The Moral Obligation To Be Intelligent
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The Moral Obligation To Be Intelligent
''The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent'' is an essay in the collection ''The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent, and Other Essays'', published in 1915 by John Erskine, English professor at Columbia University. The essay was first read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Amherst College, where Erskine taught before joining Columbia. Later, it was published in quarterly magazine '' The Hibbert Journal'' in 1914. During his tenure at Columbia from 1909 and 1937, Erskine formulated General Honors Course. In the early 1920s he started teaching a ''great books'' course at Columbia, which later founded the influential Great Books movement. History In 1963, the essay was published in the '' Gateway to the Great Books'' - Volume 10: Philosophical Essays, a 10-volume book series published by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. in 1963. Subsequently it was also included in the book of selected essays also titled ''The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent: Selected Essays'' (New York: Far ...
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John Erskine (educator)
John Erskine (October 5, 1879 – June 2, 1951) was an American educator and author, pianist and composer. He was an English professor at Amherst College from 1903 to 1909, followed by Columbia University from 1909 to 1937. He was the first president of the Juilliard School of Music. During his tenure at Columbia University he formulated the General Honors Course—responsible for inspiring the influential Great Books movement. He published over 100 books, novels, criticism, and essays including his most important essay, ''The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent'' (1915). Early life and education Erskine was born in New York City, New York, the son of Eliza Jane (née Hollingsworth) and James Morrison Erskine. and raised in Weehawken, New Jersey. He graduated from Columbia University, B.A., 1900, M.A. 1901 and Ph.D., 1903 and D.Litt. 1929, besides D.Litt. degree from Amherst in 1923. Career Erskine was English professor at Amherst College from 1903 to 1909, and subsequently tau ...
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Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, Columbia is the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence. It is a member of the Ivy League. Columbia is ranked among the top universities in the world. Columbia was established by royal charter under George II of Great Britain. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 following the American Revolution, and in 1787 was placed under a private board of trustees headed by former students Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. In 1896, the campus was moved to its current location in Morningside Heights and renamed Columbia University. Columbia scientists and scholars have ...
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Phi Beta Kappa Society
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, and to induct the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at only select American colleges and universities. It was founded at the College of William and Mary on December 5, 1776, as the first collegiate Greek-letter fraternity and was among the earliest collegiate fraternal societies. Since its inception, 17 U.S. Presidents, 40 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and 136 Nobel Laureates have been inducted members. Phi Beta Kappa () stands for ('), which means "Wisdom it. love of knowledgeis the guide it. helmsmanof life". Membership Phi Beta Kappa has chapters in only about 10% of American higher learning institutions, and only about 10% of these schools' Arts and Sciences graduates are invited to join the society. A ...
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Amherst College
Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher education in Massachusetts. The institution was named after the town, which in turn had been named after Jeffery, Lord Amherst, Commander-in-Chief of British forces of North America during the French and Indian War. Originally established as a men's college, Amherst became coeducational in 1975. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution; 1,971 students were enrolled in fall 2021. Admissions is highly selective, and it frequently ranks at or near the top in most rankings of liberal arts schools. Students choose courses from 41 major programs in an open curriculum and are not required to study a core curriculum or fulfill any distribution requirements; students may also design their own interdisciplinary major. Amherst competes ...
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The Hibbert Journal
''The Hibbert Journal'' was a large, quarterly magazine in softback book format, issued since 1902 by the Hibbert Trust, best described by its subtitle: ''A Quarterly Review of Religion, Theology and Philosophy''. In the early years it was published by Williams and Norgate, 14 Henrietta Street, London, with the U.S. Agent being Sherman, French & Co,. 6 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The subscription c. 1911 was "Ten Shillings per annum, post free." It ceased publication in 1968. Editorial Board and Key Persons associated with the Journal In its early years, ''The Hibbert Journal'' was edited by L. P. Jacks Lawrence Pearsall Jacks (9 October 1860 – 17 February 1955), abbreviated L. P. Jacks, was an English educator, philosopher, and Unitarianism, Unitarian minister who rose to prominence in the period from World War I to World War II. Early lif ....Josiah Royce, ''The Basic Writings of Josiah Royce: Logic, loyalty, and community'' Fordham University Press, 2005 , (p. 1218) ...
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Great Books
A classic is a book accepted as being exemplary or particularly noteworthy. What makes a book "classic" is a concern that has occurred to various authors ranging from Italo Calvino to Mark Twain and the related questions of "Why Read the Classics?" and "What Is a Classic?" have been essayed by authors from different genres and eras (including Calvino, T. S. Eliot, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve). The ability of a classic book to be reinterpreted, to seemingly be renewed in the interests of generations of readers succeeding its creation, is a theme that is seen in the writings of literary critics including Michael Dirda, Ezra Pound, and Sainte-Beuve. These books can be published as a collection (such as Great Books of the Western World, Modern Library, or Penguin Classics) or presented as a list, such as Harold Bloom's list of books that constitute the Western canon. Although the term is often associated with the Western canon, it can be applied to works of literature fro ...
