Refuge, Remembrance, and Renewal

This past week has provided disturbing footage of refugees fleeing and defending their homes in Ukraine. At the same time that these images floated in the periphery, I happened to note that our three academies are now approaching 5,000 refugees on the waitlist to enroll– with a current population of 4,000 scholars already inhabiting the sturdy fort known as John Adams Academy. As I exchanged an email with an educational mentor of mine, he pointed out the following related to our time: “We are, both of us, standing atop the gate of a fort watching refugees stream toward us. Behind them is the enemy that drives them.”

There are refugees of life everywhere. So, who is driving the educational and displaced war-torn immigrants? The power hungry, the avaricious and special interests. What are the evacuees seeking? Safety, opportunity and freedom for themselves and their families.

Remember and Renew

Memorials provide a way to recognize, remember and renew principles of our heritage and allow us to be repeatedly reborn as citizens of a nation when we lose our way or forget our past. G.K. Chesterton is credited to have said, “Every revolution is a restoration of something that once guided and inspired people in the past.” 

In the year 1215 King John put his seal on Magna Carta (The Great Charter) at Runnymede. England was in political turmoil. King John had bitter disagreements with the church and had established unpopular taxes on land barons to fund an ongoing war with France. This fostered an alliance between feudal barons and key members of the clergy. By the start of 1215 the barons seized control of London – the seat of government.

In early June, King John met to hear their demands, and on June 15th he agreed to seal the proposed “Great Charter of Liberty,” enshrining their rights into law. What were these liberties?

The charter addressed unalienable rights, including 63 clauses covering law, liberty, and the church. The most important of these clauses enshrined the rights of “free men” to justice and a fair trial.

At the outset, Magna Carta had very little legal impact. At King John’s request it was repealed by the Pope, who emphatically declared the document “null and void of all validity forever.”

After time and successive kings, The Great Charter began to have real consequences. King Henry III released three revised versions of Magna Carta during his reign, and over the years it began to take on legal and symbolic status. This document also became foundational to our Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was signed into law on December 15, 1791. Do you think it coincidental that John Adams signed the Bill of Rights into law and the Constitution on that particular day in 1791? Consider the preamble to this document. Its purpose was clear. While the Constitution listed the powers of government, the Bill of Rights listed what powers the government did not possess as a way of preventing arbitrary actions. Consider the preamble. 

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

While visiting England in June of 2015, on the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, we saw a memorial to The Great Charter of Liberty. Here is what we read:

Memorials at Runnymede: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/memorials-at-runnymede
  • At the front of the plinth/wall: This memorial was dedicated on 28th July 1957.
  • On the central pier: To commemorate Magna Carta, symbol of freedom under law.
  • On an inner frieze, just above the pillars: Erected by the American Bar Association – a tribute to Magna Carta – symbol of freedom under law.
  •  Three of the stone flags in the floor outside the pavilion have been inscribed:
    • 18 July 1971 – on this day the American Bar Association again came here and pledged adherence to the principles of the great charter.
    • On 13 July 1985 the American Bar Association returned to this place to renew its pledge of adherence to the principles of the great charter.
    • 15 July 2000 – the American Bar Association returns this day to celebrate Magna Carta – foundation of the rule of law, for ages past and for the new millennium.

So here we have a memorial of perhaps the greatest foundational document for freedom on British soil where the American Bar Association recognizes The Great Charter.

Will you assure the success of liberty?

Guess what else? Next to this site an acre of English ground was given to the United States of America by the people of Britain in memory of John F. Kennedy. Written on this monument are his words: 

Let every nation know whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, or oppose any foe in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.

John F. Kennedy, Inaugural address of President Kennedy, 20 January 1961. 

Are we as Americans and citizens of the world still willing to do that?

The designer, Geoffrey Jellicoe, wrote that he had based his ideas on John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and that the piece is intended to be seen as a point in a journey through the landscape. Behind the memorial stone is an American scarlet oak, which turns red in November, the month of Kennedy’s death. You continue a paved walk or “Jacob’s ladder” through the wild woods of human existence along a stepped cobbled path. The cobbles symbolize people met along the way and the 50 unique different sized stone steps represent the American states.

With this memorial being contained within an acre of British land, and gifted by the people of Britain to the people of America in perpetuity, it is poetic to notice that virtually the same location commemorates both John F. Kennedy and Magna Carta.

My discovery of these two memorials during the commemoratory month of June in 2015 energized me! I felt reborn and renewed again in the ancient principles of freedom. In the words of another father of freedom Abraham Lincoln. 

The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—….that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln, “The Gettysburg Address” 1863.

Is It Time for an American Rebirth?

Please enjoy a guest post written by Dr. Andrew D. Carico.

Andrew is Headmaster at John Adams Academy in El Dorado Hills, California. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Claremont Graduate University, and he has also written for Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, Starting Points Journal, and Claremont Review of Books. Dr. Carico has a deep love for classical education and its role in transforming individual lives and perpetuating American liberty. In his professional life at John Adams Academy, he is dedicated to serving the school’s mission because he believes, as James Madison wrote, that “a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”  He resides in the Sacramento area with his wife and two young children.

Is It Time for an American Rebirth?

Can a nation be born again? 

The term “born again” gives rise to  much thought, along with perhaps speculation and confusion. The concept has roots within the Christian religion. In the Gospel of John, Chapter 3:3-6, Jesus engages in a transformative conversation with the Jewish priest Nicodemus:

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

The spiritual rebirth that comes from God provides new spiritual life, the regeneration of a heart marred by original sin but made new by the work of Christ. 

