is actually what allows them to achieve and align the dual purposes of liberal and civic education. Consider how those subjects should be taught. What distinguishes the honest approach to history and government from indoctrination is the refusal to condescend. To students. The honest approach respects their intelligence and their thirst for the truth. An honest approach doesn't offer them crude summaries that simplify complicated issues. It weighs the merits of the competing claim seriously, giving all sides their due. In doing so, it makes liberal use of primary sources, allowing students to encounter the actual books, speeches, and arguments in all of their complexity and depth. The honest approach to teaching history checks the mistake of reducing the causes of human affairs to vast, impersonal social forces, and it thereby teaches students of the significance of human freedom, deliberation, and choice. It makes use of social, economic, and cultural history, but it goes up against the grain of recent times by restoring alongside those historical studies the serious study of political, military, and intellectual history. Indeed, it recognizes the preeminence of politics in human affairs, and it accordingly restores politics to its preeminent place in in the study of history. It is unafraid, then, to give special focus to the special contributions made by a powerful or elite few. It doesn't neglect groups and classes that are less powerful, less fortunate, or weaker, but it gives them their proper due, neither dwelling on their hardships too little nor too much. Similarly, it doesn't shy away from, but rather embraces, the study of injustice and tragedy in human affairs, including the darker sides of the American story. But where it defies the contemporary trend is its insistence on understanding such episodes with rigor and intelligence. Its perspective is moral without being moralistic. Now consider the effect of the honest approach to history and civics, how it combines the purposes of liberal and civic education, or how, in pursuing truth, it also trains students for citizenship. The honest approach presents the human story in all its harshness and glory. In effect, it acquaints students with the full complexity of human affairs, including the persistence of strife, injustice, and misfortune. And it acquaints them with human greatness and virtue at their peak. It shows students that arguments often have many intelligent competing sides, and it shows them how difficult political decisions often are, how they always involve tragic trade offs and always fail to satisfy Everybody. Thus it further has the effect of teaching students the limits of what man, no matter how enlightened, can achieve in this world. It chastens his longing for heaven on earth. And thereby cultivates a spirit of sobriety, moderation and wisdom. The student of this education learns to understand and deal with rather than lose heart in the face of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Rather than learning to hate his country or the world for its evil and injustices, he learns to appreciate and cherish those pillars of civilization in the rare places in which they stand. Those pillars, he comes to understand, include strong families, mores, traditions and communities. Effective state, stable, representative and limited government. The rule of law and the protection of civil rights and property. A powerful military that defends rather than threatens the people's freedom, religion, the arts, and, of course, public support for education. He also learns of the inherent fragility of civilization. And thus its persistent need for fortification and defense. That it depends upon the virtues of citizens and statesmen who are willing to fight and sacrifice on its behalf. And he sees that reason must play a role in founding, building and guiding great civilizations. And when great civilizations decline and fall, reason must play a role in rebuilding or refounding them. Finally, in our American context, an important effect of this honest approach to history and civics is to cultivate patriotism. One can begin to acquire a serious and mature form of love for country simply by gaining knowledge about the country. This sort of love isn't superficial. It's not infatuation. Rather, it's like a love that comes about from spending a long time in a marriage or a family. Where one comes to know his or her spouse or the other members intimately. Seeing their faults, yes, but more importantly, truly understanding them and being therefore in a position to truly recognize their virtues. As the student becomes an enlightened patriot, he can love his country both for what it is and for its ideal form as expressed in the Founding. And he can measure the health of the former in light of the standards set by the latter. It turns out, then, that it's not foolish to expect that liberal education and civic education should work together, that we should provide an education in America that both teaches the truth honestly and produces patriotic citizens. It's the progressives who despise what they don't understand, who actually seek to vulgarize and distort education for the purposes of propaganda and indoctrination. And it's no coincidence that in America today, the enemies of patriotism are also the enemies of learning. Thank you very much.
- [19:52]
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We've been hearing Dr. Kathleen O', Toole, Associate Vice President of K12 Education here at Hillsdale College, from her lecture during the Classical Education Forum earlier in 2026 on Hillsdale College's camp campus. Thank you for listening to the Hillsdale College K12 Classical Education Podcast.