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A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning: Liberal Learning Guide
A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning is an inviting conversation with a learned scholar about the content of an authentic liberal arts education. It surveys ideas and books central to the tradition of humanistic education that has fundamentally shaped our country and our civilization. This accessible volume argues for an order and integration of knowledge so that meaning might be restored to the haphazard approach to study currently dominating higher education. Freshly conveying the excitement of learning from the acknowledged masters of intellectual life, this guide is also an excellent blueprint for building one's own library of books that matter.
58 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 2000
46 people are currently reading
251 people want to read
About the author
James V. Schall
88 books86 followersFr. James V. Schall, SJ was Professor of Political Philosophy at Georgetown University.
He was born in Pocahontas, Iowa, January 20, 1928. Educated in public schools in Iowa, he graduated in 1945 from Knoxville, Iowa High, and then attended University of Santa Clara. He earned an MA in Philosophy from Gonzaga University in 1945.
After time in the U.S. Army (1946-47), he joined the Society of Jesus (California Province) in 1948. He received a PhD in Political Theory from Georgetown University in 1960, and an MST from University of Santa Clara four years later. Fr. Schall was a member of the Faculty of Institute of Social Sciences, Gregorian University, Rome, from 1964-77, and a member of the Government Department, University of San Francisco, from 1968-77. He has been a member of the Government Department at Georgetown University since 1977.
Fr. Schall has written hundreds of essays on political, theological, literary, and philosophical issues in such journals as The Review of Politics, Social Survey (Melbourne), Studies (Dublin), The Thomist, Divus Thomas (Piacenza), Divinitas (Rome), The Commonweal, Thought, Modern Age, Faith and Reason, The Way (London), The New Oxford Review, University Bookman, Worldview, and many others. He contributes regularly to Crisis and Homiletic & Pastoral Review.
He iss the author of numerous books on social issues, spirituality, culture, and literature.
He was born in Pocahontas, Iowa, January 20, 1928. Educated in public schools in Iowa, he graduated in 1945 from Knoxville, Iowa High, and then attended University of Santa Clara. He earned an MA in Philosophy from Gonzaga University in 1945.
After time in the U.S. Army (1946-47), he joined the Society of Jesus (California Province) in 1948. He received a PhD in Political Theory from Georgetown University in 1960, and an MST from University of Santa Clara four years later. Fr. Schall was a member of the Faculty of Institute of Social Sciences, Gregorian University, Rome, from 1964-77, and a member of the Government Department, University of San Francisco, from 1968-77. He has been a member of the Government Department at Georgetown University since 1977.
Fr. Schall has written hundreds of essays on political, theological, literary, and philosophical issues in such journals as The Review of Politics, Social Survey (Melbourne), Studies (Dublin), The Thomist, Divus Thomas (Piacenza), Divinitas (Rome), The Commonweal, Thought, Modern Age, Faith and Reason, The Way (London), The New Oxford Review, University Bookman, Worldview, and many others. He contributes regularly to Crisis and Homiletic & Pastoral Review.
He iss the author of numerous books on social issues, spirituality, culture, and literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
March 29, 2016
On the whole I agreed with the ideals held in this book: education for education's sake, the necessity of self-discipline a love of books, lifelong willingness to learn from everything, everywhere and everyone, and that most schools are possibly unwittingly destroying the foundations of these ideals through spoiling the student and instrumentalizing and ideologizing education.
My only problems were with these disingenuities:
1. The author is a critic of ideology in education, but in his own booklists and the thinkers he mentions, he reveals his own ideology in education. It is unquestionable that James V. Schall has a Catholic conservative ideological view of education, which is not necessarily bad - it is however a tad disingenuous to criticize ideology in education, when your gripe is actually with a particular ideology that opposes yours. In a more philosophical setting, the question could have arisen: could we have education without ideology?
2. The author criticizes relativism and skepticism. Of the former, he has the typical conservative strawman definition of relativism: "Truth does not exist; everything has equal claims to truth." Granted many relativists have simplified the position to this claim, but as the author notes it is a contradicting viewpoint, so one thing a thorough integral thinker could have done is to take a more complex thorough relativist view. In fact, relativism, as the name itself indicates holds that no one can have but mediated access to the truth, and that the level of mediation and view of the truth is RELATIVE to one's particular position (via language, culture, experiences, books read, etc...). I don't think this relativist position in and of itself is controversial or even in opposition to Christianity or conservatism. One problem with valid critics of relativism is that once you push hard enough, you'll almost always find them declaring that THEY have the correct, and possibly complete, version of the truth. Of skepticism, it was very surprisingly declared in the book, that we should be skeptical of our motives but not of our minds. Again, here a strawman definition of "skepticism" is used: doubt about the ability of the mind know something can deabilitate the mind from knowing anything. Whereas of course, even the most postmodern skeptic is ultimately skeptical of motives, even the ones underlying belief - how often claims to knowledge and truth are made, in order to maintain our comfort, or to justify the present social set-up? In the quest for truth, one must examine and destablize many idols. The author himselfs seems to understand to we must not settle for our first bleary conception of the truth. Is this not in itself doubt of the mind? One of the author's own heroes, Socrates, started out as one who doubted knowledge and toppled supposed knowers from their pedestals in his quest for truth.