To be “born again” also implies an original birth. Like an individual, the United States has a known and defined “founding,” which makes it distinct from other nations in the world. It even has a birthday—July 4, 1776. It’s not common for countries to have a birthday. Can China, Britain, or India identify a specific founding “day”? They have important dates in their countries’ history, but their cultures and territories stretch back centuries or more.

The principles of the Declaration of Independence, preserved and protected by the Constitution, provide the touchstone for Americans to return to, reengage with, and reassert as their own. The principles in these documents provide the source for American renewal, if only Americans will take the time to reacquaint themselves with them. 

Examples of American Regeneration

Three distinct moments in American history reflect a need for rebirth and a rebaptizing in our original principles, suggesting it can happen again in our own time. 

First, consider the ratification debates in 1787. Writing in The Federalist No. 1, Alexander Hamilton notes the following:

It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. 

Hamilton provides a teaching here for each new generation of Americans to engage in “reflection and choice” on the goodness of their principles and the soundness of their constitutional system, lest they be doomed to a tumultuous situation of constant “accident and force.” While not a call for rebirth per se, it is explicitly a call for reflection, which may necessitate rebirth in those original ideals. It’s a task for each generation, to use Walt Whitman’s words, to take up “the burden and the lesson.”

Second, Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address provides perhaps the clearest call for national rebirth in American history. The institution of chattel slavery has been referred by many as America’s “original sin,” a sin squarely addressed by the nation in 1863. Lincoln began his Address famously with “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” His use of “conceived” suggests a specific moment—1776 with the Declaration—when the American nation began, travailing through childbirth and emerging as an independent nation. 

Lincoln ends with a call for “a new birth of freedom,” suggesting that for the nation to live, it must win the bloody war and rebaptize itself in the principles found at its conception and birth (specifically human equality, protection of natural rights, and consent of the governed), and to make them new again.  

Finally, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. powerfully  articulated—standing poignantly on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963—the struggle for full equality for African Americans, and how to overcome that struggle required the application of the principles of the American Founding to all citizens: 

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

King further challenged the nation to “rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.”

An American Rebirth?

Throughout the 20th and 21st Centuries, a dedicated Progressive Movement has explicitly sought to critique and supersede the ideals of the Declaration and Constitution. The consequences of this movement have reverberated throughout various sectors of American life, from an expansive growth of government on the one hand to the precipitous decline of the traditional family on the other. Their work has been impactful, but it mustn’t be fatal. 

Like a man who cannot re-enter his mother’s womb and be born again, neither can America go back and experience its founding in 1776. Yet, what it cannot do in the flesh, it can do in the spirit. America can rededicate itself to those truths we should still hold self-evident. It can experience a true revolution, which, in one of its most basic meanings, is a complete circular turn, a return to the beginning. 

Consider the thoughts of John Adams in his retirement. He liked to distinguish between the War for Independence and the American Revolution. For Adams, the Revolution came first—it was in “the minds and hearts of the people” from 1760 to 1775 as the arguments for separation from Britain were growing and national unity was forming. The war, what is often called the Revolution, was a follow-through of the real revolution that previously took place. 

Thus, if Americans from all walks of life can revolve back to their founding truths and embrace them in their minds and hearts, the rebirth of a nation could commence. In doing so, it may once again ensure, as the Great Emancipator put it, “a new birth of freedom.” 

We Need a Rebirth of Traditional Liberalism

Why is the word liberal in liberal arts good but using it in other contexts is not?

Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman put it this way: 

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, and especially after 1930 in the United States, the term liberalism came to be associated with a very different emphasis, particularly in economic policy. It came to be associated with a readiness to rely primarily on the state rather than on private voluntary arrangements to achieve objectives regarded as desirable. The catchwords became welfare and equality rather than freedom. The nineteenth century liberal regarded an extension of freedom as the most effective was to promote welfare and equality; the twentieth-century liberal regards welfare and equality as either prerequisites of or alternatives to freedom. In the name of welfare and equality, the twentieth-century liberal has come to favor a revival of the very policies of state intervention and paternalism against which classical liberalism fought [founding fathers against England].

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom

Friedman goes on to say that due to the evolution of the traditional definition, what was once known as liberalism is now better understood as conservatism. But the most important point to extract from Friedman’s teachings is that the liberal was a man who was free. And freedom was both the precursor and the key to equality and welfare.

There from the start

The doctrines of traditional liberalism or freedom were laid down in the Declaration of Independence as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the Founders fought to liberate themselves from what they perceived as tyranny and despotism against those very rights. Their grievances were laid down in the second part of the Declaration of Independence as violations against the abuse of the three powers to rule, namely: legislative, executive, and judicial. Those rights were then protected by a new document, the Constitution, to protect and promulgate traditional liberalism, or self-government, in the form of a natural aristocracy informed by moral virtue and education in a robust democratic republic where citizens had enough knowledge and wisdom to be self-governing. While the Founders did not claim to have invented these ideas, they wanted to restore the ancient principles of freedom as established in Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome. 

The question as postulated by James Madison in Federalist Paper, No. 51 is still applicable more than ever today: Is there enough virtue in the people so they can govern themselves? 

If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 51.

Absent this type of virtue, which we find ONLY in a Classical Liberal Arts education, we are left to what was feared by Alexander Hamilton and written about in Federalist 1, “It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions on accident and force.”

