The Idea of the Core

*13.5 Billion years ago—Big Bang: the appearance of matter and energy

*4.5 Billion years ago—the formation of planet earth

*3.8 Billion years ago—the appearance of first life forms

*13.5 Billion years ago—Big Bang: the appearance of matter and ener...

*4 Million years ago—First upright-walking ape

*2.8 to 1.5 million years ago—Homo habilis: first member of the genus homo in East and South Africa

*2 million to 70,000 years ago—Homo erectus

*500,000 to 40,000 years ago Homo neanderthalensis

*200,000 years ago to present—Homo sapiens

*Homo floresiensis (95,000 to12,000 years ago)

*Homo denisova (400,00 to 41,000 years ago)

*ETC...

*200,000 years ago—Homo sapiens (anatomically modern huma...

*200,000 years ago—Homo sapiens (anatomically modern humans) appear in East Africa

*50,000—“Behavioral modernity,” (“The Cognitive Revolution”)

*40,000 years ago, homo sapiens reach Europe

*30,000 years ago, Neanderthals become extinct in Europe

Stadel Cave "Lion Man" or "Lioness Woman," c. 32,000 years ago

*12,000 years ago—“The Agricultural Revolution”

*5,000 years a...

*12,000 years ago—“The Agricultural Revolution”

*5,000 years ago—First Kingdoms, writing, money

*3,000 years ago—Trojan War

*2,700 years ago—probable composition/assembly of the Iliad

*2,500 years ago—Athenian Democracy

*500 years ago—“The Scientific Revolution”

*200 years ago—“The Industrial Revolution”

*50 years ago—“The Digital Revolution”

The best city-state will not confer citizenship on vulgar craftsmen … for it ...

The best city-state will not confer citizenship on vulgar craftsmen … for it is impossible to engage in virtuous pursuits while living the life of a vulgar craftsman or hired laborer.

-Aristotle, Politics

It is evident, then, that there is a certain kind of education that children must ...

It is evident, then, that there is a certain kind of education that children must be given not because it is useful or necessary but because it is noble and suitable for a free person.

-Aristotle, Politics

The science of the laws of nature is called Physics, whereas the scien...

The science of the laws of nature is called Physics, whereas the science of the laws of freedom is called Ethics.

-Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals

For to be driven by appetite alone is slavery, and obedience to the law one has prescribed for oneself is liberty.

--Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

For to be driven by appetite alone is slavery, and obedience to the l...

After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had built our hous...

After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had built our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and settled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust .

-New England’s First Fruits (1643)

...For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it on...

...For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.

-Plutarch, De Auditu

...college should be: an aid to reflection,

a place and process whereby you...

...college should be: an aid to reflection,

a place and process whereby young

people take stock of their talents and

passions and begin to sort out their lives

in a way true to themselves and responsible to others.

-Andrew Delbanco, College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be

The true college will ever have one goal—not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of the life which meat nourishes.

-W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

The true college will ever have one goal—not to earn meat, but to know the end a...

1. Uniform, Required Courses

2. Study of Core Texts

3. Small Discussion-Driven Seminars

4. Interdisciplinary Faculty

1. Uniform, Required Courses

2. Study of Core Tex...