3. Leaving this book, a sentence formed in my mind: an ideal held lofty against the dominant culture will become tyrannical once held BY the dominant culture. This applies to the politically correct liberal regime of the day, which sang in opposition to Kings and fascists, and now barks its own totalitarianism. However, it also applies, and would apply, to the conservative ideal of "ordered liberty".
My only problems were with these disingenuities:
1. The author is a critic of ideology in education, but in his own booklists and the thinkers he mentions, he reveals his own ideology in education. It is unquestionable that James V. Schall has a Catholic conservative ideological view of education, which is not necessarily bad - it is however a tad disingenuous to criticize ideology in education, when your gripe is actually with a particular ideology that opposes yours. In a more philosophical setting, the question could have arisen: could we have education without ideology?
2. The author criticizes relativism and skepticism. Of the former, he has the typical conservative strawman definition of relativism: "Truth does not exist; everything has equal claims to truth." Granted many relativists have simplified the position to this claim, but as the author notes it is a contradicting viewpoint, so one thing a thorough integral thinker could have done is to take a more complex thorough relativist view. In fact, relativism, as the name itself indicates holds that no one can have but mediated access to the truth, and that the level of mediation and view of the truth is RELATIVE to one's particular position (via language, culture, experiences, books read, etc...). I don't think this relativist position in and of itself is controversial or even in opposition to Christianity or conservatism. One problem with valid critics of relativism is that once you push hard enough, you'll almost always find them declaring that THEY have the correct, and possibly complete, version of the truth. Of skepticism, it was very surprisingly declared in the book, that we should be skeptical of our motives but not of our minds. Again, here a strawman definition of "skepticism" is used: doubt about the ability of the mind know something can deabilitate the mind from knowing anything. Whereas of course, even the most postmodern skeptic is ultimately skeptical of motives, even the ones underlying belief - how often claims to knowledge and truth are made, in order to maintain our comfort, or to justify the present social set-up? In the quest for truth, one must examine and destablize many idols. The author himselfs seems to understand to we must not settle for our first bleary conception of the truth. Is this not in itself doubt of the mind? One of the author's own heroes, Socrates, started out as one who doubted knowledge and toppled supposed knowers from their pedestals in his quest for truth.
3. Leaving this book, a sentence formed in my mind: an ideal held lofty against the dominant culture will become tyrannical once held BY the dominant culture. This applies to the politically correct liberal regime of the day, which sang in opposition to Kings and fascists, and now barks its own totalitarianism. However, it also applies, and would apply, to the conservative ideal of "ordered liberty".
August 2, 2022
Summary: A pithy little guide on pursuing the liberty that comes in the pursuit of truth and how one might devote oneself to liberal learning.
In this pithy booklet, James V. Schall, S.J. makes the case for the classic ideal of liberal learning that he believes lost in the post-modern setting of contemporary higher education. Liberal education believed that the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty freed one (liberated one) to pursue the well-lived life. He writes this booklet to the student who has the sense that there is something more that might be pursued in her education that what is on offer. He also observes, with Augustine and Aristotle, that our actions more than our words reveal what is true, and that our moral failings may prevent us from seeing truth, something rarely, if ever, heard in the classroom.
Where then does one begin. For Schall, he urges two things. One is self-discipline, that is self-control of our passions, fears, dreams, and thoughts, and honesty about our failings in these areas. He writes: “The person who was most free was the one who had the most control over himself.” It is this that allows us to focus on the things of greatest importance.
The second thing is to build a good personal library. Schall doesn’t believe this requires many books–early pioneers often had only Shakespeare and the Bible, and much of what was important in life could be found here. I loved Schall’s commitment to not assigning books that he did not think worth keeping. And this leads to a guiding standard–our libraries should consist of the books we would read again (a standard I use more and more as I cull books from my shelves).
Schall also advocates that we need good guides, holding up Samuel Johnson as an example. A good guide is one who helps the student test ideas by reality. One of the most beautiful lines about teaching is this:
We begin our intellectual lives not with need, nor less with desire, but with wonder and enchantment. A student and teacher read together many books they otherwise might have missed. Both need to make efforts to know the truth of things, the ordinary things and the highest things, that the one and the other might have overlooked had they not had time, serious time, together.