It’s about freedom

Jefferson wrote something similar in response to an invitation to attend the 50th anniversary celebration of the Declaration shortly before his death on July 4th, 1826. Jefferson had a deep understanding of traditional liberalism and he used the power of metaphor to emphasize the God-given right of our country’s citizens to be free and self-governing.

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. …

Thomas Jefferson, Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman

The liberal in liberal arts is not about political parties but about liberating man in the traditional sense through a liberal arts education. Thus, making him a self-governing sovereign and FREE. 

Traditional Liberalism unshackles man from saddles, spurs, and boots of a self-appointed bureaucratic aristocratic government that desires to own and control him.

Use your enlightenment, move into action

Revolution in Education has multiple aims, one of which is to show you that the enlightenment of your own soul and mind is in your own hands. It will not come to you without your conscious decision to move out of “the cave,” as we have previously discussed. Every step we have taken together so far is to shine a light on the importance of freedom, and the risks of allowing them to slip away without a fight. Another aim is to inspire you, once enlightened, to ensure that the next generation is as well-equipped to protect their own rights and freedoms.

It is time to reclaim, and restore, the traditional definition of liberalism. This is not as overwhelming as it sounds.  It starts with an individual, then a family, then a community, and so on. The ties between education and freedom have been built into the fabric of our country from the very start. How can we together make sure those ties, and our rights and freedoms, are as strong as ever?

At This Moment: Ukraine, A Midweek Observation

The price of freedom has been on display over the last few weeks as a tyrannical bully has sought to smash a smaller nation into servitude. I was so proud of the courageous president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in his response last weekend when the Biden Administration offered to evacuate him away to safety and out of the country. 

Zelensky, who is well aware of the enormous risks to his life, said in response, “The fight is here.  I need ammunition, not a ride.”  That quote will perhaps be evoked for generations to come.

My favorite author on freedom, Lord Acton, described freedom this way. 

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, 2,460 years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free. In every age its progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man’s craving for power, and the poor man’s craving for food. During long intervals it has been utterly arrested, when nations were being rescued from barbarism and from the grasp of strangers, and when the perpetual struggle for existence, depriving men of all interest and understanding in politics, has made them eager to sell their birthright for a pottage, and ignorant of the treasure they resigned. At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just ground of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in the hour of success. No obstacle has been so constant, or so difficult to overcome as uncertainty and confusion touching the nature of true liberty. If hostile interests have wrought much injury, false ideas have wrought still more; and its advance is recorded in the increase of knowledge as much as in the improvement of laws. The history of institutions is often a history of deception and illusions; for their virtue depends on the ideas that produce and on the spirit that preserves them; and the form may remain unaltered when the substance has passed away…..

Lord Acton, An Address Delivered to the Members of the Bridgnorth Institute, February 26, 1877

It carries similarly courageous sentiments as these powerful statements by free leaders. 

“Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall.” —Ronald Reagan June 12, 1987

“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.” —Winston Churchill, Speech to the House of Commons, May 10, 1940

There are many brave men and women who are now fighting for their very lives in Ukraine, and perhaps soon to come, other former Soviet-controlled countries. It was about 40 years ago when three heroic individuals stepped forward and stood firm in the face of tyrannical actions against a much smaller country, Poland. As Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan teamed up to liberate Eastern Europe from its long night of darkness.  There is precedence for courage.

Looking to the past for solutions to the present

Winston Churchill wrote a series of books on World War II. In them he states clearly his aims when he said,

In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Good Will.

Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Volume I : The Gathering Storm (1948) Moral of the Work

He then outlined several themes for each volume. Notice the prescient nature of each volume for our time. 

  • The Gathering Storm: How the English-speaking peoples through their unwisdom, carelessness, and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm. 
  • Their Finest Hour: How the British people held the fort alone till those who hitherto had been half blind were half ready. 
  • The Grand Alliance: How the British fought on with hardship their garment until Soviet Russian (I will now say Ukraine) and the United States were drawn into the Great Conflict. 
  • The Hinge of Fate: How the power of the Grand Alliance became preponderant. 
  • Closing the Ring: How Nazi Germany (Russia) was isolated and assailed on all sides. 
  • Triumph and Tragedy: How the great democracies triumphed, and so were able to resume the follies which had so nearly cost them their life. 

And so it is. History continues to replay the same scenarios with different names, but with human nature ambitiously and avariciously seeking what is not theirs to give or take—the freedom of another. 

May we pray for these brave families, friends and patriots who are doing their best to keep their freedom. May we have the courage and will to give them what they need to defend their unalienable rights. 

I end with these words from Churchill who understood that those days of the Nazi menace were “stern days” after an offer came from Mussolini for a peace conference with Adolf Hitler. 

If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.

Winston Churchill

Freedom requires this level of commitment to a noble cause greater than self. Liberty and tyranny have been played out over the millennia from Athens to Jerusalem, to Rome and Philadelphia with too many places to mention in between. May God Bless America and help her to be the beacon and hand of hope during these stern days.

Rebirth of The Great Ideas: A Renaissance for 2022

Please enjoy this guest post written by Linda Forman.

