09/30/2026
"We believe that the voices that may recall the West to sanity are those which have taken part in the Great Conversation. We want them to be heard again not because we want to go back to antiquity, or the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance, or the Eighteenth Century. We are quite aware that we do not live in any time but the present, and, distressing as the present is, we would not care to live in any other time if we could. We want the voices of the Great Conversation to be heard again because we think they may help us to learn to live better now."
This was written in 1952 by Robert Maynard Hutchins in The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education, the preface to the 54-volume collection of Encyclopedia Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World.
A member of our community recently donated the complete collection to the School of Civic Leadership. This 54-book collection comes with its own interesting history: The donor’s father purchased the set new in 1964, when the Army was sending him to graduate school. The books remained in the family for decades before making their way to SCL.
Their arrival is especially timely as we prepare to launch a new Great Books Honors major, starting in Fall 2027. This degree invites students to engage deeply with foundational works in philosophy, literature, theology, science, art, and political thought via close reading, rigorous discussion, and interdisciplinary study.
Hutchins continues: "We do not think that these books will solve all our problems. We do not think that they are the only books worth reading. We think that these books shed some light on all our basic problems, and that it is folly to do without any light we can get."