And so Schall concludes by discussing the matter of time, invoking the unusual authority of Louis L’Amour whose The Education of a Wandering Man makes the case for finding the time to read in a busy life. Schall urges students to take time beyond their classes to read, to find great works that aren’t taught in the used bookstores. What books, you may ask? One of the delights of this book are Schall’s recommendations interspersed in the text as well as an Appendix of “Schall’s Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By,” a list of twenty titles–only half of which I’ve read. While some are found on “Great Books” lists, many are not.
My only objection is that they are all by white Euro-Americans. I think we may also grow in liberal learning by reading W.E,B. DuBois, Frederick Douglass, and Langston Hughes as well as African, South American, and Asian writers. One of the most profound works I’ve read is Shusaku Endo’s Silence.
That said, this is a delightful little work. For many students, the idea of “liberal learning” has no room in the curriculum. Schall proposes that, sad as this is, the perceptive student will find the room on his or her own and find good guides and books along the way. And this “Guide” is a good beginning.
In this pithy booklet, James V. Schall, S.J. makes the case for the classic ideal of liberal learning that he believes lost in the post-modern setting of contemporary higher education. Liberal education believed that the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty freed one (liberated one) to pursue the well-lived life. He writes this booklet to the student who has the sense that there is something more that might be pursued in her education that what is on offer. He also observes, with Augustine and Aristotle, that our actions more than our words reveal what is true, and that our moral failings may prevent us from seeing truth, something rarely, if ever, heard in the classroom.
Where then does one begin. For Schall, he urges two things. One is self-discipline, that is self-control of our passions, fears, dreams, and thoughts, and honesty about our failings in these areas. He writes: “The person who was most free was the one who had the most control over himself.” It is this that allows us to focus on the things of greatest importance.
The second thing is to build a good personal library. Schall doesn’t believe this requires many books–early pioneers often had only Shakespeare and the Bible, and much of what was important in life could be found here. I loved Schall’s commitment to not assigning books that he did not think worth keeping. And this leads to a guiding standard–our libraries should consist of the books we would read again (a standard I use more and more as I cull books from my shelves).
Schall also advocates that we need good guides, holding up Samuel Johnson as an example. A good guide is one who helps the student test ideas by reality. One of the most beautiful lines about teaching is this:
We begin our intellectual lives not with need, nor less with desire, but with wonder and enchantment. A student and teacher read together many books they otherwise might have missed. Both need to make efforts to know the truth of things, the ordinary things and the highest things, that the one and the other might have overlooked had they not had time, serious time, together.
And so Schall concludes by discussing the matter of time, invoking the unusual authority of Louis L’Amour whose The Education of a Wandering Man makes the case for finding the time to read in a busy life. Schall urges students to take time beyond their classes to read, to find great works that aren’t taught in the used bookstores. What books, you may ask? One of the delights of this book are Schall’s recommendations interspersed in the text as well as an Appendix of “Schall’s Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By,” a list of twenty titles–only half of which I’ve read. While some are found on “Great Books” lists, many are not.
My only objection is that they are all by white Euro-Americans. I think we may also grow in liberal learning by reading W.E,B. DuBois, Frederick Douglass, and Langston Hughes as well as African, South American, and Asian writers. One of the most profound works I’ve read is Shusaku Endo’s Silence.
That said, this is a delightful little work. For many students, the idea of “liberal learning” has no room in the curriculum. Schall proposes that, sad as this is, the perceptive student will find the room on his or her own and find good guides and books along the way. And this “Guide” is a good beginning.
July 19, 2022
A reminder that learning is one of the biggest joys of human life. This book is perhaps the perfect book that a student or ex-student can choose to fulfill Samuel Johnson's suggestion to let young people read any English book if only to "begin" the process of finding the truth through achieving their engagement and igniting their interest.
The call to self-discipline and creating a personal library highlight the importance of being intentional. Advancing in one's journey toward understanding "what is" depends on one's ability to dutifully pursue such an end, abandoning all "acedia."
Schall encourages the reader to test everything, both reality and the phantoms of his own making. In his words, "We are to report to our teachers how our experiences have shown the limits of our expectations, not to the detriment of experience, but to the moderation of our own phantoms, our own untested ideas and musings."
This was an amazing read, and I'm eager to one day complete all the titles in Schall's Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By.
The call to self-discipline and creating a personal library highlight the importance of being intentional. Advancing in one's journey toward understanding "what is" depends on one's ability to dutifully pursue such an end, abandoning all "acedia."
Schall encourages the reader to test everything, both reality and the phantoms of his own making. In his words, "We are to report to our teachers how our experiences have shown the limits of our expectations, not to the detriment of experience, but to the moderation of our own phantoms, our own untested ideas and musings."
This was an amazing read, and I'm eager to one day complete all the titles in Schall's Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By.