About the Author: Linda’s childhood was spent abroad with her family while her father built bridges, dams, power plants and transportation systems around the world. She cites the lessons learned about her fellow world citizens and their cultures as the greatest part of her education. Formally, she was educated in small, private, classical schools where she cultivated a love for history and literature. Although she would later go on to earn a degree in Commercial Design and Drafting, classical education would inevitably find its way back into her life and her heart as she and Dean together founded the John Adams Academies, a system of schools committed to preparing future leaders and statesmen through principle-based education centered in classics and great mentors. You can see why Linda is the perfect choice for guest posting on this website, and we appreciate her thoughts and contributions to our March theme: Rebirth.

Rebirth of The Great Ideas: A Renaissance for 2022

The beginning of 2022 saw more of the same disruptions of the previous two years in health, culture, science, economics, politics, race relations, travel, and especially education. As a society we have grown cynical, even hopeless, in the promise of a positive future. We need a renewal of the human spirit!

It is said, the most valuable, the most powerful, and the most helpful thing in the world is a great idea. If we want to renew our spirits and make our lives successful, hopeful and happy we must have some good ideas.  If you were asked to enumerate a handful of the world’s greatest ideas, what would they be?

Ideas and ideals are the source of all prosperity, virtue and progress. Great ideas enrich our lives, shape our personalities, and refine and ennoble our characters. For example, can we appreciate the ideas of Thomas Edison and what he did for the world? The ideas of this single human being have filled the world with light, power and music. Can you imagine a world without Socrates, Homer or Shakespeare? What about George Washington, Lincoln or Churchill? What about Jesus?  Ideas matter.  Ideas change the world. But first, they change us.

We must start, but where to begin

We do not have to reinvent the wheel in our aim to make sense of our present circumstances and difficulties. We can re-establish the great ideas left to us by the most brilliant minds in the earth’s history, collected within the world’s great literature. We can adopt these ideas in our personal lives as we maneuver through the morass of political bureaucracy, social upheaval, and economic turmoil. We can seek truth, find peace, and apply wisdom in the chaos of 2022.

In the early 20th century, Dr. Charles W. Eliot, who had recently completed his tenure as president of Harvard University, gathered Harvard scholars to assemble into one set of books the greatest ideas that had ever been thought by any person in any age since time began. He said,

A great mind needs acquaintance with the prodigious store of recorded discoveries, experiences, and reflections which humanity in its intermittent and irregular progress from barbarism to civilization has acquired and laid up.

Charles W. Eliot, The Reading Guide, The Harvard Classics

Dr. Eliot and his associates searched out and gathered the world’s best ideas and bound them together in fifty volumes called the Harvard Classics. It was their opinion that these volumes contained the most excellent ideas in existence, a picture of the progress of the human race.

Another collection created

In 1952, Robert Hutchins, former President of Chicago University, and Mortimer Adler made another selection of great ideas in the 54 volumes entitled the Great Books of the Western World. They also arranged a huge index called the Syntopicon (collection of topics) of which a student can quickly turn to any of the chosen 102 great ideas, including, for example: beauty, courage, democracy, duty, family, God, honor, liberty.

The Great Ideas as found in The Great Books of the Western World are those ideas which have given life to the Western tradition. From Volume 1 of the Syntopicon:

The unity of this set of books does not consist merely in the fact that each member of it is a great book worth reading. A deeper unity exists in the relation of all the books to one tradition, a unity shown by the continuity of the discussion of common themes and problems.  It is claimed for this set of great books that all the works in it are significantly related to one another and that, taken together, they adequately present the ideas and issues, the terms and topics, that have made the Western tradition what it is.

Mortimer J. Adler, ed. Robert M. Hutchins, Vol. 1 Great Books of the Western World

The ideas in these books have been pronounced great by informed critics over long periods of time and judged great by their enduring influence. These ideas are authoritative, traditional and they initiated the ongoing conversation about what is beautiful, good, and true in the world. They exemplify excellence in the individual and in civilization.

Power in the past

Reading the foundational books of our Western culture may seem like an outdated solution to renewing the human spirit but time has proven that they can provide a foundation of understanding of who we are in this time and this place, how we came to be here and what it means to be human within the context of the greatest ideas ever developed in Western thought.

There is power in looking to the past and to timeless ideas for insights to overcome today’s challenges. There is power in looking to the past to define our rights and responsibilities to maintain our freedoms, as well. If we possess enough of the same kinds of ideas that formed the thought patterns of Socrates, Emerson, or Moses, then our own lives can come to resemble the lives of Socrates, Emerson, or Moses.

The Harvard Classics and The Great Books of the Western World are a great place to start. Just pick up a volume. Begin to read. Write down the great ideas that impress you. Ponder them. Implement them. The function of any great idea is to inspire great ambitions, build up physical, mental and moral strength, and bring people encouragement and comfort. Through the great ideas 2022 can be a rebirth of hope and opportunity, wonder and excitement, lifting us above the mundane and difficult things of this world.

Nothing else in the world…not all the armies…is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

Victor Hugo

Who did Jefferson call his Amici Omnium Horarum?

On April 29, 1962 John F. Kennedy was introducing Nobel Prize winners. He stated the following, “I want to tell you how welcome you are to the White House. I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

“Someone once said,” the president continued, “that Thomas Jefferson was a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, and dance the minuet. Whatever he may have lacked, if he could have had his former colleague, Mr. Franklin, here we all would have been impressed.” 

These founding fathers were remarkable men. Their characters, and the actions they took to lay down the principles of sound government, have withstood the tests of time and continue to do so. 

