Great Thou Art — Books of Western Canon

Homer was great. His account of the Trojan War, and then his account of Odysseus finding his way home, and taking back his home.

Lucretius Titus Carus was also very great. He did not deny that man has a soul, but he claimed that the soul requires the body to continue alive. So when the body dies, the soul dies with it.

There was also Dalton, the man who felt that matter comes in specific elements that are orderly, and periodic in their features and chemical properties.

Newton was astounding. His account of motion and matter was so good that it took till Albert Einstein to replace it in some details, at very high speeds.

Also quite worthy was Hegel whose view of history was deeply imagined.

Then there was Camus, the pessimist, who said remarkable things, and true ones.

Near the end of the list were Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Adams.

Being a citizen, and informed about science, and ethics, is of value. And for a democratic republic, you want citizens with Great Books style educations.

Reading Greats was done at Oxford and Cambridge for centuries, then at University of Chicago for and finally at St. John’s College, which was lucky to get many scholars from Germany who came around 1939 to 1950.

Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan organized the Great Books Program into four distinct years in which the Great Books were read in some order.

I loved Homer, Lucretius, Dalton, and Einstein.

St. John’s has 4 years of REQUIRED math plus 4 years of REQUIRED lab sciences. This is as much or more than almost any other four year college has.

I studied Huygens, and Heisenberg, and learned about light. It’s what I do now.