September 22, 2018
Introdução muito honesta à educação liberal autodidata. Num espaço tão exíguo (pouco mais de cinquenta páginas em formato de bolso), o autor faz o possível, mas da melhor maneira possível: destaca a viabilidade de uma formação alternativa à universitária; salienta a necessidade de autodisciplina e apresenta alguns princípios úteis para a formação de uma biblioteca pessoal. Além de incluir diversas minibibliografias, divertidamente extravagantes (e em geral concebidas como leituras paralelas aos grandes livros canônicos).
September 7, 2015
ILL CD 378.012 HEN
Total 16 titles
http://isibooks.org/books/series/isi-...
The Unity of Philosophical Experience by Étienne Gilson
p8 "an intellectual life open to the truth"
Another Sort of Learning: Selected Contrary Essays on How to Acquire an Education While Still in College or Anywhere Else by James V. Schall
subtitle:Another Sort Of Learning: How Finally To Acquire An Education While Still In College Or Anywhere Else, Containing Some Belated Advice About How To Employ Your Leisure Time When Ultimate Questions Remain Perplexing In Spite Of Your Highest Earned Academic Degree, Together With Sundry Book Lists Nowhere Else In Captivity To Be Found
Leave It to Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse
Blandings Castle by P.G. Wodehouse
How Right You Are, Jeevesby P.G. Wodehouse
The World of Wodehouse Clergy
My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
The Pocket Book of Ogden Nash by Ogden Nash
Summa Theologica, 5 Vols by Thomas Aquinas
A Guide for the Perplexed by E.F. Schumacher
Six Classic Text never to be left unread p15
Gorgias by Plato
The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Confessions by Augustine
Pensées by Pascal
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
---The Republic, The City of God, The Summa Theologiae
Seven books about Universities p17
The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom
The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman (must read)
Great books about love p35
The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
Faith, Hope, Love by Josef Pieper
Love in the Western World by Denis de Rougemont
Four older but insightful books on how to prepare for an intellectual life p38
The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods by Antonin Sertillangesb ( a guide how to take notes, to classify what we have read, to select)
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler
The Art of Teaching by Gilbert Highet
Teacher in America by Jacques Barzun
A General Theory Of Authority by Yves R. Simon
p46 "I[Samuel Johnson] would let him first read nay English book which happens to engage his attention; ...He'll get better books afterwards."
the many others....
Total 16 titles
http://isibooks.org/books/series/isi-...
The Unity of Philosophical Experience by Étienne Gilson
p8 "an intellectual life open to the truth"
Another Sort of Learning: Selected Contrary Essays on How to Acquire an Education While Still in College or Anywhere Else by James V. Schall
subtitle:Another Sort Of Learning: How Finally To Acquire An Education While Still In College Or Anywhere Else, Containing Some Belated Advice About How To Employ Your Leisure Time When Ultimate Questions Remain Perplexing In Spite Of Your Highest Earned Academic Degree, Together With Sundry Book Lists Nowhere Else In Captivity To Be Found
Leave It to Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse
Blandings Castle by P.G. Wodehouse
How Right You Are, Jeevesby P.G. Wodehouse
The World of Wodehouse Clergy
My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
The Pocket Book of Ogden Nash by Ogden Nash
Summa Theologica, 5 Vols by Thomas Aquinas
A Guide for the Perplexed by E.F. Schumacher
Six Classic Text never to be left unread p15
Gorgias by Plato
The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Confessions by Augustine
Pensées by Pascal
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
---The Republic, The City of God, The Summa Theologiae
Seven books about Universities p17
The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom
The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman (must read)
Great books about love p35
The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
Faith, Hope, Love by Josef Pieper
Love in the Western World by Denis de Rougemont
Four older but insightful books on how to prepare for an intellectual life p38
The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods by Antonin Sertillangesb ( a guide how to take notes, to classify what we have read, to select)
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler
The Art of Teaching by Gilbert Highet
Teacher in America by Jacques Barzun
A General Theory Of Authority by Yves R. Simon
p46 "I[Samuel Johnson] would let him first read nay English book which happens to engage his attention; ...He'll get better books afterwards."
the many others....
January 18, 2018
A wonderful guide in a similar vein to How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and The Art of Teaching by Gilbert Highet. I am thankful to have read through it this afternoon and to add to my thoughts on self-education and self-reliance. It will lead to some additions and subtractions to my reading list on my blog.
February 1, 2019
This book was short but sweet. It provided great insight for anyone curious as to how to take control of their own academic life.
July 8, 2022
A book that tells you to read good books.
June 26, 2025
Ridiculous white man nonsense. Gets one star for championing the idea of cultivating a private and ongoing commitment to intellectual endeavor.
April 3, 2025
A Review of A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning (Intercollegiate Studies Institute) by James V. Schall
Saturday, March 29, 2025
9:40 PM
I ended up reading this slender volume in a single day, shortly after it arrived. I've read the longer book by Schall entitled Another Sort of Learning, the one with a paragraph long subtitle which Schall says this short book is derived from. I generally expect insights and certainly enthusiasm and humor from whatever Schall has written. I am confessedly someone drawn to the listicles, or list-tickles, that Schall offers in profusion, even In this short summons to liberal learning. I think I would do well to return to some of his books for insight and guidance.
