The Humanities and Our Democracy
In June, half a million French 17- and 18-year-olds took perhaps the toughest exam of their pre-collegiate schooling: a written test of their learning in a year-long, government-required course on philosophy. The exam and its questions were celebrated via blogs, newspapers and on radio and television. Edouard Geffray, France’s education minister said, the exam “actually says we are a country in which we have chosen to put the examination of opposing views and debate at the heart of education.” Anne-Sophie Moreau, an editor of Philosophie Magazine, hailed the course as “the idea that you have to go through this collective reflection on values – on justice, on freedom, on what is a state, on democracy – to become a good citizen.”
A year-long, required course on philosophy designed to foster good citizenship is rare in American high-schools, where even a civics course is not always required. Higher education is also often a philosophy wasteland, accounting for less than half a percent of all undergraduate degrees each year. The humanities overall comprise less than five percent of all bachelor’s degrees, a proportion that has been declining.
Does attention to philosophy, history, literature and the classics matter to support our republic? The nation’s founders thought so. Washington had the play Cato, about the Roman who fought Caesar’s tyranny, performed for his officers. Plutarch’s Lives about virtuous Greek and Roman leaders was a staple for many who framed the Declaration and the Constitution. They believed the new republic could not survive without virtue in the people and that study in the humanities would help foster it. In 1771 Thomas Jefferson answered a letter from Robert Skipwith for a list of recommended books for his library. Jefferson’s 100-book response included 56 volumes in fine arts and history. He told Skipwith that when books aroused feelings associated with “charitable and grateful acts” they stimulated a desire to do likewise and when books revealed “atrocious” deeds they stimulated an “abhorrence of vice.”
The lack of virtue, including unethical and illegal acts in government, business and other professions is a primary reason for the continuing decline of trust in American institutions and their leaders. Why then is education in the humanities slighted in the education of citizens?
In the lower grades the intense focus on “the basics” has meant less time for other subjects. Postsecondary education’s heightened focus on preparation for jobs has weakened attention to the liberal arts. The high cost of college and the return-on-investment mentality of parents and students, have downgraded the importance, faculty and funds for majors that are weak attractors of students and grants. At all levels, the culture wars have made teachers and administrators wary of curriculum content, especially in history and literature, that might be seen as controversial. Socrates, educators know, paid dearly for “corrupting” Athenian youth by encouraging them to question authority.
There are, thankfully, some notable efforts that infuse the humanities into high school and higher education. The Boston Latin School has had a classics-based pre-college curriculum since 1635. Benjamin Franklin was a student there.
The University of Chicago has since the 1930s focused strong attention on the humanities. Its core curriculum requires all students, regardless of major, to complete at least five courses in the arts, humanities and civilization studies in their first two years. Depending on their course choices, students read original works spanning the period from Homer, Plato and Aristotle to the present. Small discussion classes are common as are essays to develop critical thinking and writing skills and test understanding. An interdisciplinary approach promotes learning across all core areas with the goal of preparing students for thoughtful citizenship.
In 2025, the University of Florida established a separate college called the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education. It currently offers two majors: “Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law” and “Great Books and Ideas.” Two new majors are set to launch this month: “War, Statecraft and Strategy,” and “American Government, History, Literature, and Law.”
Former Senator Ben Sasse, when president of that university, helped found the Hamilton School. In a 2026 interview he reflected on the absence of attention to the humanities in higher education. “Let’s build better liberal arts colleges,” he said, that offer “great history, great literature, great love for music and the arts.”
General George C. Marshall, who Winston Churchill called the “organizer of victory” in World War II, went on to become Secretary of State after the war. On Washington’s Birthday in 1947 he spoke at Princeton. Reflecting on the war’s end he warned of the “natural tendency to relax and to return to business as usual, politics as usual, pleasure as usual.” He said it was the disastrous course taken after the First World War. In a plea for the power of the humanities, he urged students to gain “an understanding of that history which records the main currents of the past activities of men and which leads to an understanding of what has created and what has destroyed great civilizations.” He pleaded for them to reflect on the period of the Peloponnesian War and the Fall of Athenian democracy.
Four months later he launched the Marshall Plan to save Europe which was still in shambles and threatened by the advance of Soviet communism. A student of the humanities as well as of war, he symbolizes the power of learning for citizenship and leadership in preserving democracy.
Photo credit: giammarco-boscaro-unsplash
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