Our Country’s Key Mentor

I would like to share with you a bit about someone you may not know, someone who helped Thomas Jefferson become that impressive man lauded by Kennedy above. His name was George Wythe, and he was an essential mentor in the life of Thomas Jefferson.  Wythe was an extraordinary man: the first law professor in America, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He was mentor to many others including John Marshall, James Monroe, Henry Clay and “enough other Founding Fathers to populate a small standing army,” as Professor Forrest McDonald put it. 

Biographer Robert Peterson summarized some of Wythe’s major achievements: 

“Often working behind the scenes in the classroom or his chambers, Wythe helped lay the foundation for the limited, Constitutional government that brought forth America’s free enterprise system…..Teaching both by example, and precept, Wythe might be called ‘America’s Teacher of Liberty.’ At the same time, his contribution to the legal profession as America’s first professor of law earns him the title of ‘The Father of American Jurisprudence.’

“Wythe’s chief aim as an educator was to train his students for leadership. In a letter to his friend John Adams in 1785, Wythe wrote that his purpose was to ‘form such characters as may be fit to succeed those which have been…. useful in the national councils of America’….Mr. Wythe’s school….produced a generation of lawyers, judges, ministers, teachers and Statesmen who helped fill the need for leadership in the young nation.”

Robert Peterson, George Wythe of Williamsburg – Foundation for Economic Education

He taught two United States Presidents, two Supreme Court Justices and over thirty Governors, Senators, Congressmen, Ambassadors and Judges. His methods were simple: read the classics, orally discuss what they had learned, write about it and how it applied to their times. 

He mentored his pupils about their readings and required both deep insight and clarity from them in their answers. Research, writing, thinking and public speaking skills were practiced, mentored, and mastered. Another biographer described him as, “One of the most learned legal characters of the present age….He is remarkable for his exemplary life and universally esteemed for his good principle. No man, it is said, understands the history of government better than Mr. Wythe…” 

Jefferson and Wythe

 Jefferson, as an orphan, needed such a mentor and referred to Wythe as his amici omnium horarum, or his friend of all hours. That speaks volumes, to have a friend for all hours or times. Jefferson lost his father early in life and George Wythe became, as he said, his “faithful and beloved mentor in youth and most affectionate friend through life.” He went on to say how Wythe mentored him while in Congress and also to others who served on the High Court of Chancery. “His pure integrity, judgment of reasoning powers, gave him great weight,” Jefferson professed.

“No man ever left behind him a character more venerated than George Wythe. His virtue was of the purest tint; his integrity inflexible and his justice exact; of warm patriotism, and, devoted as he was to liberty and the natural and equal rights of man, he might truly be called the Cato of his country, without the avarice of the Roman, for a more disinterested person never lived. Temperance and regularity in all his habits gave him general good health, and his unaffected modesty and suavity of manner endeared him to every one. He was of easy elocution, his language chaste, methodical in the arrangement of his matter, learned and logical in the use of it, and of great urbanity in debate, not quick of apprehension, but with a little time profound in penetration; and sound in conclusion. In his philosophy he was firm, and neither troubling, nor perhaps trusting any one with his religious creed, he left to the world the conclusion that that religion must be good which could produce a life of such exemplary virtue.”

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson: Notes for the Biography of George Wythe., ca …

Changed Forever

It is easier to now see how Jefferson and his colleagues used the power of rhetoric, persuasion, and the pen to change the world! These were not ideas sprung fully-formed in the moments our country’s Forefathers gathered. The intricate ideas of life, liberty, property, happiness, and equality had been discussed extensively prior, in classrooms and in simulations under the tutelage of George Wythe, perhaps one of the finest, if not greatest, mentors of that time. 

The power of a mentor and friend for all hours is life, and dare I say even history, changing. 

Mentors, Not Professors

What are the differences between a professor and a mentor?

A professor dogmatically professes, lectures, and places expectations and requirements upon the student. A mentor, on the other hand, inspires, invites, and guides the mentee.

The practice of mentoring is an elevated one. In a world that is quick to jump to cynicism and bad faith, mentoring calls upon our “better angels” in finding our dreams.

Consider this poem by W. B. Yeats.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths 
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet: 
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet; 
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Dreams for self and others are what give energy and passion to being and finding a mentor. When we engage the free will of another in the discovery process of purpose we are walking on the hallowed ground of dreams and aspirations of the soul.

A Young Mentee Reaches Out

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of receiving an email from a former scholar/mentee who moved to New Jersey after spending several years at John Adams Academy. He agreed I could share his correspondence.

“Currently, I am a sophomore at Holmdel High School. When we moved to New Jersey I was surprised to find that the stellar classical education I had grown up with at John Adams was not a universal standard. Ever since I left the Academy I feel as if a part of me and the patriotic and servant leader attitude is missing, and I wanted to rekindle that fervor. With that impetus I started a club called the “American Military Support Group” or AMSG for short. After only six months we have over thirty-seven members and are expanding more branches of our group to other high schools in the area. Our main goal is to support veterans in their transition back into civilian life and assist organizations who feel the same gratitude for our troops as we do. I plan to have ten branches of the club in every state by the end of my High School career.

I decided to start my club after watching a 60 Minutes episode about how a certain army captain was on patrol in Afghanistan and ended up on the wrong side of an IED. After multiple surgeries following the injury, he lost an eye and suffered some severe mental problems from the IED’s shock-waves he went on to start a charity of his own to help veterans.