I also have a number of these Student's Guides put out by ISI, on American History, and History, etc. I find most of what ISI puts out is superb intellectually and at the same time is allied to Christian faith.
"The truth will not only 'make us free' but it is itself free. We all come in fact to know the same truth, otherwise we could not communicate at all with one another. This is why the modern-day denial of truth is, at the same time, a denial of real human communication and consequently, in place of truth, an exaltation of power. But if we are helped by others to learn something, of course we ought indeed to be grateful to them." pg. 10
One can clearly see Schall's orientation as a teacher and his aim to convey complex and deep truths in an understandable and accessible way. This text also touches on what I have been pondering in relation to eloquence and the repudiation of eloquence. Aiming for eloquence can be an indication of faith in the comprehensibility and communicability of truth. It can be part of what it means to be oriented humbly and as a servant toward others. Though it is associated now with putting on airs, the individual without faith in truth and orientation to communicate is left naked and alone.
I thought this an eloquent formulation: "In spite of most of what a student will read on the topic, revelation seeks reason, is addressed to mind and fosters it."
Schall advises self-discipline and amassing of a private library. I am now fifty and have amassed a substantive library and culled out much dross. However, self-discipline is much harder to arrive at. He reminds of C.S. Lewis's bracing observation that we have not read a great book at all if we have read it only once. I have what I call a kind of "personal canon" but have I really read the books in the canon enough times to truly claims this? This reminds me to reread and go deeper. He mentions the philosopher Eric Voegelin read the complete works of Shakespeare each year. The founder of First Things journal Fr. Richard John Neuhaus also did this, if I recall right. I have great respect for the work of both.
"I always assign what I consider fine and great books to my students, books that are worth reading again and again. I would be ashamed to assign to a student a book that I did not think worth keeping. I have myself read Aristotle and Plato and Aquinas and Chesterton many, many times- finding something new in each reading." This is especially impressive if he means he has read through all their works many times, especially when I think how much Aquinas and Chesterton wrote, not to mention the other two.
"Let me also recall Samuel Johnson, whose famous biography by his devotee Boswell is, I think, something along with the Bible that you should read a bit every day, if only for the delight of it." p.40 I have tried unsuccessfully to get into Boswell's Life of Johnson but I think it worth trying again.
"We need guides to find guides," writes Schall. And that is certainly what he provides us.
"I remember (Rudolf Allers) saying in class one day that we should always be reading novels, even bad novels; for in their particularity, we will always find something, some incident, some character, some chance insight, that will teach us something we could have learned nowhere else." pg. 47 I may be ready to hear this. This sounds like good advice to me, a reminder to get back to it.
There was a line I found convicting in the book, one about those who only think in relation to summarizing a book. Ahh, here it is. On page 9, Fr. Schall mentions the three reasons Thomas Aquinas adduced for the difficulty of learning and the second one was this: "the things we want to know are not treated according to the order of the discipline but only according to what is required for explaining some book or dispute." For myself, I feel conviction in this observation by Aquinas because it seems to illuminate the limitation of my intellectual development. But there is always hope in seeing one's deficiencies, as long as we are homo viator, still on the way to the final denouement. That is why I cherish these little pricks on the conscience.
One favor this book does for me is to remind me and re-arouse in me eros to further read Josef Pieper, Eric Voegelin, G.K. Chesterton
This little book makes me want to read the following books:
The Voegelinian Revolution by Eric Sandoz
On Duties (Especially part 3, written just before he died) by Cicero (and Cicero biography)
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The City of God by Augustine
The Summa Theologiae by Thomas Aquinas
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkein
Conversations with Eric Voegelin
"What is a Liberal Education?" by Leo Strauss
The Autobiography by G.K. Chesterton
About Love by Josef Pieper
Love in the Western World by Denis de Rougement
Boswell's Life of Johnson
J.M. Bochenski's Philosophy - An Intorduction
A General Theory of Authority by Yves Simon
Hilaire Belloc's Selected Essays
The Whimsical Christian by Dorothy Sayers
Crossing the Threshold of Hope by John Paul II
Conversations with Walker Percy
Read Again
Plato's dialogues
Shakespeare's Plays
A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt
Pensees by Pascal
Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Saturday, March 29, 2025
9:40 PM
I ended up reading this slender volume in a single day, shortly after it arrived. I've read the longer book by Schall entitled Another Sort of Learning, the one with a paragraph long subtitle which Schall says this short book is derived from. I generally expect insights and certainly enthusiasm and humor from whatever Schall has written. I am confessedly someone drawn to the listicles, or list-tickles, that Schall offers in profusion, even In this short summons to liberal learning. I think I would do well to return to some of his books for insight and guidance.