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Gateway To The Great Books
''Gateway to the Great Books'' is a 10-volume series of books originally published by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. in 1963 and edited by Mortimer Adler and Robert Maynard Hutchins. The set was designed as an introduction to the ''Great Books of the Western World'', published by the same organization and editors in 1952. The set included selections – short stories, plays, essays, letters, and extracts from longer works – by more than one hundred authors. The selections were generally shorter and in some ways simpler than the full-length books included in the ''Great Books''. Authors A number of authors in the ''Great Books'' set – such as Plutarch, Epictetus, Tacitus, Dante, Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, John Stuart Mill, Francis Bacon, Charles Darwin and William James – were also represented by shorter works in the ''Gateway'' volumes. In addition, several ''Gateway'' readings discussed authors in the ''Great Books'' series. For i ...
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Encyclopædia Britannica Inc
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically by article name or by thematic categories, or else are Hyperlink, hyperlinked and searchable. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionary, dictionaries. Generally speaking, encyclopedia articles focus on ''factual information'' concerning the subject named in the article's title; this is unlike dictionary entries, which focus on Linguistics, linguistic information about words, such as their etymology, meaning, pronunciation, use, and grammar, grammatical forms.Béjoint, Henri (2000)''Modern Lexicography'', pp. 30–31. Oxford University Press. Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years and have evolved considera ...
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Lionel Trilling
Lionel Mordecai Trilling (July 4, 1905 – November 5, 1975) was an American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century who analyzed the contemporary cultural, social, and political implications of literature. With his wife Diana Trilling (née Rubin), whom he married in 1929, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the ''Partisan Review''. Personal and academic life Lionel Mordecai Trilling was born in Queens, New York, the son of Fannie (née Cohen), who was from London, and David Trilling, a tailor from Bialystok in Poland. His family was Jewish. In 1921, he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School, and, at age 16, entered Columbia University, thus beginning a lifelong association with the university. He joined the Boar's Head Society and wrote for the ''Morningside'' literary journal. In 1925, he graduated from Columbia College, and, in 1926, earned a Master of Arts degree ...
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Leon Wieseltier
Leon Wieseltier (; born June 14, 1952) is an American critic and magazine editor. From 1983 to 2014, he was the literary editor of ''The New Republic''. He was a contributing editor and critic at ''The Atlantic'' until October 27, 2017, when the magazine fired him following multiple allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct. He is currently the editor of ''Liberties.'' Life and career Wieseltier was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Stella (Backenroth) and Mark Wieseltier, who were Holocaust survivors from Poland. He attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush, Columbia University, Oxford University, and Harvard University. He was a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows (1979–82). During his tenure as literary editor of ''The New Republic'', Wieseltier played a central role in the increased stature of its "back of the book" or literary, cultural and arts pages, which he edited. The magazine's owner, Marty Peretz discovered Wieseltier, then working at Harvard's Society of Fel ...
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1915 Non-fiction Books
Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January *January – British physicist Sir Joseph Larmor publishes his observations on "The Influence of Local Atmospheric Cooling on Astronomical Refraction". *January 1 ** WWI: British Royal Navy battleship HMS ''Formidable'' is sunk off Lyme Regis, Dorset, England, by an Imperial German Navy U-boat, with the loss of 547 crew. ** Battle of Broken Hill: A train ambush near Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, is carried out by two men (claiming to be in support of the Ottoman Empire) who are killed, together with 4 civilians. * January 5 – Joseph E. Carberry sets an altitude record of , carrying Capt. Benjamin Delahauf Foulois as a passenger, in a fixed-wing aircraft. * January 12 ** The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to give women the right to vote. ** '' A Fool There Was'' premières in the United States, starring Theda Bara as a ''femme fatale''; she quickly becomes one ...
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1915 Essays
Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January *January – British physicist Sir Joseph Larmor publishes his observations on "The Influence of Local Atmospheric Cooling on Astronomical Refraction". *January 1 ** WWI: British Royal Navy battleship HMS ''Formidable'' is sunk off Lyme Regis, Dorset, England, by an Imperial German Navy U-boat, with the loss of 547 crew. **Battle of Broken Hill: A train ambush near Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, is carried out by two men (claiming to be in support of the Ottoman Empire) who are killed, together with 4 civilians. * January 5 – Joseph E. Carberry sets an altitude record of , carrying Capt. Benjamin Delahauf Foulois as a passenger, in a fixed-wing aircraft. * January 12 ** The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to give women the right to vote. ** ''A Fool There Was'' premières in the United States, starring Theda Bara as a ''femme fatale''; she quickly becomes one of ...
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