After watching that, I wanted to do my part in making sure those veterans get rewarded for their service and come home happy knowing that their communities will take care of them. I saw that the GIGO fund has done great work connecting veterans to employment opportunities and special healthcare benefits in addition to housing assistance, so I felt obligated to help them on their mission.

I reflect often on the stellar education I received at John Adams Academy and am glad I had the leadership and moral instruction lacking in too many of our public institutions.

Around the dinner table, we often compare my apparently top-ranked public school, to the wonderful and enriching experience at John Adams Academy. The conversations tend to focus on the family- centered values, the strength of a tight-knit community and a focus on a classical education at the Academy.

I only had the courage to speak out, I think, because of the traditional upbringing I received at the Academy. I admire your vision for the Academy spreading across the nation and the success of two more branches just after eight years. Your vision inspired me to extend the American Military Support Group I started at my high school in the same fashion. It is my personal belief that every school which has a student council, and a flag, and anything else for that matter, needs a group to defend/promote American values, or at least one to honor and support the men and women who fight for it. Ideally, the group would instead be a school, namely John Adams Academy, however it is hard for me to start a school at the young age of sixteen for now. But I think we share the same vision that the United States not only needs but deserves an institution worthy of its Founding Fathers’ blessings and I would like to ask you for your guidance on my mission to make America great again, currently through my work in the American Military Support Group.”

What inspired me about this correspondence was how mentors helped inspire this young man. Never once were demands placed upon him. All was self-imposed after experiencing inspiration. The core values and moral virtues of parents, mentors, and an institution tempered and built his desire to be a servant leader.

Mentors, Not Professors

It was my very own mentor, Oliver DeMille, who first introduced me to the principle “mentors, not professors.”

The cycle of service that flows from finding a mentor to being a mentor is very much a natural progression. Inspiration begets inspiration, and whether you are the mentee with the dream or the mentor with the desire to guide, I believe that you will never regret being a part of this special relationship of discovery, inspiration and service.

How to Find Your Mentor: The Ones You’ve Met and the Ones You Haven’t

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” 

—Sir Isaac Newton

As you search for your mentor, you will be looking for someone who has the lived experience and wisdom you lack. It stands to reason your mentor will be found having lived through important moments in history, whether it’s the recent or more distant past. 

So where do we start such a search?

First: Find a Great Book

Can someone you never met qualify as a mentor? I say, yes. In fact, it is essential that we look to the past so that we can learn from both the errors and triumphs of history. Sir Isaac Newton knew this when he assessed that his work could not have happened without the efforts of those who had come before. So, first, find a great book.

A great book or classical work typically has four simple characteristics: 

  • A great theme 
  • Elevated or noble language 
  • It has universality to speak across time
  • It is worth repeated reading because it teaches us something new every time it is consumed

The Bible is such a book. There are great books in every field or endeavor. Over the past several years my wife and I began John Adams Academy, a K-12 charter school, and through that endeavor we discovered how easy it is to get the “classics” into our hands and homes. Many of these books are now part of the public domain, meaning they are free and available on the internet and can be downloaded to almost any phone, tablet, or computer.

It wasn’t always so easy. Historically only kings and queens, nobility or the aristocracy were afforded a great education. They were the ones who could read and had access to the great libraries of the world. Now, all of us can read. Are we taking advantage of that skill and the abundant available resources? Often things that have taken mentors a lifetime to learn have been distilled into a single book, and now you can benefit from that wisdom with the click of a mouse.

In Proverbs 2:3-5 we read, “Yea if thou criest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as sliver and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then thou shalt understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” 

Are we seeking great knowledge in the right places and with the enthusiasm for hidden treasure? The collective wisdom of the ages is waiting for us all and such wisdom is more accessible than it has ever been in the history of this earth. 

Second: Find Mentors from a Past Generation

As we read great books it is important to discuss your thoughts and ideas with a living mentor or a friend. All great individuals have had inspiring mentors. There have been many mentors to us and our children over the years. 

One such was a master woodworker who taught our son woodworking. While doing this he would discuss great ideas with my son. As part of learning and service he helped our son create bookshelves to install a library for Our Lady of Guadalupe School in Sacramento. He also assisted my son in building a replica of the desk on which Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence. 

Another mentor was a retired premier agricultural scientist at UC Davis on plant genetics. We paid him a visit several years ago. He shared a copy of his journal that my wife and I took home and read with our sons. Our friend and mentor was wounded in WWII at the age of 19. He related, “There was a time when it almost seemed all was lost. I had been shot by an enemy German soldier. I had three bullets through the leggings of the left leg and one bullet through my heel. I could not walk. I knew I could not crawl and keep up with my squad. What was I to do? It was beyond being scary. The enemy soldier was only about 50 feet away from me. I did the only thing I felt I could do. I prayed to Heavenly Father. I poured out my soul. I felt a calm come over me. I knew I was in the Lord’s hands. Well, I started to crawl. I headed toward where the command post was. About two to three miles away. This doesn’t sound far, but it took me 24 hours to cover the distance. It was dark part of the time. There were Germans all around me. Artillery and mortar shells were landing all around me. I didn’t pray just once that night. I was in constant communication with Heavenly Father and He helped me through this time of my need. I could not have made it without his help.” So many lessons were learned from him and his journal.  

My sons saw in these men someone who they could emulate and stated, “They inspire me to want to learn more, do more and be better.” These are inspirational traits of great mentors. 