I also have a number of these Student's Guides put out by ISI, on American History, and History, etc. I find most of what ISI puts out is superb intellectually and at the same time is allied to Christian faith.
"The truth will not only 'make us free' but it is itself free. We all come in fact to know the same truth, otherwise we could not communicate at all with one another. This is why the modern-day denial of truth is, at the same time, a denial of real human communication and consequently, in place of truth, an exaltation of power. But if we are helped by others to learn something, of course we ought indeed to be grateful to them." pg. 10
One can clearly see Schall's orientation as a teacher and his aim to convey complex and deep truths in an understandable and accessible way. This text also touches on what I have been pondering in relation to eloquence and the repudiation of eloquence. Aiming for eloquence can be an indication of faith in the comprehensibility and communicability of truth. It can be part of what it means to be oriented humbly and as a servant toward others. Though it is associated now with putting on airs, the individual without faith in truth and orientation to communicate is left naked and alone.
I thought this an eloquent formulation: "In spite of most of what a student will read on the topic, revelation seeks reason, is addressed to mind and fosters it."
Schall advises self-discipline and amassing of a private library. I am now fifty and have amassed a substantive library and culled out much dross. However, self-discipline is much harder to arrive at. He reminds of C.S. Lewis's bracing observation that we have not read a great book at all if we have read it only once. I have what I call a kind of "personal canon" but have I really read the books in the canon enough times to truly claims this? This reminds me to reread and go deeper. He mentions the philosopher Eric Voegelin read the complete works of Shakespeare each year. The founder of First Things journal Fr. Richard John Neuhaus also did this, if I recall right. I have great respect for the work of both.
"I always assign what I consider fine and great books to my students, books that are worth reading again and again. I would be ashamed to assign to a student a book that I did not think worth keeping. I have myself read Aristotle and Plato and Aquinas and Chesterton many, many times- finding something new in each reading." This is especially impressive if he means he has read through all their works many times, especially when I think how much Aquinas and Chesterton wrote, not to mention the other two.
"Let me also recall Samuel Johnson, whose famous biography by his devotee Boswell is, I think, something along with the Bible that you should read a bit every day, if only for the delight of it." p.40 I have tried unsuccessfully to get into Boswell's Life of Johnson but I think it worth trying again.
"We need guides to find guides," writes Schall. And that is certainly what he provides us.
"I remember (Rudolf Allers) saying in class one day that we should always be reading novels, even bad novels; for in their particularity, we will always find something, some incident, some character, some chance insight, that will teach us something we could have learned nowhere else." pg. 47 I may be ready to hear this. This sounds like good advice to me, a reminder to get back to it.
There was a line I found convicting in the book, one about those who only think in relation to summarizing a book. Ahh, here it is. On page 9, Fr. Schall mentions the three reasons Thomas Aquinas adduced for the difficulty of learning and the second one was this: "the things we want to know are not treated according to the order of the discipline but only according to what is required for explaining some book or dispute." For myself, I feel conviction in this observation by Aquinas because it seems to illuminate the limitation of my intellectual development. But there is always hope in seeing one's deficiencies, as long as we are homo viator, still on the way to the final denouement. That is why I cherish these little pricks on the conscience.
One favor this book does for me is to remind me and re-arouse in me eros to further read Josef Pieper, Eric Voegelin, G.K. Chesterton
This little book makes me want to read the following books:
The Voegelinian Revolution by Eric Sandoz
On Duties (Especially part 3, written just before he died) by Cicero (and Cicero biography)
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The City of God by Augustine
The Summa Theologiae by Thomas Aquinas
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkein
Conversations with Eric Voegelin
"What is a Liberal Education?" by Leo Strauss
The Autobiography by G.K. Chesterton
About Love by Josef Pieper
Love in the Western World by Denis de Rougement
Boswell's Life of Johnson
J.M. Bochenski's Philosophy - An Intorduction
A General Theory of Authority by Yves Simon
Hilaire Belloc's Selected Essays
The Whimsical Christian by Dorothy Sayers
Crossing the Threshold of Hope by John Paul II
Conversations with Walker Percy
Read Again
Plato's dialogues
Shakespeare's Plays
A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt
Pensees by Pascal
Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
April 23, 2015
This was an enjoyable ride through Dr. Schall's interpretation of liberal learning. He is an engaging and succinct writer. The book is short but the book lists provided will last you a long time if you pursue them. He's Thomistic, leaning on Aristotle and the old Roman Catholic definition of wisdom, but I say that as preparation, not a reason to avoid the book.
March 4, 2013
This should be required reading before entering into a university.
