Only at St John’s College, where Adler’s friend Scott Buchananbecame president, was there instituted what Harry Ashmore calls a‘hundred-proof Great Books curriculum’.

in the very early 1930s, academic news;their Great Books seminar was enough of a novelty both in substanceand method that celebrities on transcontinental train trips began tostop off in Chicago to take a look. Among these were Hollywood starsLillian Gish and Orson Welles, and Eugene Meyer, publisher of theWashington Post (and father of Katherine Graham, a student enrolled inthe seminar).18 The most famous visitor of all was Gertrude Stein.

he two groups making most use of librarieswere “students and housewives” (women users outnumbered men by twoto one), but neither group was well served; and among employed men,6 percent of whites borrowed books, but only 0.1 percent of Black min-ers.18 These were dreadful numbers.

There is for himno royal road to order. Knowledge andright will a r e indispensable. This doesnot mean that the world will heed, andeducate its feelings and thoughts forthe sake of self-preservation. But quiteproperly, Mr. Wells should not care.He has diagnosed the ailment and pre-scribed the sensible dose. The patientis always a t liberty to pass out in self-conceit or with the aid of quacks.PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORGELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED

Adler first came into contact with the great books idea whenhe took John Erskine’s General Honors course at Columbia Universityin 1920.

It is Woodberry who bringsus to Columbia University and John Erskine.27

Those larger goals highlighted edu-cation for good citizenship; to them great books were more of anantidote than a contributor to that bland, conformist mass culturefeared by mid-century critics (left and liberal and conservative) anddescribed by cultural historians.

To understand elitism in relation to the great books idea, one mustconsider the meaning and existence of cultural hierarchies in litera-ture.

cultural democratization as a sometimes contentious process.

Adler’s communityof discourse is a crucial part of this story about the great books idea

still building the Culture Wars politicalteleology.

The “great books idea” becomes, then, a singular theoretical tool fordealing with change over time.

The phrase “great books idea” arose to capture the evident diversityin thinking about the topic—the who, what, where, when, and howassociated with the notion of a great book and great books. The word“idea” allows for the abstraction from material circumstances: lists,institutions, book production, particular debates, people, et cetera.