By reading and discussing great works, students acquire the habits of mind that mark the liberally educated person. The program has strong roots in history. One can point to an old and long honored tradition of liberal education which reaches back to a beginning many centuries before Christ. The works of the greatest minds have, until recent times, always been the preferred material of study. And the discussion method of teaching is as old as Socrates.
Classes are small seminars with no more than twenty students rather than lectures.
Learning is essentially an activity that the student does within himself, and he is the primary agent in his education. This is why daily preparation and regular participation in the seminars is such an important part of the program. Students are made to think about what they have read, discuss with others what a text means, and discern for themselves whatever truths are contained in it. Original texts are read in preference to textbooks. Though a professor presides at the seminar, the professor is not the primary teacher, but simply the leading student among less advanced students.