Another great mentor to our boys was their piano teacher Terecita Roig. Terecita grew up in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation in WWII. Her piano lessons were extraordinary. Our boys spent hours studying the lives of the masters, and then learning to appreciate and play classical music. She inspired them to work hard because her love for them and the music itself.  My children loved music because she taught them the why and the how. And they, in turn, loved their teacher so much, they would not dare neglect practicing their lessons for respect and fear of disappointing her or themselves. A few years ago, we took Terecita back to her home in the Philippines for a visit. We visited Corregidor, Bataan, General MacArthur’s Museum room, The American Cemetery where their great uncle was honored; and became acquainted with a little nun, Sister Mary James, that showed us how she started a school for the poor and abandoned children in Manilla. At the time I remember thinking to myself, “If a little nun in Manilla can do this here you can certainly start a school in California!” What began as a musical education expanded far beyond, teaching them to forgo selfish interests or meaningless pursuits— all through the lessons and virtues they learned from a dedicated piano teacher turned mentor. 

The world around you are full of great people who have completed much of their mortal sojourn and are brimming with knowledge, wisdom and virtues to help both you and me. 

Why Mentorship Matters

In Allan Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind he states, “People sup together, play together, travel together, but they do not think together. Educational TV is the high tide for family intellectual life.” 

He goes on to point out, “Today’s select students know so much less, are so much more cut off from the tradition, are so much slacker intellectually, that they make their predecessors look like prodigies of culture. The soil is ever thinner, and I doubt whether it can now sustain taller growths.”  

What do you think of Bloom’s observation? Are today’s youth reaching for a great classical book in search of wisdom from one of the voices from the dust, or seeking mentorship from an experienced individual from their own community? Or how about when we turn that lens on ourselves? Could our society today produce a Newton or a Mozart? It takes effort but the gains are great, and the risks of a future kept from the wisdom of the past are also great, possibly disastrous.

May I suggest you seek mentors for yourselves and your children? Many may be of a prior generation. Bring them into your circle of friends. They will enrich your lives forever. You will then be doing as Newton suggested, “Standing on the shoulders of giants.” 

“I Am Mentor” and Your Journey to Excellence

Have you given thought to what being a mentor means and how you can be guided to excellence? Do you have a mentor or have you mentored someone?

The term mentor is over three thousand years old and has its origins in Greek mythology. Many are unaware that the term comes from a name. If you’re unfamiliar with Mentor, I would like to introduce him to you. Mentor was a major figure in the Homeric legend of the Trojan War. When Odysseus, King of Ithaca, left to make war on the Trojans, he left his infant son, Telemachus, and his wife Penelope, in the hands of Mentor, his friend and retainer.

To a major degree Mentor was responsible not only for the boy’s education, but for the shaping of his character, the wisdom of his decisions and the clarity and steadfastness of his purpose. Odysseus was gone for over twenty years. As Telemachus grew to young manhood he undertook a search for his father, and Mentor went with him and guided him in his journey. He was the transition figure in Telemachus’ life in the journey from youth to manhood.

Telemachus and Mentor in Homer’s Odyssey

In search of a mentor

A mentor is an individual of high moral character who can guide you in both talent discovery and intellectual and moral development. Regular interaction with high-caliber mentors allows us the opportunity to explore concepts, ideas and great works while being guided towards the true, the beautiful, and the good through both words and example.

When you meet a mentor

Thomas Jefferson spoke of a day that changed his life on May 29th, 1765, when he attended a debate on the Stamp Act by one Patrick Henry. He said of that day, 

“I attended the debate standing at the door of the lobby of the House of Burgesses and heard the splendid display of Mr. Henry’s talents as a popular orator. They were great indeed, such as I have never heard from any other man. He appeared to me to speak as Homer wrote.” 

Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson later said that day kindled a flame in his soul. He felt a surge of fervor for freedom and justice that burned bright the rest of his days. Shortly thereafter, he found a mentor in law school by the name of George Wythe. Jefferson’s appetite to learn, inspired by his mentors, was so  deep and broad that the following anecdote was later told of him.

Once when stopping at an inn, he spent the evening with a stranger from the North. The latter was much pleased with Jefferson’s conversation and much surprised at his learning. “When he spoke of the law,” said the stranger, “I thought he was a lawyer, when he talked about mechanics I was sure he was an engineer, when he got into medicine it was evident he was a physician, when he discussed theology I was convinced he must be a clergyman, when he talked of literature I made up my mind I had run up against a college professor that knew everything.” 

-Fanny E. Coe, Makers of the Nation

Let me ask you these questions: How valuable were these two mentors to Jefferson? How valuable did Jefferson become to America? To the world?

Teacher, model, guide and coach

The mentor, with greater experience in the world than the mentee, serves variously as teacher, model, guide, and coach. As teacher, the mentor enhances the mentee’s skills and intellectual development. As model, the mentor uses his or her influence and example to facilitate the mentee’s entry and early advancement in the field of their shared interest. As guide, the mentor helps to initiate the mentee into a new social and occupational world acquainting him or her with its values, customs, resources, and contacts. As coach, the mentor provides counsel, moral support, and direction; and through his or her own virtues, achievements, and lifestyle, serves as an exemplar whom the mentee can seek to emulate. 

The most critical function of the mentor is to support and facilitate the discovery and realization of the mentee’s own unique mission in life. The mentor also shares the “classic” that most moved them in their journey.

