Building from the Core

I first read about Roosevelt Montás in a column by Frank Bruni in August 2014, just as I was opening The International Charter School. Bruni described how Montás led a summer program teaching Plato and Aristotle to low income high school students, preparing them for college by giving them a taste of what a real liberal arts education looks like.

Impressed, I asked Professor Montás if he would have time to speak to our teachers, and he kindly agreed. He painted a inspiring picture of how ICS teachers, delivering lessons on phonics and teaching kindergartners about ancient civilizations like those of Mesopotamia and Rome were integral to the formation of democratic citizens. Heady stuff.

Now Montás has summarized his decade of experience directing the “The Core” at Columbia University in Rescuing Socrates. More than a memoir, it's a powerful defense of the role of the humanities in helping form democratic, thoughtful citizens. I reviewed his book for City Journal. I urge you to buy it and read it.

Hearing about the book, a friend wrote that he had many memories of the Core at Columbia, but he wanted to recount an episode from a class on Victorian Poetry and Prose that he took in Spring semester of his senior year. My friend earned a graduate degree, enjoys professional success in his career, has married, and raised children. He’s had challenges in his life too. And this, three decades later, is what he recalls:

In early May having gone through the syllabus we reached G.M. Hopkins. The professor read one of his later poems to us at the close, Hopkin’s plea (amid his sometimes debilitating depression) to his Lord to give him not just a sense of place with the world but also to grant him meaning in his endeavors.

“Birds build but not I build,” he cries desperately. “No but strain time’s eunuch and not breed one work that wakes.” And there, the professor paused and then recited the last line of the poet’s plea from memory. “Mine, oh thou Lord of life, send my roots rain.”

There was silence in the room as the words echoed away—and in it, closing the book, our teacher said quietly to us with a slight smile “And He did.” And we walked out from Philosophy Hall into the early May sunshine, our college times having come to an end.

If we are open to this possibility, the liberal arts can water the roots of our life, and we will flourish.