St. John’s is a highly remarkable institution; in an age of dumbing down and eschewing the classics, this institution not only demands mastery of the basics and a familiarity with the full range of Western intellectual history, it relies almost exclusively on classical texts in its curriculum.
In an age of morons, St. John’s holds the line.
I’m a little amazed that there are only 16 courses at this school. That’s only four per year. Does each course last an entire (academic) year?
I ask you ‘cause you seem to know a thing or two about the place.
I agree with you. St. John's is to be commended for holding the line on the classic liberal arts curriculum. It makes no pretence of being a vocational training/credentialling mill. Its graduates will have a solid grounding in history, philisophy, and the great works of western civilization. They will be able to write competently and think independently; they can pick up the job training later.
No dummies need apply. St. John's doesn't water anything down so that the semi-trainable can pretend to get a college education.
IMHO, this is still a good model for the academic elite for whom "the life of the mind" is not a Beavis and Butthead joke. For most colleges, that ideal is a distant memory at the undergraduate level.
The colleges, unfortunately, have been pricing the liberal arts out of the market even for students who would profit by them. High costs and heavy debt loads tend to push students towards a quicker ROI, which leads to the vo-tech and credentialing approach to not-so-higher-ed. But kudos to St. John's for holding the line.