What you can expect from a mentor

The best mentors are continually learning and pushing themselves and you. Mentors question, probe, ponder, think, discuss, write, and apply. They provide much needed accountability to self and others. Mentees learn to keep their promises to self and others. This reliability tells the mentor you are serious about your objective. Mentors not only give assignments, but also accept them. Mentors cannot pass on a better education than they have themselves. Mentoring is a shared opportunity for learning and growth. It is also appropriate at times to have more than one mentor. A mentor can be living or dead. A mentor can also be a book, a piece of art or music that inspires us to greater education, change and improvement. 

It should be like air

I end with the story of a dispassionate youth who desired a mentor. He approached the great Greek Philosopher Socrates and asked, “O great Socrates I come to you for knowledge.” The philosopher took the young man down to the sea, waded in with him and then dunked him under the water for thirty seconds. When he let the young man up for air, Socrates asked him to repeat what he wanted. “Knowledge, O great one.” he sputtered. Socrates put him under the water again only this time a little longer. After repeated dunking and responses the philosopher asked, what do you want? The young man finally gasped: “air I want air!”

“Good,” answered Socrates, “now when you want knowledge as much as you want air you shall have it.” 

So how much do you desire your objective and goals this year? Do you have a mentor? I invite you to find one and ask them if they will mentor you to help you achieve these worthy goals. A mentor can help you find your excellence and mission in life. 

Benjamin Franklin on Happiness

My invitation to you this month is to find, in one word, the answer to the question, “Why are you not more effective?” I’d like to share a little more about the life and philosophies of our friend and mentor Benjamin Franklin and ask you to consider if these details inspire a new word for you.

A life of purpose and mindful practice

The outcome of an industrious life spent in the cultivation of virtue, self-improvement and service is happiness. Happiness is the harvest of a life spent for others; it is where all our preparation, work and industry turn our actions to felicity and joy for others and self. 

Benjamin Franklin knew well that when industry and frugality fill the otherwise seemingly empty or mundane days on the calendar, we are actually filling life’s bag with accomplishment. Or as he was fond of saying: It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright. 

Work and industry are also natural and powerful implements found in the toolkit against despair and depression:

…when men are employed they are best contented; for on the days they worked they were good natured and cheerful, and, with the consciousness of having done a good day’s work, they spent the evening jollily; but on our idle days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their pork, the bread, etc. and in continual ill-humor…

Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Franklin lived what he preached regarding hard work. An observer noted this in the young upstart and his new printing business, 

For the industry of that Franklin, says he, is superior to any thing I ever saw of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home from club, and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed. 

Dr. Absolom Baird

As further proof of his unquenchable industry, I share a partial list of his vocations, accomplishments, and discoveries over the course of several decades:

Original Postmaster

Founder of a hospital

Founder of our country’s first public library

Fire department founder

Insurance company founder

Academy and university founder. 

Finally his journey culminated as a political leader, statesman and ambassador — not to mention his famous demonstration to prove the connection between lightning and electricity, and the resulting invention of the lightning rod.

Franklin believed his role was to use his gifts to create, discover, and benefit others and his community at large — and that shows in the list above. Franklin refused to employ patents for remuneration from his creations and inventions as a further testament to the conviction that his work should benefit all whenever possible. 

A willingness to change

At the pinnacle of his economic success, he exhibited nobleness, humility, and magnanimity. When the Reverend Whitefield came calling for contributions to build an orphanage in Georgia, Franklin instead suggested it should be built in Philadelphia. When Whitfield refused his suggestion, Franklin reluctantly accepted an invitation to attend the preacher’s sermon. 

Franklin related the following about his change of heart: 

…I perceived he (Whitefield) intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector’s dish, gold and all.

Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

But what accounts for Franklin’s happiness?

Was it his inventions, financial success, or amiable nature that made him happy? Note the headstone Franklin put in place for his parents many years after their passing and who lived much more modest lives than he, yet no less plentiful and happy. He knew they were responsible for inspiring his success. He then honored them with this marble stone in recognition of their virtues that inspired him. 

Josiah Franklin,
and
Abiah his wife,
lie here interred.
They lived lovingly together in wedlock
fifty-five years.
Without an estate, or any gainful employment,
By constant labor and industry,
with God’s blessing,
They maintained a large family
comfortably,
and brought up thirteen children
and seven grandchildren
reputably.
From this instance, reader,
Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling,
And distrust not Providence.
He was a pious and prudent man;
She, a discreet and virtuous woman.
Their youngest son,
In filial regard to their memory,
Places this stone.

The connection between a life of industry and a happy life was instilled in Franklin from the very start, and he never took that lesson for granted.

Industry coupled with charity is a true legacy.

What value can we, as a country, attach to his natural love of helping his community?  We are citizens ever indebted to him.

In the final season of Franklin’s life, he participated in the creation of the organic and enduring documents of the founding of The United States of America. Franklin served on the committee with Jefferson in the creation of the Declaration of Independence, and he was the sage who kept the Constitutional Convention grounded and moving forward to fruition in 1787. He led many great patriots to declare independence from the greatest power on earth at that time and created the longest surviving written constitution in recorded history. 

This country is perhaps the greatest propagator for spreading happiness the world has ever known, and Franklin’s contribution to its creation is undeniable. The onus is on us to treasure that gift, to recognize the wisdom of his example, and to trust that the outcome of getting to work and giving freely is truly happiness.

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. ed. Charles W. Eliot. Vol. 1. Harvard Classics. New York: P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1960.