May 21, 1999

St. John's College, a Bastion of the West, Makes Room for the Classics of the East

By CAROLYN J. MOONEY

Faculty members at St. John's College like to talk about the "great conversation" of Western civilization. It's a discussion that has unfolded over centuries: Plato speaks to Homer, Aristotle to Plato, Dante to Aquinas, Machiavelli to all of them. Since 1937, St. John's -- which has campuses here and in Annapolis, Md. -- has based its undergraduate curriculum on the works of such authors, sealing its reputation as "the great books

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