February 11, 2020
Fabulous introduction to liberal studies and Western thought
August 3, 2018
For me, one of the measures of a successful book is the extent to which it inspires me to further writing. By that standard, this book is certainly a success, as it looks like I was able to find at least a couple of books by the author in my local library system that I will hopefully be reading soon. In this book, the author acknowledges that the material here is an abridgment of his previous work, and this work certainly will make many readers curious about what else the author has to say concerning the classical liberal arts education [1]. By and large, this is a book that seeks to promote a humanistic and traditional classical education, to be pursued both through self-culture as well as using one's own education as wisely as possible in order to help one's efforts. Since few universities are going to help someone acquire a strong classical education, those of us who value it are often left to our own devices to do the best we can. The volume aids the reader, who is expected to be a young person, in order to do just that.
At about 50 pages, this is certainly not a long book, but it makes for in quantity by its humorous and lighthearted touch and by its clear attention to quality. After a short introductory note, the author talks about the fact that the observations in this book came from his much larger book, Another Sort Of Learning, and comments on some of his counter-cultural observations on education. After that the author talks about the fact that there is a problem with many types of learning, in that what students care about most are often not discussed in classes. The author then spends some time on where someone is to begin in acquiring good knowledge through good books and good conversation and self-discipline. After this comes a discussion of teachers and teaching and how to appreciate the good teachers that one has. Finally, the author discusses how one is to spend the time to acquire this learning over the course of one's life and includes as list of unlikely books to stay sane by, the last of several such lists of good books that the author sprinkles throughout the book in entertaining footnotes.
In many ways, this book aids the sort of education that is discussed in its pages. For one, the book inspires its readers to ask questions about the way that people are educated, and those questions may likely inspire the reader to try to figure out the answers, as well as learn from the response to those questions that the author provides. The author provides plenty of good books and historical context and interesting thinkers who thought and worked on the matter of education, and this sort of interest makes the book much more enjoyable. Education debates can be rather tedious and tiresome sometimes, and this book does a very good job at keeping the discussion light and upbeat and quirky, all things that make for a more enjoyable read. The strong medicine about holding the reader responsible for self-education and self-discipline goes down much easier because it is told with a great deal of style and humor, and because the writer works well to enlist the reader on his side by pointing to the ways in which being a better student and seeking a better education can improve someone from the way things are in our world where bad education is sometimes taken for granted.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
At about 50 pages, this is certainly not a long book, but it makes for in quantity by its humorous and lighthearted touch and by its clear attention to quality. After a short introductory note, the author talks about the fact that the observations in this book came from his much larger book, Another Sort Of Learning, and comments on some of his counter-cultural observations on education. After that the author talks about the fact that there is a problem with many types of learning, in that what students care about most are often not discussed in classes. The author then spends some time on where someone is to begin in acquiring good knowledge through good books and good conversation and self-discipline. After this comes a discussion of teachers and teaching and how to appreciate the good teachers that one has. Finally, the author discusses how one is to spend the time to acquire this learning over the course of one's life and includes as list of unlikely books to stay sane by, the last of several such lists of good books that the author sprinkles throughout the book in entertaining footnotes.
In many ways, this book aids the sort of education that is discussed in its pages. For one, the book inspires its readers to ask questions about the way that people are educated, and those questions may likely inspire the reader to try to figure out the answers, as well as learn from the response to those questions that the author provides. The author provides plenty of good books and historical context and interesting thinkers who thought and worked on the matter of education, and this sort of interest makes the book much more enjoyable. Education debates can be rather tedious and tiresome sometimes, and this book does a very good job at keeping the discussion light and upbeat and quirky, all things that make for a more enjoyable read. The strong medicine about holding the reader responsible for self-education and self-discipline goes down much easier because it is told with a great deal of style and humor, and because the writer works well to enlist the reader on his side by pointing to the ways in which being a better student and seeking a better education can improve someone from the way things are in our world where bad education is sometimes taken for granted.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
March 30, 2020
The author, James V. Schall S.J. (1928 Pocahontas, IA-2019 Los Gatos, CA) was professor of political philosophy at Georgetown. This very thin text intends to be casual and easy on the attention span, providing options to our university’s failures where “diversity” influenced by postmodernism have been elevated in education as a priority. Those options are valid books provided in multiple very limited lists which Schall considers censored by our “new-movements” dominating the humanities. It’s the humanities of concern here as concrete results of science and technology are harder to marginalize, though that effort too is underway (see Sandra Harding’s Science Question in Feminism).
Schall does not launch a Philippic and never spells out the source or history of this decay. As a Jesuit he has more than ample horsepower to do so but, apparently, intends to merely raise awareness, not incite. Too bad.
There are gems here, “We should not doubt our minds but our motives. The condition of not knowing should not lead us to a further skepticism but to a more intense search for truth.” And there is humor, as Schall pondered a subtitle, “How To Get An Education Even While Still In College.”
