From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true, and the beautiful are taught, nurtured, and honored, this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.

Students don't see the point very often. Why do we have to study all this literature?

These are stories, these are made up stories about things that didn't happen. You know, sometimes it's better to learn from books than to have to learn everything

in real life the hard way. This is your host, Scott Bertrand. And that's John Agresto. He's the

author of the new book, The Death of Learning, how American education has failed our students

and what to do about it. We'll talk in-depth with John about that book coming up later on on today's

program. First, we're joined by John J. Miller, director of the Dow Journalism Program here

at Hillsdale College. John, thanks for joining us. Hi, Scott. You were in the midst of a second

class that you're teaching here on Hillsdale's campus on George Orwell. So there was enough

interest in the first to continue with a second. Why is there this attention on Orwell? Why is it,

I want to call it a revival necessarily, but why is he so of the moment right now? Yeah, there's no Orwell

revival because he's been enduringly popular. I've been a lifelong admirer of George Orwell

in his works, or at least lifelong, since I discovered them in high school. I read 1984 in high

school. I wrote my college essay, my entrance essay on 1984 and what it meant to me. So it's been a part of

my life, George Orwell and his ideas.

When I got to Hillsdale College a little more than 10 years ago, I started teaching Orwell

in my journalism courses.

Orwell was during his life primarily a journalist.

He wrote mostly nonfiction.

We think of him as a novelist and he was that.

But he wrote mostly nonfiction. has a lot to say about that and the art of writing and the art

of political writing and so forth. So I've taught George Orwell really every semester since I've

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