John Erskine

See also Wikipedia's article about "John Erskine".

John Erskine CC 1901, PhD 1903 was the Father of the Core Curriculum. Had the brazen audacity to suggest that the classics be read in translation instead of the original Latin or Greek.

He delivered a speech "The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent" at Amherst before WWI which is believed to embody the philosophy behind the formation of the Great Books seminar which became Lit Hum.

Erskine was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 1900, and his signature is among the first one can see in the records of the Columbia chapter of the national honors organization.