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amount of coming and going among the books. The obvious ones stayed great throughout the years, but some of the lesser greats, especially in science and mathematics, fell from grace after a while—sometimes later returning to the pantheon. I have the kind of finicky mind that sticks to the letter of the law, and what bothered me was that, as far as I remember, there were always a few above or below the magic number of one hundred, though 1 imagine that this was not so when the original list was drawn up by Stringfellow Barr, President of St. John’s College; Scott Buchanan, the Dean; and Professor Mortimer Adler of the University of Chicago—who, if I remember rightly, was the father of the idea.

What I also found surprising was the attitude taken by the whole college that they were somehow the discoverers of the great books; I had come from circles in which Plato and Dante were a regular part of one’s education. In short, I was not ideally suited tobeaSt. John’s faculty wife, especially since the salaries were miserable; though 1 hasten to add that I met many very interesting people and had good times galore.

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amount of coming and going among the books. The obvious ones stayed great throughout the years, but some of the lesser greats, especially in science and mathematics, fell from grace after a while—sometimes later returning to the pantheon. I have the kind of finicky mind that sticks to the letter of the law, and what bothered me was that, as far as I remember, there were always a few above or below the magic number of one hundred, though 1 imagine that this was not so when the original list was drawn up by Stringfellow Barr, President of St. John’s College; Scott Buchanan, the Dean; and Professor Mortimer Adler of the University of Chicago—who, if I remember rightly, was the father of the idea.

What I also found surprising was the attitude taken by the whole college that they were somehow the discoverers of the great books; I had come from circles in which Plato and Dante were a regular part of one’s education. In short, I was not ideally suited tobeaSt. John’s faculty wife, especially since the salaries were miserable; though 1 hasten to add that I met many very interesting people and had good times galore.