Harrison Middleton University

Harrison Middleton University believes that the study of the liberal arts is both timeless and timely because they focus on the persisting questions of human existence, and they bear directly on the problems we face today. At a time when more and more adults are recognizing the benefits of lifelong learning, great books provide the medium in which to search for fundamental knowledge and unifying ideas.

Great books are considered great because they speak to us in more than one way.
The authors raise persistent human questions, and their different interpretations of those questions reveal a variety of independent and yet complementary meanings. Whether the works are epic poems or political treatises, and whether the subject matter is scientific, historical, or philosophical, they are all linked together. In following the great authors across time, you will find that they introduce, support, or criticize each other. In this sense, the authors converse with each other, and in this way they draw the reader to take part in a continuing conversation. As a student at Harrison Middleton University, you will learn to establish a set of questions to which all authors can be interpreted as giving answers. By summarizing the opposing answers of authors to the various questions on one side of an issue or another, you will define and analyze the issues, themes and problems of western civilization. The goal is, not only to gain knowledge of the past, but also to reach for the best wisdom of all the ages, for our own enlightenment and for the understanding of contemporary problems.