As important as Schall’s tip on the postmodern agendas is, he also cautions about machinery of economic society where nature and the human spirit are eviscerated by product, profit and utility, though again, it’s passive. “The important things, Aristotle told us, are to be known ‘for their own sakes’,” says Schall. A pleasant book, probably well suited for students strongly influenced by blood-chemistry, pop-media, and about to get four-years of sensitivity training if they choose the humanities. With Schall’s help, perhaps they’ll graduate with something worth knowing and a route toward understanding through pursuit of deeper learning after the degree.
Schall does not launch a Philippic and never spells out the source or history of this decay. As a Jesuit he has more than ample horsepower to do so but, apparently, intends to merely raise awareness, not incite. Too bad.
There are gems here, “We should not doubt our minds but our motives. The condition of not knowing should not lead us to a further skepticism but to a more intense search for truth.” And there is humor, as Schall pondered a subtitle, “How To Get An Education Even While Still In College.”
As important as Schall’s tip on the postmodern agendas is, he also cautions about machinery of economic society where nature and the human spirit are eviscerated by product, profit and utility, though again, it’s passive. “The important things, Aristotle told us, are to be known ‘for their own sakes’,” says Schall. A pleasant book, probably well suited for students strongly influenced by blood-chemistry, pop-media, and about to get four-years of sensitivity training if they choose the humanities. With Schall’s help, perhaps they’ll graduate with something worth knowing and a route toward understanding through pursuit of deeper learning after the degree.
January 9, 2020
FOR THOSE IN SEARCH OF TRUTH
This is an excellent little book about acquiring an education. It is about searching for the truth and reality and the truth in reality. To paraphrase Mark Twain, we can learn to get an education despite our schooling. Schall tells us how.
Although it is directed towards students anyone interested in life-long learning would find this book well worth their time. Throughout the book Schall has scattered delightful lists of important books worth seeking out and reading.
This book would be an excellent gift for the new college student. But it would also be a wonderful gift for those who still have the burning desire to learn of the world. This is a great guide and a great place to start.
This is an excellent little book about acquiring an education. It is about searching for the truth and reality and the truth in reality. To paraphrase Mark Twain, we can learn to get an education despite our schooling. Schall tells us how.
Although it is directed towards students anyone interested in life-long learning would find this book well worth their time. Throughout the book Schall has scattered delightful lists of important books worth seeking out and reading.
This book would be an excellent gift for the new college student. But it would also be a wonderful gift for those who still have the burning desire to learn of the world. This is a great guide and a great place to start.
April 13, 2019
There is no need to get this book.
It is nothing but an abstract of Another sort of learning.
Look out for that: Another Sort of Learning
He also made a kind of online version of the student's guide available: http://faculty.georgetown.edu/schallj/WS17BJVS.htm
It is nothing but an abstract of Another sort of learning.
Look out for that: Another Sort of Learning
He also made a kind of online version of the student's guide available: http://faculty.georgetown.edu/schallj/WS17BJVS.htm
April 21, 2019
A wonderfully poignant book describing the lack lustre approach that students take when it comes to education. Fr James has an incredible gift of simplicity within his writings - yet at the same time he is able to describe the complex woes and conflicting perspectives of the modern student.
I only wish that I had read this book when I started university instead of when I finished. Nonetheless, the message is still absolutely applicable and timely.
I only wish that I had read this book when I started university instead of when I finished. Nonetheless, the message is still absolutely applicable and timely.
January 1, 2025
The seminal book on liberal learning, an excellent first-read of a new year. In fact, I created a new GR bookshelf to hold the many diverse suggested books Schall refers to in this slim but powerful work of care for admittedly-mostly-young college-aged students. They can use all the help to search for truth that they can get in today's academic community ... as has always been the case, acknowledged as far back as Plato.
January 21, 2021
This is a great short read about conducting your own learning — the education you probably never got at a university. My heart always sings when I read these books that remind me about how much there is to learn.
February 12, 2019
Short. Practical. Filled with booklists.
June 21, 2019
5 = I have no reservations telling anyone that the book should be read
July 31, 2019
Great, short intro to the topic. Lots of good recommended reading!
February 14, 2020
Solid advice on self-discipline and building a personal library in pursuing a liberal education, sprinkled with classic-books-to-read throughout.
August 10, 2020
Read in one sitting. Schall is an engaging writer, with deep thoughts between booklists.
September 30, 2020
This introduced me to some writers and books I might not have come across otherwise. But Schall is too provincial ("read a little from the Bible every day"), hence the two stars.
October 30, 2020
Very helpful in shifting my perspective in the MLA program.
December 10, 2020
A small book with some unusual recommendations, reading-wise. Sometimes you have to stop and look at a map, any map, to get a sense of where you are.
May 30, 2021
Much too short to even provide an overview of the topic. Look elsewhere to understand this topic.
December 27, 2021
This is a two-page book list, padded out with fifty pages of bloviating to make it look like an actual guide. Not really worth the hour-or-so it took to finish.
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