From the campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.

Here's your host, Scott Bertram.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome in to another

edition of The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. On this episode, we talked with Ken Calvert from Hillsdale's

History Department, about some models for our founders. John Steele Gordon, business and economic

historian, discussing a piece on why the left won't embrace nuclear power.

Hillsdale's Ben Whalen on King Lear and Justin Jackson from Hillsdale's English Department

is your teacher for a new online course on the Genesis story, reading biblical narratives.

But first, we're joined by Dr. Ken Calvert, Professor of Ancient History here at Hillsdale College.

Dr. Calvert, thanks for joining us.

Thank you, Scott.

Great to be here.

Talk today a bit about the founders and the Roman Republic, where they found some inspiration

and some models and perhaps some things they didn't want to emulate, right?

So I want to start a little bit with our founders, right?

Were they learned men?

When we think about them, what was their knowledge of history and philosophy?

Well, you know, we say here at Hillsdale, classical education, we talk about classical

education, we talk about the liberal arts. This is how the founders were

educated. They had delved deeply into the ancient past, into the classical past. They'd read

their Aristotle, they'd read their Cicero, you know, they knew their ancient history. In many ways,

Adams, Jefferson, Madison, these guys were all

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